Short Description
Alternative photography has the potential to radically reshape the photographic landscape into the future. It is within the alternative that transformative ideas emerge like weeds from the cracked pavement. It is in this space, apart from the mainstream, and its relentless focus on capital accumulation – that we can imagine new worlds, and photography apart from devastating consumption. A photography that is a true alternative, not simply another niche in our failing system.
For six years, The Sustainable Darkroom has fostered an international community dedicated to rethinking photography in an age of climate and ecological crisis. While many seek quick technical fixes for sustainability, our approach has aimed to look deeper—beyond material substitutions—towards more nuanced, critical, and imaginative understandings of what photography is and what it can become.
With the surge in popularity of alternative processes – this book aims to break the loop of hyperfocusing on process. We want to go further than what is the best plant for anthotypes, or the appropriate pH for cyanotypes. Instead, we want to hear radical visions of the past, present, and future.
For this open call, we invite written contributions for our most ambitious publication to date: a collection of essays and creative texts exploring the afterlives and futures of photography. We are looking for voices that go beyond the technical into the environmental, social, and political dimensions of photographic practice. Submissions on moving image are also welcome.
Questions we are asking
- What happens to images once they have been created?
- How do photographs live on—in social, material, and ecological contexts?
- What is the legacy left? – This could be the legacy of the photographer/artist or the legacy of the image
- How are images consumed, and how do they shape our ways of seeing and knowing?
- How might we move beyond conventional photographic frameworks to embrace new, critical, and speculative perspectives?
- What comes next for photography?
We welcome practitioners, writers, researchers, and artists to submit proposals that challenge existing structures of image-making and imagine futures where sustainability and ecological regeneration are central. Final texts should aim to be between 1,000 and 6,000 words.
Your essay could take many forms, for example:
- A historical reflection on photography’s extractive materials (silver, paper, plastics) and their environmental legacies.
- A speculative text imagining new, radical systems for photographic production in the wake of climate breakdown.
- A critical response to consumerist “green” solutions in photography, and what more radical sustainability might look like.
- A creative text imagining an alternative future where photography is no longer within a consumerist framework.
Eligibility
- Open to anyone who writes essays or creative texts (photographers, writers, theorists) interested in the future of photography.
- Texts should relate to photography and sustainable/ecological /material/environmental issues (or “the future of photography” broadly construed).
- Submissions likely need to be original work that hasn’t been published elsewhere (standard for many essay open calls).
How to Apply
Please send to sustainabledarkroom@gmail.com, with the heading ‘Book Submission’:
- A short proposal (200 – 500 words) outlining your idea for an essay or creative text, or if you have it, a sample of an existing text.
- A short bio (max 200 words).
- Link to website or equivalent.
Program Benefits & Awards
Selected contributors will receive:
- Editorial and critical support in developing their text.
- The opportunity to be part of an international dialogue shaping sustainable photographic culture.
- A copy of the finished book.
- A writer’s fee of £150.
Entry Fee
None
Location
Netherlands
Timeline
- Application Deadline: 3 November 2025
Website Link: https://sustainabledarkroom.com/blogs/news/open-call-book-of-essays-with-sustainable-darkroom
