Alternative Photography

With stay-at-home recommendations still in place across much of the country and many people still working remotely, some people have picked up new hobbies. If someone is looking for a new hobby, they might give alternative photography a try.

The name alternative photography is used to describe most mediums that involve working in the darkroom. This includes cyanotypes, lumen prints, and contact prints. While these different types of photography aren’t widely used anymore in favor of digital cameras and digital editing software, it’s inaccurate to call it “alternative photography.” These different mediums could be classified under “historical photography,” because these methods are done in the darkroom and were common in the early stages of photography. This was before digital photography became commonly used following its creation in the 1970s.

That said, alternative photography is the most widely known name for photography done in the darkroom.

Below are some darkroom photography mediums that are beginner-friendly and a list of materials needed for each project.

Cyanotypes

If you want to try making darkroom prints, cyanotype printing is a good medium to start with because it only needs water for an image to be developed. Other darkroom mediums such as silver gelatin prints need additional chemicals to develop the image and fix it. Cyanotypes come in many forms, with the most common form being a two-part mixture made into watercolor paint.

You can also buy pretreated paper or fabric if you didn’t want to mix the chemicals yourself. While cyanotypes are most well known for making prints in a varying blue hue (hence the name), they also come in different colors such as red or purple.

Film actress Brie Larson (Room (2015), Captain Marvel (2019)) made cyanotypes on her youtube channel back in November. She lists all items needed, and she shows people how to make a negative if they want to make prints from personal pictures. You can also make prints from leaves or other transparent/organic items. Her video also shows the varying results of darkroom photography. It takes a lot of trial and error, but successful results can be very satisfying.

Some recommendations for successful cyanotype prints:

  • Make a test strip to know how long to expose your image for. This is done by placing a piece of thick paper or cardboard down and sliding it across the image at different time intervals creating strips of different exposure times along the print.
  • Make sure there is good contact between the object making the image to the treated paper. If you’re using a picture frame, put an extra piece of paper or two to make the seal tighter. If using cyanotype paint, consider painting two thin layers of it on the surface that you want to be covered and painting in the opposite direction the second time (if you paint up and down the first time, paint left and right the second time, making sure to wait for the paint to dry each time).
  • Another piece of advice when mixing cyanotype paint is to measure out and mix the A/B solution as needed. Once the solution is mixed, it is light-sensitive, meaning that storing it might be difficult and will become less effective over time.

Materials for cyanotype prints:

  • Watercolor paper, wood, canvas, silk, or wool*
  • Paintbrushes/foam sponge brushes*
  • Scissors (to cut the paper down to size)
  • A picture frame or a sheet of glass
  • A timer
  • A sheet pan or container to hold water in and place your prints into to develop
  • Hydrogen peroxide if you want your prints to have a deeper blue- this acts as a fixer but it isn’t needed to keep the image from continuing to be developed

*All of these materials are only needed if you are using cyanotype paint.


Lumen Prints

Lumen prints are made by using silver gelatin photography paper. Unlike cyanotypes, this method doesn’t need a developer to create an image on the print, but some people like to use a fixer to keep the image from continuing to change from exposure to UV light. Photographers usually scan their image before fixing them to preserve the image before the fixer creates another chemical reaction changing the image in order for it to become fixed. Photographer Josie Purcell wrote an article about her lumen prints which shows the difference that digital editing can make to a lumen print.

Another article on the Ilford website offers step-by-step instructions on how to make lumen prints and shows the difference that fixer makes compared to digital editing. This video shows the process from start to finish and shows how to use a sheet of glass as opposed to a picture frame to press the materials to the paper.

Photographer Natasha Sanchez’s website is another good source to look for inspiration and potential materials used in lumen prints. Traditionally, organic materials like flowers, leaves, fruits, and vegetables are examples, but Sanchez uses other organic materials like feathers or lace to create texture.

Helpful advice for lumen prints:

  • Similar to cyanotype prints lumen prints can be set up in a low light space but when handling the whole bag of photo paper to take a piece of paper out it’s necessary to be in a room with no light, or else all of your light-sensitive paper will be exposed.
  • Remember to wash the print after its exposure time to rinse off any organic material that might be stuck to the print. An ideal wash set up for prints is water, fixer (if wanted), stop bath (water again to wash off fixer).
  • Experiment with the exposure times of your prints. Lumen prints have a wide variety of exposure times varying from fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on what someone wants and the weather.

Materials needed for lumen prints:

  • Silver gelatin black and white light-sensitive paper
  • Picture frame or sheet of glass
  • A timer
  • Container to old water to wash off organic materials still stuck to the print
  • Fixer or a camera to preserve the original image


Contact Prints

Lumen prints and cyanotypes are two cameraless photography methods. As shown in the cyanotype video mentioned above, even without a camera, you can still take pictures and make prints out of them by inverting them to become negative, then printing them on transparency film. This method is called a contact print because the negative is in contact with the paper instead of projecting the image using an enlarger.

Making contact prints is another way to use that silver gelatin paper used for lumen prints, but unlike lumen prints, a developer and fixer will have to be used to create the image. Normal developers and fixers contain toxic chemicals that cannot be disposed of using traditional methods, but there are homemade ways to create a developer. A well-known recipe called “caffenol” uses coffee as one of the main active chemicals. This video gives a recipe for caffenol that works with prints and a recipe for fixers using table salt. Since caffenol and the homemade fixer are both made with household items these are friendlier to the environment and can be disposed of in an everyday waste bin.

Helpful advice for using a homemade developer and fixer:

  • Caffenol will exhaust faster than a normal developer, which means that after a certain number of prints are developed, the developing time will need to be extended, or a new mix will have to be made. The same can be said for the homemade fixer.
  • Normal fixer works within a few minutes- and according to the video, it will take a few hours for the image to be fixed.
  • Caffenol will create a slight brown tint on the prints because of the coffee, but the caffenol website has a list of recipes that uses other household items to make a homemade developer if this brown tint is undesirable. It’s worth noting that caffenol can also be used to develop negatives as well.

Materials needed for Caffenol developer:

  • Instant coffee
  • Washing Soda
  • Water
  • Vitamin C powder

 

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