Agency of Women

Agency of Women is a collection of black and white and hand coloured photographic portraits inspired by the vast archive, home and photographic studio of E. Chambré and Margaret Hardman now preserved and cared for by the National Trust. Taking inspiration from portraits of women within the Hardmans' archive and the predominantly female workforce employed by the studio, 'Agency of Women' sets out to highlight a selection of women who are at the fore of the arts and culture on Merseyside today. All of the portraits within the Agency of Women series have been shot on film, digitised and then taken back to negative form to enable hand printing in the darkroom. A selection of the final prints were then hand tinted - a traditional technique adopted by the photographic world before colour processing and printing became mainstream. The majority of hand colourists working for the Hardmans' were women, working from home.