The world as a darkroom

Making a trip to Kensington from East London isn't that hard, yet I've only been to the V&A museum twice, first for Lee Miller and last week for the Shadow Catchers exhibition. I forget how impressive the place is.

The exhibition has the subheading of 'camera-less photography' but I can childishly perceive these as primal experiments as testing the discoveries of light sensitive materials and photographic chemicals, coming before the refinement of the camera. The dates tell otherwise. The victorian desire for documentary representation preceded the curiosity of the possibilities of these new materials, replicating the course of painting.

Susan Derges pictograms taken suspended in streams tell more about water movement than other methods can dream of capturing.

Pierre Cordier, inventor of chemigram process, revered and dismissed in both the painting and photographic circles

The posterboy of the show is the captured bodies of Floris Neususs, although the populist choice to put on the poster, they are entirely captivating in person.