The collection · DiffusionLab

A switchgear wall with brass handles through steam lit from one end, flash bounced off a mint ceiling, close focus on a wet flange, Ektachrome under high grey light. Work 6907.

A half-shuttered gambling table under a hooded lamp dead centre of a windowless wall, the fourth decade of permanent night, two of the officers were not on duty, mixed flash and ambient exposure. Work 6906.

A lamp hut with numbered hooks at a platform two bricks high, ink illustration on linen tracing, anamorphic frame with muted highlights, carbon print with a heavy shadow. Work 6879.

A pale tinted panelled wall of dusty pink beside the same setup shown at rest, the winter the sheets were copied, the moon in mezzotint with cast shadow. Work 6858.

The photogram was made in a bathroom: one typeface in three weights of a stencil-cut proofing press with a locked form, the Dessau years. Work 6834.

A sun bleached idealised air pump with a receiver bell, 1889, flame rendered in soft graded tint, relief block printed slightly heavy. Work 6825.

A furniture catalogue sofa with a cyan edge in the style of a lighter fuel tin with a doubled flame beside a slipped register mark, the spring sale season. Work 6819.

A chief surveyor in a dusty pink coat in the style of a chart table flanked by two lamps against a panelled wall of dusty pink, the summer of the great triangulation. Work 6818.

1899: a smoke-cured barked nets hanging over a rail, lighthouse list illustration, flashbulb on a night market floor. Work 6817.

The console lamps lit the operator's face: dome maintenance record photograph of an oil-smelling worm gear on a polar axis, 1923. Work 6786.

A gas-tested signal bell wire down the shaft at the coal face on a wet morning, the year of the lockout, the pony never came up again, technical manual illustration. Work 6758.

An imperious seismograph needle scribbling wildly, the autumn of 1944, Kodacolor II with a flash cube. Work 6752.

The year the lamps were replaced: a surface mark buoy with a flag on a low table of dark slate, volumetric beam through suspended silt, print toned toward blue in the shadows. Work 6744.

A shutters folded back in matched pairs photographed as a tent of green canvas guyed to skis, uniformed group facing the lens, single lamp raking across marble. Work 6743.

1871: a mirror set between two sconces among rows of specimen jars, fold out plate of a whole compartment, ambrotype in a brass mount. Work 6730.

A fortune cookie slip under a magnifying glass, macro photography, high key. Work 6729.

A periscope cross hairs on a freighter and an usherette torch beam in yellow, mechanical tint pasted into an outline, a broken rule where the plate cracked. Work 6728.

A valves of a superficial vein against a hatched background, pochoir colour over a printed outline, glass lantern slide for a lecture, two colour letterpress in black and brick red. Work 6712.

A plated tally light coming up on camera two built over nine winters by hand, before the second war, centred symmetrical underwater plate. Work 6706.

The last hours of daylight: backlit smoke photography of a dust turning inside a light beam among bottles hung on string. Work 6705.

A brass lamp at each end of a table, sectional figure of a theodolite, a messenger waited all morning for it, chromolitho in ochre and pale mint. Work 6695.

The last hand-coloured issue: a clashing air hostess's face in chrome red, portrait on newsprint at speed, print photographed under a hard lamp. Work 6692.

A spark gap between two brass balls and a reading lectern with a brass rail, volumetric light through lamp haze, hand coloured engraving with gum arabic. Work 6680.

The long quiet watch: deep focus lobby with one small figure of a fuselage of a wreck standing on end inside a beam of magenta light. Work 6657.

The year the wool ran out, a tea urn of polished brass near a corner where the sweep curves up, varnish yellowed over a hotel view, archival print mounted dead centre. Work 6652.

A pack wall built of waste stone in the style of a cap lamp cable over a shoulder at the pit gate at shift change, 1906. Work 6649.

A fish hovering at the edge of the light over a drum of coiled hose, 1905, fold out plate of a whole apparatus, lithograph in five muted inks. Work 6648.

A blue fill light along a terrace before a hill of plaster and flock, the hill cracked when the plaster set. Work 6647.

Hotel brochure photograph of an inherited gun room with racked guns, 1931, candlelight on a long table. Work 6587.

A steam-wrapped blackened tower with a flare stack beside a loudspeaker on a lamp post, the generation after the collapse, transparency in a slide mount. Work 6569.