Alternative Photography - Chemigrams & Lumens
Explore two of the most expressive, tactile, and delightfully unpredictable analogue processes in this Chemigrams and Lumens workshop. These camera-less techniques blend art and chemistry, inviting you to surrender control, embrace chance, and discover the unexpected in image creation.
Under the guidance of practising visual artist Simone Darcy, you’ll work with photographic paper, sunlight, chemical trays, and an array of everyday household materials such as wax, honey, vaseline, salt, and other cupboard staples. These substances act as resists, disrupting the development process and generating intricate marks, organic textures, and atmospheric gradients.
Chemigrams involve applying resists to photographic paper before immersing it in eco-friendly caffenol developer and fixer. The interaction between the chemistry and the resist material produces abstract patterns shaped by movement, moisture, and reaction.
Lumen prints rely on long exposures to sunlight, creating soft tones, colour shifts, silhouettes, and dreamlike impressions that evolve naturally over time.
Both methods break away from traditional photographic rules. Instead of composing an image through a lens, you’ll shape it through process, material choice, exposure, and experimentation. This workshop is perfect for creative explorers, mixed-media artists, photographers seeking fresh inspiration, or anyone curious about alternative photographic pathways.
Simone will introduce foundational techniques, demonstrate safe material handling, and guide you in refining your own experimental approach. By the end of the workshop, you will have created a collection of expressive analogue artworks and gained practical strategies for continuing your exploration at home.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this chemigrams and lumens course, you should be able to:
- Apply wax, honey, vaseline or other resists to photographic paper
- Create lumen prints using sunlight and organic materials
- Work safely with chemical trays to produce reactive images
- Develop expressive mark-making skills using analogue methods
- Produce a series of experimental photographic artworks
Course content
- Introduction to chemigram and lumen processes
- Preparing photographic paper with resists
- Sunlight exposure techniques
- Chemical reactions and development
- Scratching, brushing, and mark-making
- Finishing and storing experimental prints
<p>Explore two of the most expressive, tactile, and delightfully unpredictable analogue processes in this Chemigrams and Lumens workshop. These camera-less techniques blend art and chemistry, inviting
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