The Department of Information is the Maltese Government’s information wing. It recently digitised its archives and opened the vaults of information from times gone by to scrutiny. The DOI records all government events and also captures images and to be disseminated to the press and television stations.

But behind every picture or video reel is a story. And that story has been captured by videographers and photographers over the years. Nowadays, it is all digital, and cameras are plugged into a computer to distribute the images over the internet and through email. But it was not always so. The world entered the digital age in the late 1990s, but before that, it was all camera, film, reel , darkrooms and development solutions. These were the tools that people from the DOI used, and these images show some of the pieces of equipment that were used. The DOI allowed The Malta Independent access to these old wonders of technology, and here we bring you a selection of pictures of what was used in times gone by to record everything for posterity.

Photographs: Jonathan Borg