Alternative Photography - Creating Anthotypes
Experience one of photography’s most environmentally respectful and poetic techniques in this Anthotypes workshop, where plant-based emulsions and sunlight merge to create delicate, ephemeral images. This slow, meditative process invites you to work with nature, embracing patience, organic materials, and sustainable creativity.
Guided by practising visual artist Simone Darcy, you’ll learn how to extract pigments from flowers, fruits, vegetables, and leaves, transforming them into eco-friendly emulsions that serve as natural light-sensitive coatings. These handmade emulsions are brushed onto paper and exposed to sunlight, producing soft, painterly images infused with the character of the plants used.
Anthotypes sit at the intersection of photography, ecology, and traditional craftmaking. They are perfect for anyone curious about sustainable art practices, natural pigments, or the contemplative beauty of slow image-making. You’ll also create your own transparencies, allowing you to transfer drawings, patterns, graphic elements, or photographic imagery onto your hand-coated surfaces.
Once your print is fully exposed, it can be scanned to preserve the artwork and expanded into a hybrid digital–analogue piece, opening further avenues for creative interpretation.
To support your continued practice at home, Simone will provide a digital recipe booklet filled with methods, plant options, and practical tips for ongoing experimentation.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this anthotypes course, you should be able to:
- Mix, store, and preserve plant-based photo emulsions
- Prepare and coat papers for sunlight exposure
- Create and use transparencies for image transfer
- Scan and enhance finished works to produce hybrid prints
- Apply sustainable methods in alternative photography
Course content
- Overview of anthotypes and sustainable image-making
- Extracting pigments from plants and produce
- Emulsion preparation and paper coating
- Sunlight exposure and development
- Transparency creation for image transfer
- Scanning and hybrid workflows
<p>Experience one of photography’s most environmentally respectful and poetic techniques in this Anthotypes workshop, where plant-based emulsions and sunlight merge to create delicate, ephemeral
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