About Jens Mauthe
Jens Mauthe is an amateur film photographer living in Richmond, Virginia, with a long-term focus on analog image making and darkroom technique. He works with manual cameras and favors black and white film for control over exposure latitude and grain structure. All film development and printing takes place in a personal darkroom using traditional enlargers, fiber paper, and archival processing methods.
Process and Method
Jens documents technical variables across every project: film stock, dilution ratios, agitation timing, and paper choice. The practice is deliberately slow. Rolls are exposed, processed, contact-printed, and reviewed before any final prints are made. Notes accumulate alongside the negatives.
His photography emphasizes quiet spaces, structural details, and light falloff rather than subjects or events. Each photograph exists as a finished physical print rather than a digital artifact. The practice prioritizes discipline, documentation, and craft over output volume.
Equipment and Materials
Mechanical cameras from the 1970s through the 1990s. 35mm and medium format only. Black and white film for the control it offers in development. Fiber-based paper for finished prints, processed with archival chemistry to ensure longevity. The equipment is chosen for its predictability and serviceability — every camera and enlarger in use can be repaired if it fails.
Subject Matter
Subjects include urban edges, overlooked interiors, industrial remnants, worn materials, and indirect light. Empty rooms. Aging surfaces. The way afternoon light moves across a neglected wall. The work doesn’t document events. It documents conditions.
Richmond, Virginia has been the primary working environment for several years and continues to provide the locations, light, and architectural texture the work depends on.
Approach
The emphasis stays on process, material quality, and physical permanence. Jens treats photography as a long-term practice built on repetition, technical accuracy, and respect for photographic materials. The goal is not volume or commercial output. The goal is a body of physical prints that document a specific way of seeing — methodically, slowly, and with intention.