Darkroom

all images are © the artist unless otherwise noted

Adam Fuss

Fuss constantly re-thinks the photographic process in pursuit of images that embody the ephemeral. Exploring themes of life, death and transcendence, Fuss states that “in order for any photographic technique to work, it should be personalized and transfigured into a greater metaphor, engaging processes that take place in the natural world”.

Key words: Photogram - Shadow - Contrast - Movement - Xray - Trail

Douglas Capron

"In my pursuit of beauty and harmony through photography in my series 'Hydrology', l explore the concept of "Material Expressivity" as advocated by Manuel DeLanda , which suggests a “deliberate use of melody and rhythm in existing matter.” This project is a study of natural patterns that occur progressively as water transforms into ice during the prelude to winter. My intention was to express the ephemeral mystery of these impressions that were gradually morphing into solid ice on a small urban park lake. These complex and elaborate formations serve as organic signatures of expression On a molecular level, crystallization will occur only when the first two molecules will lock together using some microscopic particles in the water as a nucleation point. A single bacterium, a speck of dust,or some other very tiny object is necessary to provide the initial template upon which the crystal begins. The resulting “Material Expressivity” illustrates an expression of a unique identity for all matter and essence existing within an urban environment."

Key words: Ice - Crystalize - Pattern - Texture - Contrast - Movement - Organic - Shape - Long Exposure - Water - Frozen

Elaine Duigenan

The ‘Net’ is an intricate web of possible connections; grand themes of ‘love and loss’, ‘light and dark’ knotted with opposing forces of ‘freedom and control’... Delicate pathways capable of securing and unraveling in equal measure… Like the sister series, ‘Nylon’, this shares similar notions of vain control, precarious states and unsettling beauty… 

Key words: Net - Nylon - Contrast - Control - Delicate - Secure - Photogram - Beauty 

Erno-Erik Raitanen

As the name Bacteriograms implies, this series is closer to photograms than photographs. These images are made without a camera, by cultivating bacteria on the gelatin surface of the negatives, using a similar process as the one used in laboratories to grow bacteria on agar in petri dishes. With this work I want to raise questions about representation and reality; the nature and the place of photographic medium in contemporary society.

Key words: Bacteria - Photogram - Negative - Nature - Reality - Abstract - Grow - Colour - Micro - Organisms 

Floris Neusüss

Floris Neusüss's use of nude models, for his full-length female portraits makes for some rather intimate viewing, for example. Seemingly caught in mid-air or coiled against the surface of his canvas, the images produce more than just the conventional silhouette, catching each contour and minute hair of his subjects. The effect is oddly voyeuristic and unsettling.

Key words: Photogram - Shadow - Portrait - Installation - Light - Silhouette - Voyeur

Garry Fabian Miller

He works in the darkroom, shining light through coloured glass vessels and over cut-paper shapes to create forms that record directly onto photographic paper. These rudimentary methods recall the earliest days of photography, when the effects of light on sensitised paper seemed magical.

Key words: Camera-less - Light - Magical - Colour - Pattern - Stencil

Kadavre Exquis

The Blind Drawings is a luminogram serie, they are experimental photograms and drawings made directly in the darkroom using a flashlight.

Key words: Drawing - Light - Abstract - Photogram - Contrast - Imagination

Lisa Folino

Max Parsons

Long Exposure Geometric Photography

Key words: Shape - Long-exposure - Geometric - Pattern - Contrast - Tone - Movement

Meghann Junell Riepenhoff

Meghann Riepenhoff makes large scale chromogenic photograms, photographic compositions made in pitch darkness, that investigate the potential for the insignificant to evoke the immense. 

Key words: Photogram - Macro - Micro - Colour - Space - Pattern - Organic - Alien

Pamela Bannos

Pamela Bannos works with old snapshots that she acquires from flea markets and internet auctions, reprinting and manipulating them to introduce new meanings or to reveal something that was not the discernible intention of the original photographer. In her recent series The Light (2007-2009) Bannos dodges out specific parts of the photographs to create glowing globes of light within the scene. Appearing like the elusive will o’ the wisps of folklore, these ghostly white forms are an engimatic presence that hold the attention of the people depicted in the snapshots.

Key words: Light - Mystery - Missing - Glow - Narrative - Ghost - Past - Evidence - Found - Experience

Pierre Cordier

Working more like a painter or printmaker than a photographer, he replaces the canvas or printing plate with photographic paper.Using photographic chemicals – as well as varnish, wax, glue, oil, egg and syrup – he creates enigmatic images that are impossible to realize by any other means.

Key words: Paint - Mixed-media - Chemicals - Abstract - Pattern - Organic - Mistakes

Roxanne Worthington

This series called Breath is about looking. Many of the images in this body of work are photograms, made without a camera or a negative. To make these images the flower is placed directly under the enlarger light. As light shines through the flower the image is captured on photographic paper. The flower ‘dies’ and whatever images are made that day are all that’s left of that particular life. 

Key words: Photogram - Shadow - Nature - Objects - Moment - Time - Contrast - Death - Evidence

Susan Derges

Susan Derges uses the landscape at night as her darkroom, submerging large sheets of photographic paper in rivers and using the moon and flashlight to create the exposure. "I'm painting with light – or least, that's the way it feels to me."

Key words: Shadows - Photograms - Nature - Natural Light - Contrast - Moment - Life - Organisms

Tierney Gearon

By superimposing two, quite unrelated images into one, she invents scenes that are startling, surreal, and engaging yet also fleeting and ephemeral. They are vastly different in character from all of her previous photographs in that they present a multi-dimensional (sometimes kaleidoscopic) view of Gearon’s world that challenges perceptions of time, scale, and space. Her method of composing creates, within each work, contrasts of settings and the juxtaposing of themes.

Key words: Double Exposure - Time - Space - Scale - Contrast - Juxtapose - Narrative - Dimensions

Yenny Huber

Her projects 48 hours andUrban Rooms show the many facets of various cities — empty, lonely places and streets; grand buildings; railway stations and other public sights — all compressed into multiple, dense layers, that take the spectator on a visual journey through urban space.