This bus is not merely a tool; it is a sanctuary. In the heart of the wilderness, it is the only physical space where light is frozen and time is condensed.
In the digital age, photography has become an instantaneous, disembodied electronic signal. My creation, however, is a rigorous ritual of physical labor, absolute precision, and profound solitude.
This fully off-grid mobile darkroom, converted from a 50-seat bus, is the artistic sanctuary upon which I depend in the Canadian wilderness. The ultra-large format Wetplate Collodion process is notoriously unforgiving: from hand-coating the plate and sensitizing it with silver nitrate, to exposing it inside the massive wooden camera and executing the final development—everything must be completed within a few fleeting minutes in total darkness before the collodion dries.
This means I cannot carry the captured light back to a comfortable studio in the city. The darkroom must stand alongside the camera, directly on the frontlines of ferocious winds, sub-zero cold, and unpredictable blizzards.
The bus thus becomes the essential physical bridge between untamed nature and the final artwork. While the outside world freezes, the interior of the bus pulses with the warm, chemical aroma of ether and silver. Every development in the wilderness is a four-part symphony between myself, the giant camera, the mobile darkroom, and the ancient Canadian earth. This bus does not merely record the landscape; it is where the landscape itself, in the dark belly of the vehicle, undergoes a material reincarnation through the alchemy of time.
I made three mobile darkrooms in past ten years.
My first mobile darkroom is a wooden box, it has no electrical equipment, the safelight is a red acrylic window.
Then I converted a Dodge caravan to a darkroom vehicle. There are some electrical equipments and automatically water system which can carry 20 liters of clean water in it. But this size darkroom only can support for my 11 inch camera.
For operating my huge camera and equipment, I converted a 50 seats tour bus to a dark room RV, It is my dream house and studio, it is very helpful, I love it.
