Silver film is fast giving way to digital images. And given the fascination which photography has had and still has for people in many fields, and in particular in literature and in the imagination of writers, it seems necessary, before they – possibly – disappear altogether, to rediscover through a few examples from contemporary novels (Anne-Marie Garat, Silvia Baron Supervielle, Jean-Paul Goux, Claude Simon) the images and metaphors that have issued from the processes by which prints are made. Thus the « darkroom », the « innards of obscure memory where our stories get written » (Garat), is also a metaphor for the room of one’s own writing (Simon, Goux). The development time for a photograph can be read as an image for the « biographical time » necessary for the development of a book, or for the psychological time necessary for exposure (Goux). And what should be said about the disappearance, with the digital image, of the light imprint or latent image, and its relationship to reality ? Or about the power of the resemblance or identity (Supervielle, Michon, Bergounioux, Garat, Modiano) which such an imprint can turn into a work of art or fiction ? What should be said about the mysterious aspects of negatives, which enable one to see in the « dark matter » of novels that of the world (Garat), or to grasp the premonitory images leading to the work of literature (Simon) ? How much longer will we be seeing in our novels the frost created by these deposits of silver salts ?