How the Home Darkroom Facilitated Everyday Queer Image Making
by Molly Caenwyn
This essay is published in conjunction with Eidolon Club Vol. 12: The People's Pictures, an afternoon of talks on vernacular photography held on 27 March 2026 at Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, organised by Eidolon Centre and Photoworks in collaboration with the University of Westminster. Alongside the event, a call for papers was extended to university students, with selected work to be considered for publication in Eidolon Journal. The essay below, by Molly Caenwyn, is that selected contribution.
The home darkroom is a space of image production whose function and value has been overlooked in facilitating the everyday photographic practices of LGBTQIA+ people. While other LGBTQIA+ visual practices have been previously studied, including instant photo technologies of Polaroids and photobooths, research on domestic photographic practices (that also allowed image creation to be carried out privately) is scarce. Here I will examine how the home darkroom facilitated not only professional practice and creative control but provided freedom for queer practitioners in making vernacular photographs during times of legislative oppression and visual repression. (1)
I explore this through an examination of The Reg and George Collection held at Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales. The collection is considered to be the first significant LGBTQIA+ personal archive to be held at the museum. The material relates to the lives of Erwin George Walton (1916-2011) and Reginald Lewis Raymond Mickisch (1926-2011) who ran B&B businesses in rural Wales from the early 1970s. Prior to this, they resided in Bournemouth on the south coast of England, where Walton worked as a professional photographer from 1949 until the 1970s. Walton moved from his family home (a basement flat in Hackney, London) to Kitchers Yard, 48a St Swithun’s Road, Bournemouth, where he established The Garret Photographic Studio (Figure 1). (2) Here he constructed the space to house both professional photographic practice and domestic living. In 1952, Mickisch re-entered Walton’s life having initially met in a night club in London in 1949. He came down to visit Walton in Bournemouth and never left.
Figure 1. Walton in The Garret Photographic Studio c.1949-60s, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
The Reg and George collection holds material reflecting the couple’s domestic lives. Whilst the collection is currently in the process of being catalogued, a rough estimate shows that it contains around 200 postcards; about four boxes of diaries, letters, birthday cards and documents; 68 photograph albums, a few hundred loose photographic prints, over a thousand slides from their holidays; and a camera. (3) One of the unique qualities of the Reg and George collection is the scale of photographic material of the couple - depicting the 60-year span of their lives together. Photographic collections of this size by queer practitioners are rare due to several reasons. Walton practiced photography within the context of the criminalisation of homosexuality and the Obscene Publications Act 1959. These legislative restrictions impacted the visibility and visual outputs of homosexual individuals. During this time wider social and cultural attitudes towards people under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella were generally negative. Images depicting ‘queerness’ may have been illegal under the Obscene Publications Act, reducing the photographic outputs by queer photographers. The photographic collections that did exist may have been destroyed by family members upon the death of the photographer, either in an act of homophobia or to protect the deceased. In addition, the photo makers may have destroyed their own collections before passing due to shame, trauma, or fear of embarrassment.
The Reg and George Collection was donated to Amgueddfa Cymru in 2022 by Mike Parker who inherited the couple’s final home ‘Rhiw Goch’. Parker published the book On the Red Hill in 2019, writing in parallel the lives of Mickisch and Walton alongside his own experiences as a gay man. He writes about the couple growing up under criminalisation of homosexuality and of gay life in rural Wales. Parker provides not only personal insight into Mickisch and Walton’s personalities and politics, but also much insight into Walton’s history as a photographer. On the Red Hill has been an invaluable resource in constructing an understanding of the couple and their photographic-domestic space.
Whilst the collection is, in part, framed as unique due to the number of photographs of the couple, how the images were made is overlooked. This is perpetuated in the museum’s online catalogue meta data by both the exclusion of information of the darkroom as a place of image production, and due to the lack of biographical and overarching collection information. Whilst value is placed on what the collection represents, LGBTQIA+ history (and that of queer life in rural Wales), the lack of information pertaining to the home darkroom overlooks and diminishes the role and relationship between practice and identity.
By centering the home darkroom in my analysis, I hope to reshape the values placed on the collection beyond the content of the images and towards the photographic practices that enabled the collection to be created in the first place. I examine the wider contexts in which Mickisch and Walton lived to demonstrate the ways in which photographic production found its way into the home and queered domestic spaces. Then by exploring the absence-presence of the home darkroom in photographic collections, I will present methods with which to recuperate narratives of everyday domestic darkroom practice that have been lost in their institutional surroundings.
The Garret(t)
Untangling the studio from the domestic space proved to be difficult. Upon my first viewing of the photographs in this collection, The Garret could not immediately be read as ‘photographic’. I had not known of its dual function until I had approached the archive. When I came across images of what I initially thought was a place of residence, the curator of the collection, Mark Etheridge, confirmed that this was in fact the studio.
The space is lived in. In figures 2 and 3 we can see that it is well-furnished with different styles of chairs, carpets and rugs. The walls and mantels are decorated with art works and photographs. In the centre of figure 3 the head of a studio light can be seen in the background. This area could potentially be where the photographs were taken of clients. Curtain railing suggests the area could be separated from the rest of the floor, providing privacy for clients whilst also suggesting a potential separation of photographic space and living quarters. Additionally, the curtains may also have functioned as a studio backdrop.
Figure 2. The Garret Photographic Studio c.1950s-60s, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
Figure 3. The Garret Photographic Studio c.1950s-60s, Reg and George Collection, © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
Whilst The Garret had been built with only Walton in mind for residence, the couple’s domestic arrangement transformed the space from photographically forward to a queered domestic. Additionally, compared to earlier photographs of The Garret (see figure 4), it can be argued that the couple’s domestication of it created a sense of home. Figure 4 is an image from when The Garret was first set up and shows a sofa situated in front of a curtain. To the right of the sofa is a plain brick wall painted white, with a painting hung in the middle. In the foreground of the image are two studio lights pointing towards the sofa. In figure 3, this same corner can be seen to the far right of the image. However, we can see that a carpet has been installed and beside the wall is a cupboard with (possibly decorative) plates and photos adorning it. The lines between segregated, binary domestic spaces of the home and photographic practice became further blurred at The Garret.
Figure 4. The Garret Photographic studio c.1949-early 1950s, Reg and George Collection, © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
LGBTQIA+ home spaces, and relatedly home darkroom spaces, can be seen as shaped by the politics of inclusion, exclusion, and inequalities. (4) During Walton’s career there were legislative fluctuations. In 1957, the Wolfenden Report was published. The report declared the criminalisation of homosexuality to be an infringement on civil liberty and called for changes to the law. This publication represented a changing shift of perception concerning the law’s place in policing same-sex relations and the perception of same-sex desire. Whilst the report did not condone or condemn same-sex attraction, it stated that homosexual acts in private should not be a criminal offence. This phrasing of the report placed the private sphere of the home within the imagination of the reader as a potentially safe place in which queer people could exist. It was not until 10 years later that this suggestion was applied to legislation in the form of the Sexual Offences Act 1967. This Act partially decriminalised homosexual acts between men aged over 21 in England and Wales, by stating that acts carried out in ‘private’ were not to be considered a criminal offence. (5)
A mere 2 years after the Wolfenden report, revisions to the Obscene Publications Act were published. In 1951, there had been an ‘explosion’ in the number of orders given to destroy obscene material. These were carried out by Winston Churchill’s Conservative Government under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act. This reintroduced the Act into public consciousness which was further compounded by its revision in 1959. The Act criminalised publications that were seen as likely “to deprave and corrupt”. (6) Due to the wider (negative) cultural attitudes towards homosexuality, limited understanding of trans people, and heteronormative values in Britain, images depicting queerness could fall under this definition. Whilst Walton had already been creating images in the home, these legislative changes may have cemented the darkroom and studio in the domestic space after his business became more established.
The contents of the Reg and George Collection consist almost entirely of personal photographs. At present, no professional images of Walton’s practice have been identified. When read in its entirety, the collection can be viewed as a family archive. The contents of the photo albums are not unusual for what would be found in most albums of the time, including photographs of parties, family, friends (including old boyfriends), days out to the beach, pets, holidays the couple took together, and many images of Mickisch (see figure 5).
Figure 5. Portrait of Reg Mickisch taken by George Walton, Reg and George Collection, © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
Although there are no explicit signs of queerness in these images, Parker alludes to a queer punctum found within the photographs Walton took of Mickisch and their friends - describing photos of them at the beach as emitting modes of “shy, sometimes sly, homoeroticism”. (7) Images of Mickisch and Walton together frequently depict Mickisch holding Walton in an affectionate manner or leaning closely together such as seen in figure 6.
Figure 6. Colour slide image of Mickisch and Walton c. 1960s, F2023.16.143.16, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
In accordance with the law, the types of images found in the Reg and George collection could have been interpreted as having the capacity to corrupt individuals who viewed them, or to be used as evidence of a homosexual relationship. The legislative control over visual outputs of and by homosexual people required private means of development and printing. The home darkroom therefore can be seen to facilitate the everyday image making and photographic production of gay practitioners.
On the Red Hill provides glimpses into Mickisch’s and Walton’s attitudes and feelings towards their sexual identities at this time. Whilst Walton seemed unabashed about his sexuality, Mickisch “was deeply ashamed of his”. (8) Mickisch was hyperaware of the repercussions one could face if their sexuality was exposed, having experienced an ex-partner (a member of the Conservative Party) being imprisoned for indecency. How then would he have been comfortable with such a wide photographic collection depicting their relationship? Postcards from the archive may provide an insight into their attitudes towards photography. Postcards sent from Walton to Mickisch, whilst traveling in France and Spain in April 1958, were sent to 5 Waverley Road Bournemouth – not The Garret. Located at this address was a puppet theatre run by friends of the couple. Although Mickisch and Walton lived together, it could be assumed that something as easily readable as a postcard, was sent to a different location as a safety precaution. From this, it could also be reasoned that this same fear of scrutiny was not placed on the photographs they produced, which were stored in albums or loosely, not out of place in a regular photographic studio space. Whilst the home darkroom and self-contained photographic production by Walton enabled him to produce an abundance of vernacular queer images, the entwined nature of the photographic and domestic nurtured a sense of security and freedom to produce these images.
The Darkroom
How do we know that Walton had a home darkroom? First, I approached the collection with a certain amount of assumption of the presence of the darkroom. The Reg and George Collection contains photographic prints that would have required a darkroom to have been made. For example, figure 7 shows a test print typically found in darkroom practice. It is a slim rectangular piece of paper depicting the outside of The Garret. Whilst this could suggest the image has been cropped after exposure, it is more likely to have been cut like this prior as, typically, sheets of paper are sliced to use as test strips when printing tests of images.
Figure 7. Print of the Garret Photographic Studio c.1949-60s, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
The presence of a studio in the home suggests a containment of both photographic and domestic. Walton had moved from London to the army and back, so The Garret may have been the first place he has lived independently outside of the family home. The construction of the space to house both photo studio and domestic life could have been due to the high monetary costs of renting both a home and external studio. A critique of the Wolfenden Report was that ‘private’ spaces for those engaging in same-sex relations, were not attainable for many working-class people who lived within shared accommodation or in family homes. (9) While the home darkroom (and studio) could have been included in the domestic space due to monetary restrictions, it could have been seen to also facilitate solitary accommodation and, relatedly, facilitated private lone working. The photographic home could also have been a sign of self-sufficiency. There was a deep sense of importance placed on Walton by his father in being self-sufficient. Therefore, creative control over the entire process of photographic production, without relying on outsourced printing and processing, is something that somebody like Walton would have strived for. This exemplifies the many reasons that queer practitioners may have used a home darkroom, not just for privacy.
Mike Parker also suggested to me that Walton possibly had a darkroom at his and Mickisch’s first and second homes in Wales. Many images from the couple’s time there (from the 1970s onwards) are colour photographs and albums that show signs of being commercially processed, for example uniform print sizes and standard colour corrections. Whilst this does not mean there were no home darkrooms at the B&B businesses, it suggests that a potential move to using commercial labs coincided with Walton’s career change from photographer to B&B owner (as well as changing attitudes towards LGBTQIA+ people). Parker writes about a friend of the couple who visited them regularly after their move to Wales. In 1976, the friend was invited to pose nude for Walton’s photography. Beginning inside, the photoshoots then moved outdoors, facilitated by the rural isolated location of their second B&B Penhempen. Whilst these images did not find their way into the museum’s collection, these narratives suggest the home darkroom did remain with Walton well into their move to Wales, aiding private image production.
Signs of the darkroom could also be deciphered in images of The Garret. While figure 4 provides an example of the studio set up in the space, there are no known photos of a home darkroom there. Visual analysis of material within photographic collections can help to identify photographic evidence of home darkrooms such as images of photographic equipment found in domestic settings or of material signs of darkroom practice such as fingerprints, chemical stains and handwritten notes. (10) Whilst these are also present in the work of commercial photographic laboratories, these types of mistakes and creative experiments do not normally find their way back into the hands of the client - therefore, evidencing the indexical presence of individual darkroom practice.
Figure 8 shows an image of what seems to be a kitchen or possibly a utility room. In the centre of the image there is a stove with a kettle on top. Although this could be used for cooking, water would also need to be heated to help photographic chemistry reach the correct temperature for use.
Figure 8. Photograph of a kitchen like room at The Garret, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
Above the kettle are shelves with laundry detergent whilst below on the floor is a large cannister, possibly for oil. To the left is a sink (water source) and to the right is a cabinet with dark bottles on top, perhaps containing photographic chemicals. There is also a glass tray, possibly used for film developer. Finally, almost completely cropped out of the image to the far right, is what appears to be a pile of photographs. This suggests a further overlapping of photographic and domestic, again queering binary domestic spaces. Additionally, this photograph contains material markers of the darkroom. Towards the bottom left of the frame, the image has a triangle of possibly unexposed or more likely undeveloped paper. This effect indicates where a tong or hand would have held the paper when placed in a tray of developer.
We also know Walton had darkroom experience through evidence of his earlier work. As well as documenting the lives of Walton and Mickisch, the Reg and George Collection also houses Walton’s early experiences with photography. These include images from the 1930s of cycling tours with friends and portraits of family members. It was during this period he decided to follow a photographic career path. Soon after was the outbreak of the Second World War. Once Walton returned to London from his conscription in the army, he made his way back to the path of photography. Whilst there are no images of a darkroom at The Garret, we know that Walton had experience of setting up a home darkroom. Figure 9 is one of two photographs identified in the collection that shows Walton in the darkroom. Here he poses stoically for the camera, holding up an object towards the overhead light, perhaps either a medium format negative, transparency or glass slide. Behind him is an enlarger sitting on top of a chest of drawers. To the left are boxes of photographic paper and a glass (developing) dish, very similar, if not the same, as seen in figure 8. The equipment sits atop furniture covered in a white sheet, most likely to protect it from chemical stains.
Figure 9. Photograph of Walton using a home darkroom c.1946-49, F2023.16.6, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
The second image (figure 10) shows Walton mid practice. The wallpaper is the same to that seen in figure 9, suggesting this image was taken in the same darkroom set up. The photograph depicts Walton at his enlarger, projecting the negative onto the base board.
Figure 10. Photograph of Walton using an enlarger c.1946-49, F2023.16.6, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
Whilst these images are located in photograph albums, the types of photographic processes in the collection are quite varied. For example, there are many black and white prints from the period The Garret(t) was established, there is also a large collection of colour slides (such as figure 6). Colour printing then, and now, requires more chemistry and complete darkness to carry out the work, as opposed to black and white which can be done in red lit spaces. On the other hand, colour negative and positive film developing was relatively easier to accomplish as it only required a processing tank and the correct chemistry. Colour slides were also viewed via a light box or projection, so it was not necessary to make photographic prints. While we cannot be certain that the slides in this collection were home processed, it is safe to presume that they could have been.
The Catalogue
An analysis of the collection material highlights and evidences the presence of the home darkroom through material and visual clues. It also highlights that these histories are only visible and accessible to people with specialist knowledge of analogue photography and processes. This adds an atmosphere of gatekeeping when locating stories of photographic homes and domestic practice. One way of highlighting and placing value on these spaces in public interactions with the material, is through the inclusion of these narratives in the museum catalogue.
When viewing the collection material on the Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales website, it is found in the form of individual items rather than a specific ‘collection’. In other online catalogues, collections can be broken down into hierarchies of collection contents, making it easier to find related material. However, this is not the case with this catalogue style. The typical object description describes the contents of the photographs and includes a small note about the couple. Further information in the object listing focuses on materiality such as photographic ‘techniques’ i.e colour slides or colour photographs, and production information. However, the ‘production place’ lists the location of where the image was taken and excludes information on where the slide or prints were produced. The lack of meta data related to the darkroom as a place of production in the catalogue overlooks the essential role the home darkroom had in the creation of the collection.
The material is linked to queer history by attaching the term ‘gay man’ as a keyword. Other keywords used by the museum such as ‘LGBT’ have not been applied to this material, possibly due to the couple not identifying in this way.
Additionally, searching the catalogue was hindered by the website search function that automatically only returned results that had images attached to them. Whilst this privileges digitised over non digitised items, it also highlights the rich photographic material of the collection - reiterating its unique quality.
At present the collection is being catalogued and is also the research focus a Cardiff University PhD student partnered with the museum. This presents an opportunity for examination and expansion over the next coming years, of the ways in which the histories and narratives of the collection are displayed and disseminated.
Conclusion
The Garret shows how the photographic home both established modes of queer domesticities (or home making) and facilitated the everyday image production of queer practitioners. The space provides an example of how the overlapping of photographic spaces (studio and darkroom) queers the domestic and blurs the boundaries of the binary segregated spaces of the home. In addition, the photographic home fostered feelings of security and freedom in facilitating vernacular image making of queer lives. The home darkroom not only provided Walton the opportunity to learn and hone his developing and printing skills but enabled a substantial collection to exist in times of both the physical and photographic visible repression of LGBTQIA+ people. By examining the central role of the home darkroom in facilitating vernacular image making, I have demonstrated how unearthing narratives of photographic practices reshapes the value of the collection. Moving beyond image content to experiences of image making can expand how we understand the queer lived experience of photographers in the past and simultaneously enrich LGBTQIA+ photographic history.
Figure 11. Colour photograph from the civil partnership between Mickisch and Walton - the first in Machynlleth Wales 2006, Reg and George Collection © Mike Parker/Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales
About the author:
Molly Caenwyn (they/them) is a PhD researcher doing a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Museum of the Home and the University of Westminster in London, UK. Their PhD project “The Home Darkroom and the Freedom of Photographic Production in Britain, 1950s-present" explores the intersections of home, photographic practice and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. The Reg and George collection is one of the archive collections they have identified of queer home darkroom users. This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council CDP funding scheme.
Footnotes:
(1) I use ‘queer’ (or LGBTQIA+) here as an overarching umbrella term when speaking about people in the past who were non-heterosexual, non-cis gender or gender non-conforming persons - as they would have lived outside of heteronormative structures and ‘normative’ gender binaries. I recognise however that this terminology is not how Walton and Mickisch would have identified so have referred to them as gay or homosexual men.
(2) The first studio was labelled ‘The Garret Photographic Studio’. It was later registered as ‘The Garrett Photo Studio’. When I write the Garret with one ‘t’ I am discussing the first location’s building, as opposed the business.
(3) Mark Etheridge, email correspondence, 13 May 2026.
(4) Blunt, Alison, and Robyn M. Dowling. Home. Second edition. Key Ideas in Geography. Routledge, 2022.
(5) ‘Sexual Offences Act 1967’. Text. Statute Law Database. Accessed 21 April 2025. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/60/contents.
(6) ‘Obscene Publications Act 1959’, Text, Statute Law Database, accessed 26 March 2025, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/contents.
(7) Parker, Mike. On the Red Hill. William Heinemann, 2019. 47
(8) Parker, 79.
(9) Derry, Caroline. ‘Lesbians and the Law: The Wolfenden Report and Same-Sex Desire between Women’. Contemporary History. The History of Parliament, 27 February 2020. https://historyofparliament.com/2020/02/27/lesbians-and-the-law-the-wolfenden-report-and-same-sex-desire-between-women/.
(10) Hannan, Leonie, Sarah Longair, and University of London. Institute of Historical Research, History through Material Culture. IHR Research Guides. Manchester University Press, 2017.
