I recently attended the presentation of 100 Posters Project Chasing Annie Powell at the Lowell MA City Engineers Office. The newest poster framed and presented here by Bernie Zelitch to Lowell city engineer Ting Chang. Annie was a photographer who left the UK in 1891 and arrived in Lowell MA to start a photography career that continued till the time of her death in 1952 at age 92. Annie had taken over 3,000 images in and around Lowell, but much of her life still remains a mystery. You can learn more about her by the people uncovering her history and images she produced at By Annie Powell at this Link. One of the many discoveries was a darkroom she used for the photos she took for the city of Lowell’s Engineering office. These views were sometimes just simple intersections and locations for projects the city was working on. But what she captured were moments in Lowell’s history long forgotten. I did a photo shoot of the darkroom back in early December for the newest poster and got to see and office and room that is a time capsule of the late1800’s early 1900’s. The darkroom itself was used as storage space but was cleaned out for the shoot. I had actually been to the engineers offices back in late 1970’s for my fathers real estate business many times. I copied and traced over plans and plates for the appraisal work my father did. Things have changed very little there and it was amazing to see the darkroom. The offices are like a period in time untouched. The room had dark stained wood with a high gloss coating on the sink and walls with almost a handmade quality to the workmanship. Nothing like the stainless steel darkrooms I had used in my film days. I found drawers with old photos and chemistry still in them untouched for years. So check out the work of what seems to be Lowell’s own Vivian Maier if you will. Move information and details of their latest work at the blog link here.