Using an 1850’s bellows camera and hand-coated glass negatives, Eileen creates delicate portraits that resist speed and precision. Having your portrait taken in this unique way offers an intimate experience and an unparalleled opportunity to engage with history, not only by spending time in a beautiful historic building, but also to have your portrait made using a Victorian process alongside newly developed sustainable techniques using natural botanicals.

The images embrace unpredictability and material transformation, with each photograph becoming a collaboration between subject, environment, and process, producing beautiful and unique works that cannot be replicated.

These portraits are different from a digital image; they are imbued with a sense of magic and calm, a stillness enhanced by the experience of ‘sitting’ and then knowing that the finished image has been made with care, time and the alchemy of nature.

Each portrait is taken on a hand-coated glass negative that Eileen makes from recycled charity shop frames. This is then printed into a 5” x 7” positive using a plant-based developer made by Eileen in her darkroom at the Gatehouse. From the initial sitting to the finished portrait takes 2 weeks.

(photos Dre De Silva)