Photographic Alchemies

Photographic techniques Alternatives and Creatives

 

 

How?    

Techniques

 

 

The Bromoils are prints for enlargement carried out on traditional baryta paper on which, silver is removed and substituted by the pigment of an oily ink. The procedure, devised by E.J.Wall in 1907, and used by several pictorialist photographers in the first half of the last century, is based on the characteristic that gelatine used for photographic emulsion expands in variable measures if wet, and to repel or allow the adhesion of oily inks for photography..

The Cianotypes are hand-printed photographs utilizing sunlight or an ultra violet lamp on a surface that has been previously sensitized. The procedure utilizes an alternative photographic iron process, invented in 1842 by J. Herschel. The blue colour of the print is due to the iron salt which forms during the fotochemical reaction and the successive wash with water.

 

The Fine-Arts are hand-printed photographs for enlargement by the author, according to traditional fine-art technique, on baryta paper after which one or more baths with toner Thiourea, Selenium, Gold is applied.

The Silver Bromide Gelatins are prints for enlargement done on watercolour paper that has been sensibilized by hand with Silver Bromide Gelatins prepared by the author. Sometimes after printing a bleaching bath is followed for the "acquaforte" effect that, together with the granulosity of the paper enhances the pictorial effect of the image.

 

The Gum dichromates are hand-printed photographs utilizing sunlight or an ultra violet lamp on a surface that has been previously sensitized. The procedure utilizes an alternative photographic process, which was fine tuned by A. Poitevin in 1855, and uses properties of arabic gum that, if bombarded with U.V. light, in the presence of a dichromate, becomes insoluble. The colours of the prints are due to the use of tempera paints mixed with arabic gum at the moment of use.

 

The Kallitypes  and Bruno Van Dick are hand printed photographs utilizing sunlight or an ultra violet lamp on a surface that has been previously sensitized. The procedure utilizes an alternative photographic iron process invented in 1842 by J. Herschel and developed by W.J. Nichol in 1899. The brown image is made up of silver granules that are formed on the surface and between the paper fibers. 

The Lith prints are fine-art printed photographs for enlargement on baryta paper and successively can be selenium and gold toned. The printing technique utilizes the properties that lith developers have for development by “infecting” the latent image on paper exposed by the light of the enlarger. It’s a printing technique that needs still to be discovered, the new frontier of artistic photographic prints.

 

The Resinopigmentypes are hand-printed photographs per contact with a positive, utilizing sunlight or an ultra violet lamp on a surface that has been previously sensitized, and then elaborated successively. It is one of the few photographic procedures invented by an Italian. It was in fact presented by Rodolfo Namias in 1922 and remained in use until 1930 when the products necessary for the procedure were not available anymore, and whereby the recipes for the same were not known. The solution of the mysteries tied to the process is to be attributed to another Italian photographer, W. Zanbianchi, who reproposed these prints of fascinating surfaces in the 1990´s. The procedure exploits the characteristic of gelatine, in the presence of a dichromate, which looses in variable measures its bloating capacity if hit by U.V. light. The colour is due to a powder pigment, fused with colophony and then finely ground, sprinkled on the bloated gelatine. .

 

The Powder Prints are hand-printed photographs per contact with a positive, utilizing sunlight or an ultra violet lamp on a surface that has been previously sensitized, and then elaborated successively. It seems that the invention should be attributed to Italian Giuseppe Devincenzi in 1854 and could be defined a dry print, without the need of liquid for neither the development, fixing or washing. It utilizes the characteristic of arabic gum that, mixed with a sugary substance and in the presence of a dichromate, remains sticky in a variable measure if hit by U.V. light. The colour is due to powders or painting sands that are then sprinkled on the sticky surface. This is a unique photographic print due to the fantastic "silky" surface.

 

The Mordancage Toners   are prints for enlargement on resin-coated paper. Successively the image undergoes a particular bleaching bath and with silver salts acquire mordenting properties, and therefore are able to then fix basic colours of organic origin; successive baths of both blanch and washes finish the treatment. The author, starting from an original procedure that was already well known in the first half of the 1900’s, elaborated his own personal method to obtain polychromatic and corrosive effects. Given the variables during the process, each print is inevitably a unique piece.

 

Italiano