Alternative Processing Package!!!
Project: This is a long-term project where you will be choosing processes to work on throughout
the year. Gives you a chance to do something in the classroom when you’re not shooting and to
be inspired by other processes in photography to express your creativity!
Solarization
Also known as the Sabattier effect, it is a partial image reversal produced by brief exposure to
white light of a partly developed silver halide image. It is the phenomenon in which characteristics
of both positive and negative imagery are present in the print. This has been around since the
Daguerreotype but the name was coined by scientist and photographer John William Draper in the
mid 1800’s.
Painting with Developer/Painting with Fixer
This is a darkroom technique to use. Rather than placing an exposed piece of photo paper directly
into a developing tray you apply developer to select areas on paper with another tool - brush,
finger, sponge. Alternatively - the other option is you paint fixer on the photo paper before
developing to prevent certain parts from developing. Splatter and dripping techniques can also be
utilized.
Lumen Prints
Lumen prints are made by taking sheets of unexposed black-and-white photo paper and placing
objects on top as if you were going to make a photogram, but instead of using an enlarger you take
the paper out into the sun. The results will vary due to exposure times, density of objects, quality of
light and, most importantly, the type of paper. Prints will have a color quality to them and it will vary
based on exposure time and amount of fixer used. Can also be done with negatives printed on
Transparency paper.
Chemigrams
Invented in 1956 by Pierre Cordier, the chemigram combines the physics of painting (varnish, wax,
oil) and the chemistry of photography (photosensitive emulsion, developer, fixer) ; without a camera,
without an enlarger and in full light. Chemigrams can be made with resists (paints, nail polish, glue,
salt) or without and just be painting with chemicals.
Cyanotypes
The English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel discovered the procedure in 1842. He
considered it as mainly a means of reproducing notes and diagrams, aka, blueprints. Anna Atkins
created a series of cyanotype limited-edition books that documented ferns and other plant life from
her extensive seaweed collection. Because of this, Anna Atkins is sometimes considered the first
female photographer. Also known as sun prints. Cyanotypes are typically blue in color - though we
have some fabric that will make different colors! It is done by placing objects on the cyanotype
coated paper, then placed in direct sunlight. No chemicals needed for this process (unless you are
coating your own Cyanotype emulsion onto a surface).
**Skip this one as it is a whole assignment of its own.
Hand Coloring
Hand-Coloring refers to any method of manually adding colour to a black & white photography,
generally either to heighten the realism of the photograph or for artistic purposes. Typically,
watercolor paints, oil paints, some colored pencil types and special photo markers (a more modern
invention) are applied to the image surface using brushes, fingers, or cotton swabs. Hand-coloured
photographs were most popular in the mid- to late-19th century before the invention of colour
photography and some firms specialised in producing hand-coloured photographs.
Embroidery Photographs
This process involves taking an already existing photograph and manipulating it with thread. The
same type of thread used for friendship bracelets works best, but yarn can be used too if you have
the proper bigger needles. Embroidery can either be over something that already exists in the
photograph or adding some kind of other design (geometric or organic).
3D Layered Prints
This process involves making multiple prints of the same photo, cutting out certain areas of the
photo to emphasize them and gluing them onto thicker pieces of material (like foam board) and
layering them on the original photo.
How To Solarize:
1. One enlarger will be set aside for exposing prints to light.
2. Raise the head of that enlarger to the highest point and close the aperture to its smallest opening.
Place a dry towel or paper towels on the enlarger baseboard. Set the timer to 2 seconds.
3. Select a negative that has good contrast and put into your regular enlarger and follow the normal
steps taken to produce a print. Put your light two stops up and add a 4, 4.5 or 5 filter.
4. You will make a FULL SHEET test strip. On the back of your paper make a dot in the upper right
hand corner. Flip the paper over so the dot is in the upper left hand corner and place it that way in
the easel.
5. To make your test strip go across the paper in 5 second intervals (about 6 or 7 times).
6. Place your paper in the developer for ONLY 45 seconds. Then take ou, place in tray and go
straight to the wash for about 30 seconds. Place back in tray. Make sure your dot is in the upper
left hand corner!
7. Take your tray to the enlargers we set up to be our light source. Now do a second test strip
on top of the paper in 3 second intervals (about 6 or 7 times).
8. Put paper back in developer for ONLY 45 seconds. Now run through chemicals like normal.
9. We will look at the gridded test strip and decide on times for the first exposure and second
exposure. Repeat the steps above but only using the times we decided, not test strip. Use a half
sheet of paper.
10. After fully run through the chemicals we can look at the half sheet test strip to see how it looks
before making a full print.
12. Make a full print!
*Alternative* Use a flashlight at the developing tray for a few seconds.
How to Paint with Developer/Fixer:
This technique is applied after determining the correct times and contrast filter for a correct
exposure with test strips like usual.
1. Once the photo paper has been correctly exposed place it in an empty tray.
2. Use a paint brush or sponge (or other instrument) to apply liquid developer to your paper with
an artistic flare.
3. Place the tray down for 1 minute to let the developed areas rest in place and not drip over other
areas of the photo. You can add more as you see the picture start to show up. If you want it to drip,
you can move the tray around.
4. Place the developed paper into the stop bath and complete the developing process as
you would with a normal photograph.
Painting with Fixer
1. Once the photo paper has been correctly exposed place it in an empty tray.
2. Use a paint brush or sponge (or other instrument) to apply fixer to your paper with an artistic
flare.
3. Place the tray down for 1 minutes to let the fixed area rest in place and not drip over other
areas of the photo. If you want it to drip, you can move the tray around.
4. After 1 minute place the fixed paper into the water wash.
5. After 1 minute in the water, place the fixed paper into the developer
6. Continue the developing process as you would with a normal photograph.
How To Make Lumengrams:
1.Choose materials (usually nature) and lay objects out in an interesting composition on the paper.
Second way to do it is with a negative printed on transparency paper.
2. Place the paper along with your choice of photogram material or a negative into a contact
printer.
3. Take it outside to expose in sunlight. The exposure time depends on you – some people expose
for 30 minutes, others as long as a few hours and still others for several weeks. It all depends on the
strength of the sun, time of year, location, humidity and how you want your image to look.
4. After your exposure, you do not develop!
5. Bring your paper back to sinks in the classroom or the darkroom. Remove materials. Rinse paper
in water for a minute.
6. Fix and wash the print to normal specifications. Place on drying rack.
Different experiments you can try: Expose one for 30 mins during class time, set up another one and
leave it all day, seeing how it looks next class! If you’re doing a longer exposure you can also try
taking materials off and placing new materials on for the remaining time.
*Cleaning: clean up materials used for lumen prints. Put contact printers back in the
darkroom. Wipe off glass with Windex!*
How To Make Chemigrams:
The basic idea of a chemigram is that photographic paper is alternately & repeatedly exposed to both
developer and fixer. Areas of the paper exposed to developer first will tend towards black (since the
paper is fully saturated with light), and areas of the paper exposed to fixer first will tend towards white.
Obviously if a plain sheet of paper is placed in a bath of developer the whole sheet will go black which
won’t be too interesting. So the technique involves some method of influencing which areas of the
paper get exposed to the chemicals at each step, thus forming the desired image.
Setup 4 trays on a table: Developer, Water, Fixer, Water (in that order)
1 tray: Your work tray where your paper will be when your working on the
paper.
1 tray: in the sink for the final 5 minute wash.
*Get chemicals, trays, and resists out first. Write name on back of paper once you take it out.
Taking paper out should be the last thing you do*
1. Chemigram without resist. The developer / fixer will be applied directly to the paper, using
paint brushes, sponges, stencils, stamps or any number of other instruments. This technique
takes the chemigram close to traditional painting practices. Pigment based paints have simply
been substituted for photographic developer & fixer. Place paper in your extra tray. After some
time the paper will start changing colors while exposed to light. Start with developer to make
darker areas, use fixer to keep areas white or to stop a color from changing as it continues to be
exposed to light. When you feel you’re finished, put into fixer bath for 5 minutes,
2. Chemigram with resist applied by hand. The paper will be coated with some kind of product
that resists the effects of the developer and fixer. As the paper is passed back & forth between
the developer and fixer, the mask will gradually come off allowing the chemicals to form an
image.Take a sheet of paper and place in your work tray and apply resist of your choice carefully
and artfully. Let it dry for 2 minutes. Slip the paper in either the developer to get a black
background, or the fixer to get a white background. Meanwhile the paper will be turning color
in room light, that’s OK. Don’t touch the resist just yet. Whenever the paper looks finished
developing or fixing, move it to a water wash tray. Rinse well enough, still not touching the surface
and marring the resist, then put it in the opposite tray of fixer or developer (whichever you did
first). The resist will start its dissolution process, some resists sooner than later. Wherever the
resist starts to dissolve, the underneath area will either turn lighter (fixer) or darker (developer),
and with each back and forth, concentric areas of dark and light will begin to form like tree rings.
How long you keep it in each chemical bath is up to you. When you do decide it’s done
completely - place in your tray to rub off as much resist as possible then place in fixer one last
time for 5 minutes, followed by a 5 minute running water wash in sink. Place on drying rack.
● Type of resist – any product which will adhere to the paper even for a mere second, whether it
be, glue, wet salt (or dry), flour paste, or anything else you can think of.
the resist applied with fingers, knife, brush, spray, stencil, roller, sponge,
● Application of resist –
quill, etc. The tool used will affect the surface texture of the resist, which in fact can affect how
evenly the chemicals penetrate the resist. For example, brush strokes left in the resist may
transfer to the paper if the resist is porous to the developer/fixer.
● Resist drying time – the length of time a resist is left to dry will affect how easily it comes off in
the chemicals. Leave it the minimal time to adhere to the paper, or until it is 100% dry and
hardened, or anywhere in between. The harder the resist has set the slower the chemicals will
penetrate it, giving more time to work the image.
*CLEANING UP: Pour developer and fixer into black bottles and put in chemical cabinet in
film developing area. Rinse out trays and set aside to dry. Put away boxes of paper, the
different resists and rinse off any reusable materials used to apply resists.*
How to make Cyanotypes:
1. After choosing materials (again usually nature but not always) or creating a digital negative
on transparency paper - bring them into the darkroom. Cyanotype paper and fabric is in the
yellow drawer labeled “Alternative Processing.” Choose either the paper or fabric. Write initials
on paper, but not on fabric (it shows through).
2. Grab a contact printer and place paper/fabric dark side up in the contact printer.
Arrange materials or place negative on top. Close contact printer so glass is pressing
material/negatives to paper. Put remaining Cyanotype paper/fabric back in cabinet.
3. Carry outside and develop for about 5 minutes on paper. 10 minutes on fabric.
4. Bring back inside and remove materials/negative. Wash Cyanotype in a gently running
water bath for 2 minutes and place on drying rack.
*Cyanotypes often look too light when first washed off. Will darker while it dries!*
*Clean up: Clean up materials/negatives. Return contact printers to darkroom. Wipe down
glass with Windex!.*
How to Hand-Color
1. Print a photograph of yours that you’re interested in coloring in on a piece of matte photo paper.
Save your test strips!
2. Ask Mrs. Slappey for the hand-coloring materials. We have photo oils, markers,
watercolor, and photo pencils along with q-tips and paint brushes.
3. Watch a few videos on how to hand-color photos.
4. Lay out materials you want to use. Use your test strips to test out materials and colors.
5. Apply colors to either the whole photograph or just parts of it to highlight certain parts.
6. When finished, place photo on drying racks to allow coloring materials to set in the
photograph.
*materials to hand-color with: Oil paints, photo markers, watercolors, colored pencil, watercolor
pencils.
How to Embroider on Photographs
1. Print a new or choose an old image you want to embroider on.
2. Draw on the image with white colored pencil, lightly, to act guides for stitching. Or use a
piece of tracing paper on top of it to draw out image.
3. Pick out the embroidery thread you want to use - must use 2-3 colors. Ask Mrs. Slappey for
the thread and needles.
4. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic6hve0QU-8 on the basics of
embroidery. It is less than 5 minutes long.
5. Use the needle to poke holes for the sewing, along the drawn guidelines. Think of it as
creating a connect the dot, poke holes to make the shapes or lines you drew. Then stitch!!
*Clean up: If you have unused thread/yarn and needles you need to keep, place in an envelope with
your name on it and in the Photo II drawer.*
How to Create 3D Layered Prints
1. Make 2 prints of the same image. You want to choose a photo that’s not too busy and has
easy parts to cut out.
2. Once dry, Glue first print to a mat board using rubber cement.
3. Gather foam board, scissors, x-acto knife, rubber cement and your prints. All cutting must be
done on the table with a cutting mat.
4. Cut out the parts of your photo you want to emphasize from your second print. Glue them on
to the foam board with rubber cement and let them dry.
5. Once the photo cutouts on the foam board are dry, cut the foam board around the photo so
you can’t see it. You’ll have to be very careful with this!
6. Match up the cutouts to the first photo and glue them down. Let dry!
*Depending on what your picture is of you can put layers on top of each other. It doesn’t have to be
one layer!*
