Harman Technology Limited, trading as Ilford Photo, is a UK-based manufacturer of photographic materials known worldwide for its Ilford branded black-and-white film, papers and chemicals and other analog photography supplies. Historically it also published the Ilford Manual of Photography, a comprehensive manual of everything photographic, including the optics, physics and chemistry of photography, along with recipes for many developers.
Under the ownership of the industrial conglomerate ICI in the 1960s, the company produced a range of Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) and Ilfocolor colour printing materials at a new plant in Switzerland developed in partnership with the Swiss company CIBA-Geigy, which later acquired ICI's shares. By the 2000s, as the UK/Swiss company Ilford Imaging, the decline of the film market saw the UK company in receivership by 2004, but rescued by a management buy-out, Harman Technology Ltd, which today continues the production of traditional black-and-white photographic products, under the Ilford, Kentmere and Harman brands.
The Swiss arm of Ilford Imaging was also bankrupt by 2013 and the Ilford brand is now owned by Ilford Imaging Europe GmbH, who apply it to a range of inkjet papers, a disposable colour film camera, and a colour film.[1] Harman Technology holds license rights to the Ilford brand for its black and white photographic materials, but other than a common heritage there is now no connection between the two companies.