On Carrer de Sants, on the corner with Alcolea, stands a peculiar building, because it was expressly designed and built to house the activity that it has been carrying out for more than a century. This is the building that houses the Daguerre photography studio. Francesc Tapia is the current owner, grandson of the founder, Martí Bonet. In its archive of negatives thousands of portraits made since 1916 are stored, many of them from the neighbourhood.
The building still keeps the original structure. It is like a trip to the times of the pioneers of photography. The nerve center remains the studio for the portraits. Francesc Tapia points out that the only big difference is the roof. Originally, it was a large skylight, since natural light was valued then. Today it has been replaced by spotlights.
Part of the old skylight still survives over a corridor next to the study where the prints were dried. Copies of the last black-and-white work to come out of the developing room, a few years ago, still hang there.
What was the laboratory is now in disuse and is used as a warehouse, but it preserves the original elements and the century-old patina. Today, the laboratory with its liquids and red light has been replaced by a computer with a graphical editor.
Old gadgets are found throughout the establishment. Cameras from another time that contrast in size with those that today everyone carries on their mobile phones in their pockets. Also old light bulbs and elements more of a museum than of a modern establishment.
Grandfather Bonet opened his first studio in Terrassa and in 1916 he did so in Sants, at a time when his grandson explained that in the central street of the neighborhood there was, as it were, a photographic studio almost at every door.
Today only the Daguerre remains, but not by much. Francesc Tapia sadly announces that in two years, when he retires, Daguerre will raise the blind and lower it for the last time, and with it, a good part of Sants’ graphic memory.
