Alternative Process

A print on a printing press

The Polymer Photogravure Process – By Nik Stanbridge

I’ve written before about how important it is to me to see and experience my photographs in a printed form of some sort. Whether it’s a darkroom or giclee print, in a photobook or some other physical format, I’m simply not a great fan of looking at photographs (mine at least) on a screen.

A few years ago, I went to the Royal Academy Summer Show in London, something I now try and do every year, and was completely taken aback by a printing technique I’d never even heard of – polymer photogravure (or photopolymer gravure as it’s sometimes called).

North Belongil, 2022. 16x20 Bromoil Print

Bromoil prints – Enduring Patience in ‘Painting’ a Photograph – By Tom Schulte

Early last year I began making Bromoil prints, and I cannot recall why.

Many a time I’ve scoured my brain for any clues. Unsuccessful however (so far)… I can only assume that one fateful day, I was drawn enough to the ‘non-traditional’ qualities of certain alternative printing processes, often described as soft and painterly, knowing full well I cannot draw or paint for the life of me… but no matter, that is a trivia for another day.

I can say however that after countless hours, I’ve fortunately been successful in performing this method, but at a great cost – it has continually tested my patience that I naturally have very, very little of.

Declining Reno – 13 Frames Developed in Kompostinol – by Sonny Rosenberg

I think the city council and mayor would probably want to kill me if they read the title of this article. To be clear, Reno Nevada at large is not declining. It’s a thriving small city that continues to attract businesses and people as it spreads its mcmansion infused tentacles into the adjoining valleys. While …

Declining Reno – 13 Frames Developed in Kompostinol – by Sonny Rosenberg Read More

Making Artemisianol, My Search for Big Sagebrush – By Sonny Rosenberg

I’ve mostly had pretty good to medium luck using seaweed, bladderwrack specifically, as a film developer, but I live in Reno Nevada on the western edge of the Great Basin, bladderwrack for seaweed developer is just not that readily available out here.

I thought that maybe I should try to make developer out of something a little more ubiquitous than bladderwrack. Being on the edge of the Great Basin (near the foothills of the Sierras) sagebrush grows abundantly in these parts, it’s in vacant lots, in peoples yards and covers whole hillsides as you get away from the center of town.

Cyanotype Music Video “Wounded Angel” – By Paulina Blažytė

Sometimes we spin so fast, that all that is left of us is a motion that can not be caught.

We, as part of an efficient society, do so much and naturally it has to be productive, effective, useful – both in our jobs and sometimes even in our private lifes. In these big cities of ours, where others are also spinning as successfully as we are, leaving after them nothing but a vortex made out of blurry colours and shapes. That is why it is so refreshing to see something done not for the sake of a time-efficient, comfortable and profitable result, but because it is done out of inspiration and creative thirst, when the process is approached as a slow and full immersion. This kind of an example we see in the second-in-the-world cyanotype music video “Wounded Angel” for the creation of which three artists united – musician godo yorke, french photographer Dan Hermouet and filmmaker Kotryna Daraškevičiūtė. Inspired, in fact, by the first Cyanotype music video by Edd Carr, which was also featured here on 35mmc.

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