Alternative Processes Photo

So last semester I took a class on alternative processes in photography, basically work with painted on photo-sensitive emulsions and the like. It was a terribly large amount of fun. Anyway, I was super lazy and just got around to scanning the bastards. Click on any image to open it full-size.


This is the first picture I created using the cyanotype chemistry. It's a very simple contact print, as are the next two (one of them using a different formula, thus the different tone). After that point we started using negatives printed on transparency film.

The negatives I used were actually old images I had lying about that I thought would be interesting for the process. The first came from my Object shoot, the other is of my old roommate in downtown Tampa... I actually printed this in reverse, by accident. Easy mistake.

The next process we worked with was Van Dyke, which yields that lovely brown. I experimented more with the brushing and application of the emulsion this time around, and frankly I adore the results. With the Van Dyke in some cases I took images originally on 35mm film and enlarged them for use in contact printing using litho-film. I think the litho images are much crisper than those made using the digital prints, but I don't think it's impossible to get the same results with practice.

The incorrigible Zillah, of course. Oh yeah, NUDITY. I guess I should have had some forewarning or something? Nah...

This is actually a happy accident. A piece of litho-film was accidentally exposed by two of my other negatives and some random things in the lab. I decided to actually make a print with the result, and I love the way it turned out. So much of working with processes like this is straight up experimentation.

Speaking of experimentation... For all I know, this image is unique in the world (well, I mean, other than being a unique print). It was originally a cyanotype image that turned out too dark. I coated it with the Van Dyke chemistry and re-exposed it (all these processes work by exposing the coated paper to sunlight with a negative placed on top, everywhere the light hits becomes dark). When I first pulled it from the wash I was ecstatic, the colors were to die for, but it darkened OBSCENELY during the dry down process. I didn't feel like writing it off as a loss, so I asked around and got some ideas. I acquired some potassium ferricyanide, which is used as a bleaching agent in silver print photography. Now, cyanotype is not a silver process, but the van dyke is, so I figured it might prove interesting. What you see above is the final, ghostly result.

Last but not least were the palladium prints. As the name suggests, instead of using silver (the standard) these prints are made with palladium. I had the most difficulty with these, of all the processes, mostly because the printer didn't get along with me when I tried to create the negatives. This work is actually, conceptually, about my father. The images at the top are images he took of my mother in their old home, and the ones at the bottom are mostly of the medium format camera he used to make those negatives. Make of it what you will, I like to leave things open ended.