It is only since the 1980s that the Directorate of the Museums and Cultural Heritage has made the presence of house photographers an integral part of the work of documenting and updating the Photographic Archive, which until then had only relied on the collaboration of external personnel.
Photographic documentation was produced using materials, techniques and analogue equipment specific for the reproduction of artworks, such as the large format view cameras used to obtain images of the restoration of the Sistine Chapel (the Ceiling, the Last Judgment, the fifteenth-century cycles) and of the Raphael’s Rooms.
The photocolours in 20x25 cm and 13x18 cm film were flanked by the so-called medium format 6x7 cm, both in colour and in black and white. The Laboratory was not only responsible for the ‘darkroom’ processing of the material produced in black and white, but also for printing the historical photographic plates kept in the archive.
Since the early 2000s, digital has gradually replaced all analogue film processing, and the photographic activity has been considerably supplemented by video footage.