MAGIC IN CHATTANOOGA: How two Chatt State students created the only community darkroom

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Film photography is gaining in popularity once again. However, most Chattanoogans don’t have an outlet to develop, print and make their film photographs, until now.

Both Chattanooga State and UTC have darkrooms for their photography classes. However, now thanks to two photography friends, Chattanooga will have a community darkroom, which is open to the public. It’s the only community darkroom in the area, and the owners hope it brings a safe space in safelight for artists to create.

“When you go through actually printing a photo, when you put it in the developer and you see it go from a blank piece of paper to life on the page, it’s magic,” co-owner Tori Fyfe said.

Fyfe and Jet Smith met in a darkroom class at Chattanooga State. Now, they’re bringing that opportunity to the entire Chattanooga community with the Safelight District.

“It will kind of get all the photographers working in one place, which is something I haven’t really seen before,” Smith said.

“I have a feeling that there’s a lot of people like us in Chattanooga that are really interested in film photography, but they don’t realize that there’s other people like them, and there’s a space for it now,” Fyfe said.

“This is kind of the way we can unify that force of artists,” Smith said.

Located off Main Street, Fyfe and Smith’s Safelight District adds to the growing number of locally created and owned Chattanooga businesses. To use the darkroom, you can pick one of four memberships, from single use to three months.

The owners vision is to make art accessible to everyone in Chattanooga.

“I think a lot of galleries and art spaces in Chattanooga are kind of intimidating to people,” Fyfe said. “I want this to be a space where people can like normal people can just say, ‘Wow, they started something like this. Maybe I can too.’ Just to inspire other people and let them know that anybody can create art and be a part of this community.”

It’s a community darkroom — not just because it’s open to the community but because the community helped create it.

“When we first put the word out that we were trying to put a darkroom together, we’ve had so many donations from schools and artists and people that just have darkroom equipment in their basements and the community has really come together to build this darkroom,” Fyfe said. “We’re really excited to have this for the community to use.”

The grand opening for the Safelight District is next Friday, February 22. You can find the event on Facebook.

You can also find more information on memberships on the Safelight District website.