Writer / Marek Matusz
Photography / Marek Matusz

Marek Matusz gives us a brief overview of an old camera-less process.

Always be careful when handling chemicals. Read the health and safety instructions.

Black and white photographic papers are used in this process. Some have reported that old, outdated papers work best. This might have to do with age of papers, but also with the emulsion types available years ago, but no longer manufactured.

In any event dig into your photo storage and take those forgotten 20 years old, fogged papers. Have fun with them. Both exposure and development are done with the UV light and sun is the best source.

Place a plant cutting on the paper and leave it in the sun for hours. My exposures vary from about 30 minutes to 4 hours. I place a piece of glass to slightly flatten the plant cutting. In the heat of the summer the photographic paper will get moist in the area of contact with the plant. That is one of the important aspects of producing color shifts. As the exposure progresses the paper will darken.

Papers

Try different brands and types of photographic papers. My examples here are made on fiber base, Forte warm tone paper. Typically warm tone papers will produce most interesting color combinations.

Development – none!

After exposure I soak the print for a few minutes in water and then tone if needed. Gold and platinum toners work best for me. I fix in a dilute solution of ammonium thiosulfate. The print will bleach considerably at this point. Toning, especially gold toning helps preserve the delicate colors of the original. Wash the print according to B&W archival standards and admire your artwork.

For some of the best examples look at work of Jerry Burchfield.

Marek Matusz is one of the artists represented in the galleries.

Writer and photographer / Sarah Lycksten

Sarah Lycksten shows us how to have fun with photography – exploring and experimenting with new techniques!

Take a black/white photo paper, put a piece of plant, flower or something else organic on top and finish off with a piece of glass.  Leave in the sun for half an hour or why not when you go to work and you’ve got something to look forward to when you come home.

Bring your photo-sandwich inside and rinse of any organic bits, put in fixer. You will find the image changing rapidly in the fixer and usually get a pleasant surprise when you look at it in normal light. Rinse and you should have an archival image as long as you’
ve taken care to not leave any organic residue that would make the image deteriorate eventually.

Sounds simple, and it is, but there’s a lot more you can do with it.

Composition is important. You will benefit from trimming your plants to make out more detail.

You can also experiment with putting stuff on the glass, partially coat it with paint, foodstuffs or place items on top, like a shadowgram. Use tape at the edges to create a border.

Wet the paper before you put the plant on and you will get a darker image with more detail in the subject.

Or just spray the plant with water before you put it on the paper but make sure you get it in the right position straight away because the damp areas will show in the final picture, unless that’
s what you are after.

It is a technique that puts you in the hands of chance and the fact that every image will be unique. So many factors affect the final image like air humidity, uv-factor, the subject’
s humidity, temperature etc. But you can alter the exposure in some ways dodging or burning in parts of the image with a magnifying glass, although it will take a bit longer than with your usual darkroom print.

It works well with most papers, especially old brands. Different papers give various colors.

A great way of using up old fogged papers.

Handcoated papers work well to, and a fantastic way of using up old liquid emulsion that might be fogged. Liquid emulsion gives brilliant colors from bright yellow to purple and orange!

Take care not to leave in too strong heat for too long. The heat will melt the emulsion. I usually leave them on the balcony but not in direct sunlight.

If when you come to fixing your image, you find the paper has stuck to the glass, just spray the back of the paper with water, if you can’
t soak the whole thing, and it should come loose.

When you have your final print you can always reverse it. Use your Lumenprint as a negative and put face to face on top of an unexposed paper and expose it.

You can tone or bleach it.

Using negatives instead of flowers you need a negative with lots of detail and contrast. It will give a very soft image with a surreal feel to it.

Like this pinhole picture by the sea turned into something more resembling a desert landscape.

If Lumen prints seem interesting to you take a look at Jerry Burchfield’
s website jerryburchfield.com and you will be hooked!

Jenny Newman is a former art student who taught herself photography, inspired by this website she learned a range of alternative photographic processes and shows us her Lumen prints and Photograms.

See gallery

Australian photographers
From: Perth, Australia.
Shows: Anthotypes, Cyanotypes, Lumen prints and photograms.

Writer and photography / Fabio Giorgi

Fabio Giorgi has found a way of making negatives as lumen prints.

With that in mind, and after witnessing two of my friends argue over who would buy one of my lumens, I decided to try an idea I had in store for some time.

Assuming that photographic paper and film are basically materials coated with a photosensitive emulsion, there would not be any problem in using with film the same steps used to make a lumen print and, by that creating a Lumen Negative.

After cutting some frames in a black cardboard paper and picking up some plant parts, I used a Kodacolor 200 to make a first test. (If you want to give it a try, be sure not to forget a pair of tweezers, it gets very hard sometimes to place small leaves over a 35mm frame.)

The film strip was exposed 25 minutes to direct sunlight and immediately fixed, with constant and gentle agitation, for other 5 minutes. The fixer was diluted 1:2. (Although Kodacolor is C-41 process film, I used a general purpose black and white fixer.)

The prints were made by a commercial lab.

The whole thing is pretty easy and I don’t know if this has ever been tried before, (at least not in the internet), but I believe there’s plenty of room to experiment with other types of films and toning techniques.

Fabio Giorgi is a lawyer that after 25 years of legal practice had the chance to see the light again, of a life long passion in photography.

Olive Dean, a painter from Edinburgh, Scotland gets inspired by nature and makes lumens, pinholes and cyanotypes.

See gallery

UK photographers
From: Edinburgh, Scotland.
Shows: Cyanotypes, Pinholes and Lumen prints.

John Dearing from North Carolina, USA works without a camera. Here are his Anthotypes, Cyanotypes and Lumen prints.

North American photographers – East & East coast
From: Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
Shows: Anthotypes, Cyanotypes, Lumen prints

See gallery

Writer and photography / Fabio Giorgi

Fabio Giorgi gives us a brief overview on how to combine two processes: Chemigrams and Lumen prints, or possibly three, since he is using cyanotype chemistry for the chemigram.

A classic cyanotype.

This is what may happen when you end a cyanotype printing session with some sensitizer left unused, a pack of fogged photographic paper and, mainly, if the “What if…” pops up without warning.

Chemilumen: Chemigram and lumen print with ferric ammonium citrate.

In all tests the paper used was a fogged Kentmere VC Select RC paper, exposed 60 minutes under bright sunlight. UV index of 4. Fixing was done in a plain 5% hypo solution and the final wash was 5 minutes long in running water.

With silver nitrate 1-2%.

The reaction of the citrate with the silver in the paper makes the image very much similar to a Van Dyke brown.

With a low concentration silver nitrate solution the result is a salted paper look alike.

With silver nitrate 10%

Plenty of room here to test with papers, time and toning..

Fabio Giorgi – A lawyer that after 25 years of legal practice had the chance to see the light again, of a life long passion in photography.

Sarah Lycksten is a workshop teacher and photographer from Sweden, she works in a variety of processes including Albumen prints, Cyanotypes, Liquid emulsions, Lith prints, Lumen prints and Wet plate collodions.

See gallery

From: Hönö, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Shows: Albumen prints, Anthotypes, Bromoils, Cyanotypes, Liquid emulsions, Lith prints, Lumen prints, Wet plate collodions.

Tracy Milchick from Australia experiments with a lot of different processes. Lacking the regular use of a darkroom she experiments with vintage cameras, chemigrams and lumen prints.

See gallery

Australian photographer
From: Macleay Island, Queensland, Australia
Shows: Chemigrams, Photograms and Lumen prints

Clare Parsons is a student of Christina Z. Anderson’s. She has taken both her Experimental class last year and Alt. Processes. She is experimenting with a wide range of processes such as Chemigrams, Mordancages, Vandyke brown and Wetplates.

See gallery

North American photographers – East & East Coast
From: Bozeman, Montana, USA.
Shows: Chemigrams, Hand colored photographs, Lumen print and Vandyke browns.

Writer and photography / Olive Dean

Olive Dean features in the Members’ spotlight with her favourite process lumenography.

COFFEE FIX, Coffee series, Unique print by Olive Dean

About Olive Dean

Olive Dean, born UK , grew up and was educated in Edinburgh. After various pursuits in UK and abroad she trained in painting at Edinburgh as a mature student, graduating BA.Hons,1989. Not being able to fund herself by art work alone, a series of casual work followed including private teaching, sales agent at exhibitions etc, exhibiting where possible. In the last three years or so, alternative photography seems to have taken over, using camera-less procedures such as lumenography and cyanotype, also producing analogue  work and pinholes. She found the website AlternativePhotography.com very useful when she started out her pursuit of the processes. This summer, 2015, Edinburgh hosted an important series of  mainly alternative photography exhibitions, one of which, “ACTINIC”  accepted work.

HOSTA LEAVES by Olive Dean

Lumenography

My favourite process is the lumenograph: I find these work best on expired black and white papers, (mainly acquired online) and it’s fun to discover what varied results can be obtained by trying different brands or qualities. A variety of subtle hues can be obtained in the images, when combining procedures such as cyanotype and lumenograph.

The old adage “not an exact science” is an apt one: the interplay of randomisation, accident and “controlled chance” to quote Jackson Pollock is for me exciting!

Also the whims of solar power here in Scotland is an unpredictable, if sometimes frustrating addition to my artistic practice. Failure is not infrequent! My work is mainly inspired by nature in all its forms – it infallibly provides us with the best in design even in the most mundane of surroundings; the only requirement is closer observation and a good eye.
Being an experienced gardener and plantswoman helps. I am also inspired by the work of English botanist and photographic pioneer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) who produced wonderful botanic cyanotypes: Edinburgh was fortunate to see some of her original work recently exhibited at Stills gallery.

See more work in Olive Dean’s gallery.
Find out more about Members’ spotlight.

Dawne Fahey, an Australian visual artist, who researches alternative photographic processes, shows her work in several processes: Chemigrams, Cyanotypes, Encaustic prints, Gum bichromates, Lumen prints and Mordancage.

See gallery

Australian photographer
From: Sydney, Australia
Shows: Chemigrams, Cyanotypes, Encaustic prints, Gum bichromates, Lumen prints and Mordancage.

“Unpredictable” is only one fundamental element that Barbara J. Dombach, a photographic artist based in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, loves about the use of labor-intensive historic and alternative photographic processes.
From: Pennsylvania, USA.
Shows: Cyanotypes, Dry plates, Infrareds, Hand painted photographs, Lumen prints, Pinholes, Platinum and palladiums, Polaroid SX-70s, Polaroid image transfers, Wet plate collodions.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
The lure of the alternative photographic processes, for Barbara, seemed to be predestined to happen.

As a young artist she worked with other art mediums, always feeling the need to have a personal relationship with her art. Those art forms were abandoned 30 years ago when into her hands was placed an old 35 mm camera.

Her small images echo a foregoing sentiment of an object or landscape and have been described as simplistic beauty, jewel-like and mysterious.

Barbara recently self-published her first book titled, “Collective Sojourn” a 7″ X 7″ 80 page full-color, perfect bound edition containing 75 images. Each method section has a brief explanation of the technique she uses followed by numerous images exemplifying that process. Endnotes listing additional sources and suppliers are also included.

Barbara’s images hang in private and public galleries and has received numerous awards. She has completed eight solo exhibits and participated in over 60 group shows. Memberships include, the Society for Photographic Education, F295 & Alternative Photography.com and many local art associations.

“Every image produced bears a humanistic mark from the artist, individualizing each, nurtured by vision and truly orchestrated by the artist’s hand.”

Contact

• Email: hobodom (at) frontier.com
• Website

The post Barbara J. Dombach appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Jalo Porkkala studied photography and works in Finland. He works in just about every alternative process under the sun and shows everything from anthotypes to ziatypes.
From: Pori, Finland.
Shows: Anthotypes, Bromoils, Cyanotypes, Daguerrotypes, Kallitypes, Lith prints, Lumen prints, Mordancages, POP – Print out paper, Salt prints, Vandykes, Ziatypes, Wet plate collodions.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
Jalo Porkkala studied photography in Lahti and Helsinki, Finland. He currently lives and works in Pori, Finland.

Since 1970’s Jalo has worked on numerous photographic projects, including photojournalism, museum and theatre photography and freelance work. He has been a teacher of photography and digital image processing since 1990, lately at the Satakunta University of Applied Sciences / Fine Art Kankaanpuu, Finland.

As a museum photographer Jalo became interested in historical and alternative photographic printing processes, which he is also researching and teaching now. He has been granted awards in Finland for artistic work since 1979. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions.

“I respect the specific essence of photography – its sharpness, tone rendering, the close relationship with reality. A mood and its interpretation are important, a photograph as a mere technical reproduction is dead to me. A photograph is a strange, surreal depiction of the familiar environment, and I want to keep it that way by using printing processes that support the content and atmosphere. Why would I photograph the obvious that everyone can see without my photographs?”

Photographer is also featured in:

Anthotypes

Contact

• Email: jporkkala (at) gmail.com
• Website

The post Jalo Porkkala appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Writer and photography / Fabio Giorgi

Fabio Giorgi gives us a brief overview on how to combine two processes: Chemigrams and Lumen prints, or possibly three, since he is using cyanotype chemistry for the chemigram.

What about mixing together lumen-prints, chemigrams, silver nitrate, or a cyanotype sensitizer… Sounds weird? I agree, but the results can be quite rewarding.

This is what may happen when you end a cyanotype printing session with some sensitizer left unused, a pack of fogged photographic paper and, mainly, if the “What if…” pops up without warning.

The process is simple. Brush the paper and immediately expose it, still wet, to sunlight, fix and wash.

In all tests the paper used was a fogged Kentmere VC Select RC paper, exposed 60 minutes under bright sunlight. UV index of 4. Fixing was done in a plain 5% hypo solution and the final wash was 5 minutes long in running water.

Before fixing, a 3% hydrogen peroxide bath helps to lessen the effects of alkaline nature of the fixer.

The reaction of the citrate with the silver in the paper makes the image very much similar to a Van Dyke brown.

With a low concentration silver nitrate solution the result is a salted paper look alike.

Perhaps due to the excess of silver, after fixing, some metalic silver patches can be seen on the top right hand side of the image.

Plenty of room here to test with papers, time and toning..

Fabio Giorgi – A lawyer that after 25 years of legal practice had the chance to see the light again, of a life long passion in photography.

The post Chemilumens – combining chemigrams and lumen prints appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Sarah Lycksten is a workshop teacher and photographer from Sweden, she works in a variety of processes including Albumen prints, Cyanotypes, Liquid emulsions, Lith prints, Lumen prints and Wet plate collodions.
From: Hönö, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Shows: Albumen prints, Cyanotypes, Liquid emulsions, Lith prints, Lumen prints, Wet plate collodions.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
Sarah Lycksten has always had a passion for photography. She started off with childrens’ portraits in her living room and now has her own studio where she offers portraits and courses in analog photography.
Summertime she holds workshops in historical techniques on the beautiful island Hönö, just outside Gothenburg, Sweden.

“I love alternative processes but mainly use liquid emulsion in my work. It’s great because of the often pleasant surprise of an unexpected flaw in the picture. I am easily charmed with a new process though and constantly find new things to try out or combine!”

More about Sarah:

• Articles by Sarah

Photographer is also featured in:

Anthotypes

Contact

• Email: info (at) sarahfoto.com
• Website

The post Sarah Lycksten appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Neil Souch gets his inspiration from his home area and the dramatic landscape of Devon and Cornwall in the UK. He works in several processes: Lith Printing, Lumens, Cyanotypes, Van Dykes, Gum Printing, Pinholes and Photograms.
From: West Cornwall, UK.
Shows: Cyanotypes, Gum bichromated, Lith prints, Lumen prints, Photographs, Pinholes and Vandykes.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
Much of Neil’s work is inspired by the beauty of the dramatic landscape of Devon and Cornwall, UK, where he has been fortunate to live for over 40 years. Whether he is making images in the landscape or at home doing still life Neil’s aim is to create images which are visually stimulating and often overlooked. Now retired Neil is able to devote more time to alternative photography. He is finding it stimulating learning new ways of making images as well as the challenge of finding suitable subjects for the processes involved.

Contact

• Email: neilsouch (at) gmail.com
• Website

The post Neil Souch appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Marek Matusz photographs landscapes and nature objects. See his Chrysotypes, gum bichromates, Lumens and pt/pd prints.
From: Poland, lives in Houston, Texas, USA.
Shows: Chrysotypes, Gum bichromates, Lumen prints, Satista print, Tri Coloured Gum bichromates, Platinum & Palladium, Ziatypes.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
Marek was born in Poland. He now lives and works in the United States, calling Houston, Texas his home. He likes the landscape of the American West and travels extensively to the National Parks of the West with his 4×5 view camera. He has a chemistry degree and is a self-taught photographer. He has exhibited his B&W work in several local juried shows. About two years ago he read Mike Ware’s article about the new Chrysotype process and decided to give it a try.

Chrysotype is a process of making photographic prints out of pure gold. He believes that gold is the last element to be discovered for the purpose of making photographic images (it has an extensive use as a toning reagent). It has a unique property of making colloidal solution of different colors. What that means for the photographer is that pink, red, magenta, blue, black and all the shades in between can be used in a creative photographic process. Split tones of blue and magenta are possible and are a trademark of the Chrysotype process. Several hundreds of prints later some of his work is ready to be shown.

“Finally I can match the color of the picture to my mood. After all we live in a world of color even if we take our pictures on a black and white film.”

About chrysotypes:

The use of gold in photography goes back to the beginnings, when Herschel discovered a method for making prints out of gold and named the process Chrysotype. The process never gained any popularity among photographers because of difficulties in making gold sensitizers. It wasn’t until the discovery of new gold chemistry by M. Ware (see his page on this site) in the 1990’s that the prints of gold made by the new Chrysotype process became a reality. I should warn the reader the process is not for the faint of the heart. I have spent hundreds of hours experimenting with Ware’s process, making extensive modifications of it, as well as developing new Chrysotype recipes that are closer to the original attempts of Herschel.

Contact

• Email: marekmatusz (at) hotmail.com

More about Marek:
Articles by Marek

The post Marek Matusz appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Wanda Holmes, a computer scientist from Texas, USA has moved her creativity from clay sculptures to cyanotype and lumen prints, working with photograms.
From: Windom, Texas, USA.
Shows: Cyanotypes and Lumen prints.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
Wanda Holmes has spent her career working as a computer scientist but has always found creative expression to be necessary to her healthy state of mind. She began her journey in photography in 2007. At the time she was a maker of ceramic tile and hand built clay sculptures. Once she picked up the camera, there was no looking back. Largely self-taught,
Wanda Holmes strives to use the camera as a means of slowing down and truly seeing the world around her. In her work she hopes to express the extraordinary in the ordinary, to evoke her deep connection to her native soil, and to honor the search for simplicity and authenticity in life. Beginning with a digital camera and a love of color, she was slowly wooed by black and white imagery. Then, in 2016, was introduced by a friend to cyanotypes and lumen printing.
The dance of chemistry, sun, and found objects was intoxicating, as was the sense of inhabiting a long chain of makers stretching backwards to the beginnings of the art. The move from clay to camera was her first critical artistic inflection point, the discovery of alternative processes her second.

“Alternative photography has opened up a world of discovery, infinite in its capacity to challenge and delight, and that satisfies some deep part of my being.”

Contact Wanda Holmes

• Website

The post Wanda Holmes appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.

Lynette Zeeng has studied the limitations of these ‘alternative’ processes and how they may be modified to suit todays digital world, hence her wide spread of alternative photographic processes on display.
From: Melbourne, Australia.
Shows: Cyanotypes, Lumen prints, Mordancages, Oil prints, Polaroid Transfers and Tintypes.
[See image gallery at www.alternativephotography.com]
Lynette Zeeng’s creative practice is based on her investigation into historical photographic processes that create a singular unrepeatable handcrafted image. Her research included studying the nuances of the many one-off processes such as Daguerreotype, Tintype, Cyanotype through to more modern techniques of Polaroid transfer and lift off plus Lumens and Mordançage. This included studying the limitations of these ‘alternative’ processes and how they may be modified to suit todays digital world. Lynette incorporates digital negatives, uv boxes and scanners into her work but most importantly she retains the idiosyncrasies and individual character obtained from the original process. Lynette teaches photography and photo media at Swinburne University, Melbourne Australia. She has won several awards, both in Australia and internationally for her work.

“These processes with their perfect imperfections are what makes photography exciting. No matter how thoroughly I plan my image I can never be totally sure of the outcome therefore with anticipation I embrace the unexpected result.”

Contact Lynette Zeeng

• Email: zeengphoto (at) gmail.com
• Website

The post Lynette Zeeng appeared first on AlternativePhotography.com.