Essaydi chooses to have her photographs printed by a commercial company, which is not uncommon for professional artists. The exact level of Essaydi’s participation in the printing process is unknown. However, when Essaydi discusses the technical aspects of her photographs in interviews she often uses the term “we.” The company Essaydi chooses to use is Color Services, LLC.
Color Services, LLC is a company in Massachusetts, in the Boston area, that offers a range of services to artists, institutions, collectors and galleries. Founded in 1988, Color Services now offers its clients the ability to process film, both black and white and color, in six different film types. Color Services also makes prints of images, both from film and digital files, in sizes up to 72 inches by 120 inches, the largest Essaydi print in this exhibition is 88 by 71 inches. Their website also advertises exhibition fabrication, museum quality mounting and framing and conservation consulting.
How Essaydi prints her photographs, and how she develops her film (or has it developed) is particularly relevant to her process since she is using color film, specifically chromogenic color film, which requires development in C-41 chemicals. This color film is developed in the same chemicals used to develop the commonly used 35mm film that can be processed at your local drug store or supermarket. The availability of 35mm film and the number of places to have it processed have noticeably dwindled in the past fifteen years due to the ease and popularity of digital photography. Since the film Essaydi uses is color sheet film it requires a more specialized company for processing. The average drug store does not develop anything other than 35mm and most places today send that out to be processed at a different location.
When considering why Essaydi has chosen to use Color Services LLC, many factors may come into play. The aforementioned need of finding a company with the equipment and knowledge to process the film is one major factor. For Essaydi the location of Color Services LLC seems to be another factor. The company is located in Needham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Essaydi first lived in Boston while completing her BFA and MFA degrees, and today spends time at studios in both New York and Boston. She photographed her Les Femmes du Maroc series at the Boston studio.
It could be asked why Essaydi does not maintain her own darkroom. The ability to maintain a personal color darkroom is not often found today. Not only are the chemicals extremely harmful, a specific type of ventilation is required, the equipment needed is becoming more difficult to find, the cost of setting up and maintaining a color darkroom is quite large and the training or education in a color darkroom is scarce with most universities and colleges dismantling their color darkrooms.