One year after Dirk Wallace got the keys to the historic Turks Head building, he's ready to open the doors to the public for the first time.
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Mr Wallace secured a 10-year lease with Albury Council to revive the site following an expression of interest process.
To celebrate the opening of the photography hub, an opening night is happening on Friday alongside the launch of the Albury-Wodonga Photography Group Exhibition 2020.
"I've been in the photography group for five years or so and I've helped with past exhibitions," Mr Wallace said.
"We haven't done one for two years, so we thought now we've got a good space, we'd bring it back.
"I've built this for photographers and the community, so it's nice to have the group as our first exhibition."
The Turks Head will be home to Mr Wallace's printing business, educational classes, a studio that can be rented out, and a dark room available for community use.
"The studio is ready to do shoots now and I've had a few people in already," he said.
"There's a community of people interested in the dark room; there's public ones in the cities but this is the first for this area.
"It should be ready to go in the next month; we just need to tidy up and get things in."
There are a few other finishing touches Mr Wallace wants to complete.
Cleaning up the 14 rooms in the 160-year-old building, which was vacant for 12 years, has been quite the task.
"The walls were all different colours so I repainted them white, and stripped back the carpet to the wood floorboards, and pulled all the staples out," Mr Wallace said.
"Council has done work too and put toilets out the back.
"I hoped it would have been a bit quicker ... but we got there."
Greg Haysom is among the 44 photographers whose work is featured in the group's 2020 exhibition.
"It's a really active group; we post photos and share feedback," he said.
"I can see this [the Turks building] becoming a real hub."
Mr Wallace expects more than 100 people at Friday night's event, which will officially be opened by MAMA director Bree Pickering.
"MAMA and Murray Arts have been very supportive," he said.
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"We will be part of the Upstream Festival as well.
"There's a lot of enthusiasm around the project.
"The opening is getting exciting now - it's been flat out up until now."
The event begins at 5.30pm on Friday - anyone is welcome to attend.
