The Celestial Darkroom

The photographer and filmmaker Jean Hermanson thought that all people are beautiful when they work. He photographed workers, mainly in the Swedish engineering and industrial sector. Images that today are a part of the modern cultural heritage.

Nils Petter Löfstedt worked for several years as Jeans photo assistant. Despite the age difference they came very close to eachother. When Nils Petter is filming their work in the darkroom work, Jean tells a his biggest misstake as a photograf. He never found out the names of the people he photographed.

Jean died in August 2012. He left several unfinished projects, for example an archive dating from the 1960s until today. Thousands of negative and paper copies from 40 years of dark space work with motifs from around the world. An archive where most of it has been completely hidden for the outside world.

Jeans two children inherit their father's archives and begin the search for a new home to all shelf-sized photo stories. When no alternative feels serious enough, Nils Petter gets custody of the archive. 

Nils Petter, who was well aware of what Jean wanted to do, decides to try to complete the unfinished projects. His dream is to find the names and the people that Jean once photographed, and find a place where Jean's cultural heritage can really be managed. The journey in Jean's footsteps leads to many exciting meetings between the present and the past, and becomes a journey through Sweden that is remarkably similar to that of Jean Hermanson once photographed.