I’ve been out of sorts and need inspiration—LOTS of it. The kind I could throw myself into and get lost in, the kind that might let me imagine how to spend my time making new art in new ways.
I decided to seek work that uses the maker’s hands in an active role: alternative process photography. So, this month is all for letting me get lost in the other artists’ processes. I contacted 20 women whom my research turned up as having work that was interesting to me. Two have yet to respond, and one only saw my message as I typed, which was too late for this feature. But it is still a bounty of riches, as I have 17 women’s work to show you.
You may already know some artists or their work; readers working in alternative processes will instantly recognize these women’s work. For the rest of you, I will introduce you to work to explore further.
The overarching theme for this feature is that these women all make work using one or more alternative/historical processes. I have dabbled in some processes; others are complex ones I have only admired on a gallery wall. The reasons for this include my need for darkroom access and funding to attend workshops to learn new techniques. I’m purposely showing a range of processes to give FRAMES readers an idea of the possibilities under the umbrella of hand-made photography.
Those who have never explored alt. processes may think, “What does she even mean?” But there are too many offshoots for me to explain fully, and I need to gain more knowledge in this area of photography, too. Much of the work uses historical processes left behind as technology moved along; others fully utilized industrial innovations, such as photo printmaking using direct-to-plate contact and negative exposure on photopolymer plates developed initially for industry, such as making silicon chips. The most common ones at the moment appear to be cyanotype and lumen.
Here is a good “encyclopedia” of alt-process techniques. If you have never explored this site, you may want to venture down its rabbit hole.
Without further rambling, I present the work of Christina Z. Anderson, Sarah Dark, Anne Eder, Marky Kauffman, Galina Kurlat, Fruma Markowitz, Ann Mitchell, Natalya Rudychev, Angel O’Brien, Emma Powell, Dale Rio, Sara Silks, Tokie Rome Taylor, Vaune Trachtman, and Yelena Zhavoronkova.
I’ve long been aware of Christina Z. Anderson and her work as one of the foremost authorities working with alternative processes. However, I’ve been a worshiper from afar, and until now, I haven’t had the chance to speak with her. She has written six books on the topic, a couple of which I own, and I have long been envious of the personal friendship my grad school mentor and encyclopedia of everything photo, Chris Peregoy’s, personal friendship with Anderson. She prints in a variety of alternative photographic processes, including gum and casein bichromate, cyanotype, salted paper, vandyke brown, karyotype, chrysotype, palladium, chemigrams, chromo, mordançage, lumen prints, and combinations thereof.
The images I chose from her Altered Landscape series were made using the Gum Bichromate process. However, the entire series consists of hand-made prints using various processes. I was attracted to the work because of the palette and the obvious markings of the hand. I love work that shows the maker on the page, and the obvious markings sing of Anderson’s hands, literally creating the print layer by layer. Since I had no idea what Kudzu was or that it was in the picture, I saw Mother Nature taking back the earth from man, which she needs to be a bit more aggressive about doing, given how humans have treated the planet. It read to me as a work about the climate crisis.
Even though I had reached back in time to her early imagery, it turns out that the work I chose comes full circle with the work she is creating right now, because Anderson continued, “Over the last two decades, because of my teaching and writing careers, I have concentrated on other processes of which I have written—salted paper, cyanotype, digital negatives, the experimental BW darkroom, for instance—but gum is my first love. If I were told I could only do one process for the rest of my life, gum printing would be my choice.
Anderson told me she first encountered a Kudzu plant and began her love affair with the landscape when she moved to South Carolina for graduate school. “This beautiful plant, with its heady fragrance, purported to grow up to a foot a day, transforms everything it covers into sculptural wonders. In the process, it smothers its host, robbing plants, bushes, and trees of sunlight and nourishment so that they eventually die.” The duality of its being as a deadly yet beautiful botanical reminded her of the classic femme fatale. Spanning two decades and all four seasons, Anderson rephotographed “many of the same places always seeking out deadly plants. Still, none possessed the sheer force or elegiac beauty of Kudzu.“
This past year, I received a travel grant to finish photographing the Kudzu series, which I have now completed. I traveled three more times to revisit places in winter and summer, with the point being to juxtapose leafless and full-leaf vines. I was also awarded a semester sabbatical to work on this series (as well as a historical series for northern Minnesota). I edited thousands of images to a final 280 “keepers.” Out of those images will come 40 diptychs similar to these two, which were more or less seminal to this project.
I don’t know if the new work will contain figures. I have edited down to the place composites, but I still need to start the final prints, so it is evolving. Diptychs allow me to allude to the passage of time, death and rebirth, birth and death, beauty and destruction—the sad, sweet beauty of life.”
I have known Anne Eder via social mediafor quite a few years, and I’m a massive fan of her unique creations. Eder is a well-known practitioner of alternative processes, and she teaches and does workshops to share her expertise. The series I have selected, Tales From The Fells, includes sculptural work, artifacts, fiction, and images. Both of these prints are platinum/palladium.
Platinum Palladium is a traditional wet-chemistry process that dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. Because it is a contact printing method, the negative and the image must be the same size. Expensive and labor-intensive, the process is known for its beautiful, subtle, luxurious, rich, warm tonal ranges. The convergence of these factors leaves collectors treasuring the prints. Photographers such as Stieglitz, Steichen, and Penn employed it extensively.
I find the two images beautiful. They are playful yet simultaneously impart a sense of foreboding—the kind of foreboding I felt as a child reading Hans Christen Anderson. Still, even more, because the images depict children, they also bring out the mom fierceness in me, fearing something terrible may be about to happen to the child. That is due to Eder’s careful use of shadows and dark areas within the frame.
Eder related, “‘Fierce Spring’ is from a video still. Because my work is narrative, I often shoot videos and then search through stills of the frames to find the one that best expresses what I want to show the viewer. For ‘The Hat Of Protection,’ I created the hat from Bixa pods and vines and worked with my young subject as part of their playtime. The tonal range and quality of printing with noble metals reminds me of the illustrations in story collections I read as a child. The Platinum Palladium process retains a sense of history and time past, supporting the idea of folktales and fictions being handed down for generations.”
I’ve been an avid fan of Yelena Zhavoronkova’s work since finding it on Facebook years ago. There is an unmistakable elegance to her Platinum Palladium work, and this series, Grana, instantly comes to mind when I think of it.
Zhavoronkova is based in Northern California but was born and lived the first half of her life in St. Petersburg, Russia; she divulged that it greatly influenced her artistic vision. Built on the marsh banks of the Neva River, it has long winter nights and what she characterized as an unsetting summer sun. Zhavoronkova remarked that “the city has a very specific palette—shades of cool grays and just a few splashes of color. Monochromatic and black-and-white photography represents the mood of the city perfectly.”
More recently, she had the opportunity to spend some extended time in California’s Lake County. While walking her dog, she came across unfamiliar grasses and plants and started collecting them. After that, she had an aha! moment when she realized she could use them to talk about the devastating effects of climate change she observed around her.
Zhavoronkova explains, “Five years of drought dried out the hills and valleys of the area where I live, fueling long periods of wildfires and killing everything around. The Platinum prints—with their sharp details and matte finish—seemed the suitable medium to express my feelings. It’s an ongoing project, and I add a few new prints every year. I love the combination of hand-made and scientific aspects of the process, from the new way of thinking of shooting specifically for PPP to the alchemy of mixing the chemicals, choosing paper, painting with the sensitizer, and the magic of seeing the final image.
A typical object can take a couple of days to a week to work on. Some take much longer and are stubborn to visualize, waiting to be transformed from images in my head into prints on paper. After collecting multiple samples of an object, I choose ‘the one.’ I then study it from different angles and in various light settings. However, I must be quick, as some objects can be fragile and might not survive long on the set.”
When I look at this work, I feel that Zhavoronkova has given these plants a distinct personality. The hand-wrought borders play against the austere depictions, which lends urgency to her message. I almost can hear the images telling me, “Look at me! Pay attention to what is happening to me and my ‘family!'”
Marky Kauffmann is someone I have gotten to know more recently, starting during a series of Zoom meetings we both participated in due to our affiliation with the Hot 100 List at Duncan Miller Gallery’s Your Daily Photograph. Although I was initially unaware of Kauffman and her work at that time, we have since started a friendship via social media. I am most familiar with her series about dresses, but these images from a different series I found on her website while sourcing women in alternative processes just wowed me. The obliteration of the faces is powerful and made me stop, look, and wonder about the message. I find them disturbing in the best way, the way good art often can be. Art that makes me think about the concept behind it is, for me, the best kind of art. I always want images to make me ponder, to make me feel something,even, nay, perhaps, especially if the something is uncomfortable. These images are impossible to view without feeling something. Being a huge believer in the thought that media has mana that can be used to amplify the ideas we work with, Kauffman has made brilliant use of materials and technique to underscore her thesis for this series.
Around the time Kauffman turned 60, Joan Rivers passed away. She noted that the NY Times devoted an entire page to her memory, and although she was 81 at the time of her death, the image the NYT included made her appear to be in her 30s. Like the media’s effect on many women over 40, Kauffman wondered about women and the natural aging process. She thought, “Am I supposed to look like I’m thirty when I’m eighty? “
When Kauffman realized that bleach could be used as a metaphor for cosmetic interventions and elective surgeries that many women feel compelled to undergo to reverse the natural aging process, she began working on the Lost Beauty portfolio.
Kauffman said, “I photograph women aged fifty or older and make gelatin silver prints. I apply potassium ferricyanide onto the prints in various ways—sprinkling the dry crystals atop the print or spraying or painting the liquefied bleach onto the print’s surface. The resulting images are precisely what I wanted—each woman’s aging visage is gone/transformed/lost, replaced by something strange, horrific, or grotesque.”
In this work, Kauffman posits, “What is lost when societal pressures compel women to alter their faces? Is not every wrinkle an evocation of our struggles, tenacity, grit, mettle, or (best) triumph?”
I’ve long been a fan of Galina Kurlat’s work, but it was only through the recent influx of photographers to Bluesky that I had the chance to interact with her. Who says social media is not fantastic? I knew I was doing this feature, and her work was one I wanted to show you. I got lucky when we connected there, and she said “yes” to my request.
Kurlat’s longtime practice is to work with chance, surface, and time. For this series, Charting the Hours, Kurlat uses lumen, a daylight process in which prints are made by exposing silver gelatin paper to light for extended periods. The results vary greatly based on the type of paper used, exposure time, and the amount of UV in the light source. This series was made by intentionally disrupting the surface material of the paper. It started during the pandemic lockdown when she found a combination of Adam’s hair mixed with her own in the shower drain. She made a lumen print of that hair using materials that were available then.
Kurlat stated, “My desire to push photographic materials beyond their intended use has been a critical part of my practice for many years. What started as an experiment quickly became an index of two bodies coexisting through a pandemic. That initial print was exposed for hours, which caused the chemistry of the black and white paper to change with the light filtering through the window. As the pandemic persisted, the vocabulary I used grew to include hair, spit, blood, urine, and nail clippings, which left their marks on the surface of photographic paper, rewarding us with subdued pastels or lush mauve when exposed to natural and artificial light. Our collective bodily fluids stuck to the paper, marking it in unpredictable ways and permanently changing the chemistry of the paper itself. I anchored the work to the page using a strategically placed antique magnifying glass, which references the history of photography and 1900s scientific imagery. At the same time, the ephemera from our bodies added a contemporary element. That “evidence” created an index of two bodies and what remains of our bodies but lies outside our conscious experience. Using the body as my primary subject, the abstract imagery becomes both a subversion of figurative photography and an ongoing investigation of the body as both vulnerable and ever-changing.”
I met Sarah Darke via social media, which might have been Twitter (back when Twitter was still an interesting and fun place for photographers to interact), and have followed her work since. I even wrote about one of her images previously in a Poignant Pics feature at OneTwelve Publications. Like Kurlat, this series consists of lumen prints; however, their works’ subject matter and orchestration are 180 degrees apart.
Lumen printing has been Darke’s obsession for several years now. She has used plants and flowers she nurtured in her tiny garden patch. When confronted with limited mobility, the garden was her response to missing being in the landscape and the darkroom. The lumen process also provided a way to utilize materials she already had on hand. The works in these two grids are made by placing the element directly on the paper and exposing it for between 20 minutes and 10 days.
Darke told me, “The actual creative process is an incredible therapeutic focus; I become totally absorbed focusing on the beauty and fragility of nature, and in turn, a feeling of being a part of a more comprehensive interconnected whole. The process itself is transformational, full of infinite possibilities; a single change, such as temperature, age, or condition of paper, gives rise to a myriad of different results and opens up a world of different possibilities, which I see as a metaphor for my situation.”
I find these lyrical, peaceful, and soothing. In this chaotic world, many of us, especially me, need the kind of respite this beautiful work provides.
The work by Natalya Rudychev that I have selected for inclusion here is another example of Lumen printing, but used in a third manner: Rudichev has chosen to work with digital negatives as the basis of the imagery. The graceful nudes in subtle tones of peach and taupe use beauty and elegance to draw the viewer in and encourage them to consider work that arises from a different mental space.
Regarding this work, Rudychev stated, “Throughout my life, I was not happy with how I looked. I was never part of a popular crowd; I attributed that to being not attractive or smart enough. This year, I am turning fifty. Victor Hugo once said that fifty is the youth of old age. So I decided to photograph myself nude, to see myself from the outside of the body, to examine the questions of ‘Who am I? How do I look? How do I make myself feel and think?’
I was simultaneously fearful and eager. I was afraid I would not be comfortable with what I discovered, and I was anxious to face my fears and insecurities and overcome them. This experience started an exciting adventure of getting to know myself better.
Lumen printing is one of the simplest ways of writing with light. On the one hand, it is unpredictable—the intensity of sunlight varies by location (and weather.) On the other, the chemical makeup of the various papers change how each reacts to sunlight. It seems like how we think about ourselves as we pass through different places in the world over multiple stages of our lives. Lumen is also an unforgiving process. Unlike Photoshop, things can’t be changed or corrected in post-production. This process forces you to face the truth of the image philosophically.”
In that way, Rudychev’s use of materials perfectly dovetails with the ideas underlying her use of this process.
Sara Silks is a Midwest-based fine art photographer known internationally for her work in alternative and experimental processes. If you have ever met Silks face to face, you have seen her presence exude grace. For me, Silks’ imagery does as well; there is always a finesse and fluidity present in all of her work.
These are new and have yet to be added to her website. I found them perusing her Instagram account while looking for imagery for this feature. They are large prints made by creating photograms and then using them for lumen overprinting. I’ve only done the former, and I am curious how both processes are combined into one unique image. I guess I need to do some research!
Silks says, “Generally speaking, my work investigates fragility, vulnerability, and determination concepts. These experimental pieces continue a thread in my work that uses light, shape, process, and time to describe my feelings about the fragility and transience of the material world.”
Silks’ gorgeous photographs are deeply thoughtful in appearance and in the creating.
I met Angel O’Brien when we both had solo exhibitions at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, where O’Brien resides. Because it happened during the extreme Hawai’i lockdown of the pandemic, my planned trip to Portland was canceled, but it introduced me to her work, which I find interesting and quirky.
The night bled into the sky is platinum palladium with hand tinting and selective gold gouache. A Murder at the Prado is a base layer of platinum with a photo transfer applied on the surface.
O’Brien, who works only using alt. processes, stated, “Using watercolor pigmented gum to hand color is a lot of fun, and I love the way it can look. I usually end up watering it down quite a lot and doing many layers to build up the textures of what is in the photograph. I don’t print platinum anymore because it has become too expensive. I almost always wound up making 3-5 prints before I was pleased with the finished piece. Instead, I’ve learned to lean in to the process and let mistakes flow. It often ends up becoming one of my favorite parts of a print.”
Vaune Trachtman is a photographer living in Vermont. We’ve only chatted via messaging apps and social media, so I’m not sure she knows how much I love her photopolymer gravures. PG combines photography with printmaking to make final prints pulled on an etching press. If you have yet to work with printmaking, you might not know how much handwork goes into the print; everything from the choice of paper to how you ink and then wipe the plate contributes as much to the final work as the imagery itself does. If you haven’t had the chance to try it, I urge you to seek out an opportunity to do so. It’s really fun and might influence how you look at and make images well into the future, with or without printmaking involved. I learned printmaking while studying photography, impacting how I create and think about my photo work.
Tratchman told me, “My creative practice is rooted in the passing of time and memory, so it’s hard to separate my process from my ideas. I think of it as a “collaboration across time.” For these images, I started with my father’s negatives made during the Depression in the 1930s—photos of his neighborhood in Center City, Philadelphia. Nearly a century later, my sister found them and gave them to me. I then combined the people from his pictures with my cellphone images to make this series of photopolymer gravures.
In this series, entitled NOW IS ALWAYS, I want to create a sense of collapsed yet expanded time. I want to look at the past, and I want the past to look right back. By combining images taken almost a century apart, I also want to explore technology, memory, and image-making history.
I love the physicality of direct-to-plate photopolymer gravure—rubbing the plates, turning the press, and working with delicate papers and ink. It’s a way to connect with early photographic traditions without using toxic chemicals. This process feels right to me: tactile, layered, and in conversation with the past. Every image I make feels like it’s holding time inside it, collapsing the distance between then and now.”
If this has piqued your curiosity about how these images are made, Trachtman has a video demonstrating pulling a print on her site. You can find it here.
I met Dale Rio by finding and writing about her work for a feature at OneTwelve. I’m taken by how Rio uses her processes in ways that always amplify her message. I found this particular series when perusing her work while researching photographers to show you here. It figuratively punched me in the gut, but so hard that it felt like it was literal. Because of this, I elected to show the entire series rather than just two images.
I am a first generation American of Greek-born parents who arrived in the U.S. as small children. When I saw it, it brought back my own what felt like endless struggle to to fit in in a small town filled with blue collar immigrants of the Catholic, which we were not, and now, as an adult, the things about my heritage I wish I had more dearly. Yep—double whammy. But I am not finished. Given the spotlight on migrants in America right now, it is exceptionally timely. However, I also like how Rio uses the work to speak from the immigrants’ standpoint, which is often unexamined when discussing U.S. immigration policy.
Rio wrote, “Loss of Culture is an exploration of how seemingly innocuous objects – such as food and clothing – can be instrumental in assimilation and the loss of culture experienced by immigrants and their descendants. The pressure to conform comes from outside the individual but can be internalized, influencing decision-making and perception of self and self-worth. Although often done with the best intentions, such as laying the groundwork for an easier life for future generations, assimilation can have long-term repercussions for individuals and families. It can result in a struggle for self-identification and a feeling of belonging.”
Well, that certainly feels like she read my mind.
She continued, “Working with the materiality of the tintype process, short, first-person narratives have been stamped directly into the metal image substrate, melding image and word. Using first-person stories that are not specific to ethnicity allows for both a direct, personal relationship between the viewer and the work and a general application of the sentiment to a wide swath of experiences. I hope this work will help people recognize experiential commonalities among different ethnic and racial groups and allow them a deeper understanding of other’s struggles.
I chose to do this series using the wet plate collodion process because of its physicality. I wanted the text physically, permanently, and unassailably incorporated into the images, and hand-stamping it into tintypes was how I envisioned doing it from the get-go. The text and image are literally made one, and equal weight is given to both, although both are deceptively simple and straight-forward-seeming.”
Photographer and Georgia native Tokie Rome-Taylor’s work is incredibly powerful. I previously interviewed her for The Female Gaze series here at FRAMES in 2022.
At the base of her work is the conceptual foundation that perceptions of self and belonging originate during childhood. The children appear as the center of her work, while she also focuses on the stories that were (and seem to be yet again) purposely omitted from Western art history.
She writes, “I explore questions that stem from ethnographic and historical research. They probe the material, spiritual, and familial culture of the descendants of southern slaves and serve as entry points for me to build symbolic elements that communicate a visual language. The sitters’ family heirlooms and recollections of family history are combined with the historical research about the lives of Africans brought to the Americas. The research centers on their material culture, spiritual practice, and traditions. These have all been used to create a visual language that speaks to our shared history. Children and their family heirlooms, the real or imagined histories of these children’s families and their ancestors all collide to spark conversation around material wealth, familial and cultural traditions of African Americans in the South.”
To create them, she incorporates both analog and digital photographic techniques. She often uses textiles, embroidery, pigments, beading, and wax in her imaging creation process, challenging some viewers’ expectations of “what a photograph should be.”
“These two works are from the series,’ What Remains’, which explores what we pass down. We pass down physical and spiritual artifacts from our family, culture, and life experiences. Digital photographs have been converted into large-scale negatives and then exposed on fabric and cotton rag paper coated with cyanotype chemicals. ‘What Remains’ after the prints are washed is a visual image of family artifacts and an exploration of history and spirit. It is what remains of our archives, ancestors, and artifacts.”
Colorado-based Emma Powell is well-known as a practitioner of alternative process photography. I had never had the opportunity to interact with Powell until I started this feature. I’ve long been a fan of her work, but my altar of worship was located afar. I knew when I was going to do a feature on alternative processes that she was someone I wanted to feature, and I am thrilled that she agreed to let me show FRAMES readers her work.
The two works shown here are from the series entitled When It Rains, which consists of cyanotypes on fabric made by combing the photogram process with digital negatives from Powell’s photographs.
Powell stated, “These artworks reflect on loss, anxiety, and the materials we collect. After the recent deaths of people close to me, I found myself sorting through an excess of household materials. Each object suddenly had a new nostalgic significance heightened by loss. I began incorporating these materials into my artwork, and each image developed a new narrative. This process also gave the objects a newfound purpose while creating a record of them.
I place these pieces directly onto the photographic digital negatives while exposing cyanotype-coated cloth. Throughout this ongoing series, I playfully experiment with the scale and quantity of familiar objects to create visual connections and metaphors.”
I am enamored with the storytelling quality of the images and her playful utilization of the media.
Fruma Markowitz’s Doors of Morrocco is a hand-made photographic artist’s book.Markowitz has used the conceit of a singular visual language—doors—via images that held memories of her month exploring the landscape of Morrocco. Although I am acquainted with Markowitz via our participation in the WPA NYC Instagram, I didn’t associate her with the book arts. I was surprised when I ran into this work while searching Instagram for this feature. I was immediately taken with the color and the amount of handwork involved in the printing and making. For me, the latter takes it from a photobook to an alternative process artist book.
Markowitz selected images representing a wide range of Moroccan door designs and materials, including metal, wood, ceramic tile, mud, and cloth. She then used Photoshop to create composited collages of the doors with other photographs and items such as textiles or painted surfaces to unify the look and feel of the images visually, then decided to bind it using an accordion structure to give the viewer the option of seeing them as one or choosing to read it page by page. The verso utilizes sepia-toned photographs of oases in Atlas mountains, making folios that she stitched together using gold thread and a sewing machine.
To print the images on the porous interfacing cloth she selected, she needed to hand-coat it with a digital ground, in this case, Ink Aid. (Editorial note: Ink Aid is a liquid substrate that you can use to coat materials to make inkjet prints on materials that would not hold the ink otherwise.)
She states, “I printed everything digitally, the interior door blended images, the exterior monochrome landscapes, on cotton medium weight interfacing. However, I further enhanced the landscapes by embossing from wooden stamps on molding paste to create added texture and interest, and I also outlined each image edge with gold leaf ink. Each door was also individually stitched by machine to emphasize lines and patterns within each image. For the covers, I printed on silk organza and then layered them on top of the landscape’s first and last panels, and used the same gold machine stitching. That allowed for the interior and the exterior of the book to converge conceptually. The closure is organza ribbon embellished with stitching and beads.”
Although she had worked with stitching prints, Markowitz added, “This is the first work I’ve made completely from textile materials. I plan to do more.”
I spent a long time eagerlyfollowing Ann Mitchell’s work from a distance before having the opportunity to interact with her several years ago. Since then, I’ve also written about her photo animations as a Poignant Pics feature at OneTwelve. I had included imagery from her circular, monochromatic encaustics in a 2023 FRAMES The Female Gaze feature about altered images. Something about Mitchell’s aesthetic resonates deeply with me, though I am not sure I have the language to explain why. It simply does. I was surprised when I found this series because I don’t automatically think about bright colors and Mitchell in the same sentence.
These hand-colored images are from a folio called Chapter One, which is part of her ongoing work, Impressions of Southern California. (You can see the entire folio here.)
Mitchell told me, “I’m currently working on two very different bodies of work—day and night. In both cases, though, one of my goals was to slow down the creative process. Digital photography is so fast that I don’t get a chance to have a “dialog” with the work as it evolves.
I also had a mixed relationship with color—whether I wanted to use it in my work. So, I started working with pastels and colored pencils and loved how it allowed me to spend time with the image. Pastels are so beautiful—it’s this pure color, and it floats.”
Taking her inspiration from Hokusai’s 100 Views of Mt Fuji, Mitchell sought to explore outside the stereotypes about fame and glamor. She states, “The experience of living here can be a quiet one – and that is what this project explores, a vision of the everyday. The images are simplified before printing to remove distracting elements – so you get the essence of that space. These moments are quiet slices of mundane life that allow the viewer to connect to this place in a layered way. Each folio within the project will contain ten images, with the long-term goal of making ten portfolios, or ‘100 views.'”
I met DM Witman over a group dinner during the 2019 Photolucida Portfolio reviews. Although we didn’t know each other, the “just happened to be at the same table for dinner” was fortuitous. In the ensuing years, we became social media connections and then friends. I follow along avidly as she creates new works. Witman holds degrees in environmental science and photography, so it is not surprising that her portfolio centers around the climate crisis.
Whitman told me, “In 2014, an opinion article in the New York Times by Porter Fox, “The End of Snow?” foretold an indicator of the climate predicament that struck within me, the deepest cord possible. Research that helped to build the article was from a data set that investigated the locations of the Winter Olympics. The research reported that within a decade (by 2024), less than ten locations would be cold or snowy enough to hold the Games. I can’t say why this shook me so very much. It wasn’t anything to do with the Olympics. I recall thinking about myself as a little girl building snowmen with my dad and sledding in the southeast Pennsylvania snow. This news picked at my deep connections to weather and the larger natural world. Within what now feels like an instant, I envisioned how to address the predicated lack of usual weather circumstances. I had not worked with salted-paper with any seriousness or rigor, but I understood what kind of conversation I wanted to engage in with others, and the variables of this process allowed me to do just that.“
The ramifications of the Industrial Revolution altered the global climate, resulting in increased temperatures, rising waters, and climate refugees. They also altered the cultural climate via new inventions, such as photography, which served as a witness and is now a vehicle for awareness and activism using its earliest method—the salted-paper photograph. “Melt” documents the shifting climate through photographic activism, drawing awareness of the changes via participatory art.
As part explorer and part documentarian, I traveled the earth via the internet and gathered satellite images. Unaltered, these images were printed in the 19th century. salted-paper photographic process, documenting changing landscapes, which serve as both document and memory, engaging my trans-disciplinary nature as an artist, explorer, and scientist. These photographs provide a record of time and condition for historically cold and snow-laden locations.
A selected number of the exhibition images are created to be ephemeral, unfixed, and fading throughout the exhibition, invoking this sense of change. These photographs on paper will fade when exposed to sunlight, like the snow of these mountainous regions, and we are left with only our memories of the place and a feeling. Viewers are encouraged to revisit the fading landscapes to experience their disappearance over time.
I really love, and I mean love, the way Witman explored the topic in various media, all of which originated with a lens and historical processes.
I hope I have introduced you to some new ideas, work, or photographers for your inspiration. If so, please check out the annual exhibition of alternative process works on display now at SoHo Photo (in person if you live near NYC, or peruse the images if not.) This year, it was juried by Aline Smithson, whom I profiled in an interview at FRAMES in January 2023. Thank you to everyone for working with me on this feature.
ARTIST BIOS
Christina Z. Anderson’s work focuses on the contemporary vanitas printed in various alternative photographic processes. Her work has been seen nationally and internationally in over 120 exhibitions and 70 publications. She has six books in print, which have sold in over 40 countries. Anderson is an Editor for Focal Press/Routledge’s Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography series and a Professor of Photography at Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.
Sarah Darke is a Photographic artist based in Somerset, England. She is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. She holds a Master in Photography from the University of Plymouth, an RMN from Somerset School of Nursing, and a Diploma of Art and Design from Somerset School of Art and Design. Her work has been internationally exhibited and received recognition from the International Caravaggio Prize, the International Paris Prize, and Women United Magazine.
Anne Eder is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She is currently a lecturer at Princeton University and an instructor at Harvard University. Eder has mounted numerous solo exhibitions at venues that include the Halide Project and A. Smith Gallery and exhibited in group shows at venues such as the Vermont Center for Photography, Duncan Miller Gallery, the Suffolk University Gallery, and the Texas Photographic Society.
Marky Kauffmann is a fine art photographer based in Boston, MA. She has received much recognition, including a 2017 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Photography, the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, the Analog Sparks Awards, and the Tokyo International Foto Awards. In 2019, Kauffmann’s work was exhibited in Photoville’s The Fence. She is a multiple-year Photolucida Top 200 Critical Mass Finalist.
Galina Kurlat is a photographic artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her BFA in Media Arts from Pratt Institute. Kurlat’s work has been shown worldwide. Recent exhibitions include treat gallery at VOLTA in NYC, Peter Halpert Fine Art, Studio Bizio in Edinburgh, Jinju International Photo Festival, and Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA. Her work is collected throughout the U.S. and abroad. Kurlat has been published in Oxford American, Fraction Magazine, Houston Chronicle, Diffusion IX and Fraction of a Second from Radius Books, and numerous other periodicals and catalogs.
Fruma Markowitz’s photography practice focuses on historical, experimental, and hand-made processes. Venues exhibiting her work include SoHo Photo Gallery, the New York Center for Photographic Arts, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Southeast Center for Photography, The Halide Project, Light ArtSpace Gallery and the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts. Markowitz’s work has been seen in publications including Analog Forever, Dek Unu, and The Hand magazines, as well as a self-published book of her documentary travel photographs, “Synagogues Along the Danube.” She has received recognition for her work through the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards as well as grants from the Drew Friedman Foundation.
After completing a BFA in Photography from Art Center College of Design, Ann Mitchell spent over ten years as an award-winning advertising and editorial photographer. She then earned an MFA in Art from Claremont Graduate University and taught in the Art Department at Long Beach City College for over two decades. At LBCC, Mitchell hosted multiple visual media festivals and served as Chair and Digital Media Program Coordinator. In 2020, she transitioned into a full-time art career while continuing to teach workshops, curation, and individual tutoring.
Angel O’Brien has been creating photographic prints by hand since 1994. She has been featured in interviews in Analog Forever and Black & White Photography magazine, and her work has been on the cover of Analog Forever magazine and the pages of The Hand Magazine, SHOTS, and Mountain Bluebird Magazine. O’Brien’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including a solo exhibition at Blue Sky Gallery. She was awarded the Juror’s Prize at the 2019 Lightbox Symposium for Alt Process Photography.
Emma Powell is a photographic artist who primarily utilizes alternative and historic processes. Powell earned an MFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology and taught photography for a decade at Colorado College and Iowa State University. In addition, Powell has led workshops for Penland School of Crafts, Maine Media Workshops, and other educational institutions. Powell’s artwork has been exhibited widely, including the Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, England; the Halide Project, Philadelphia; Path Museum, Atlanta, GA; and Bell Projects, Denver, CO.
Dale Rio is a visual artist who uses film and historical photographic processes to explore mortality, human constructs, and man’s relationship with the natural world. Her photographs have been shown extensively in the U.S., England, Germany, and New Zealand. She co-founded The Halide Project and Point A to Point B: analog explorations.
Tokie Rome-Taylor is a native and resident in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA. She received her BA in Arts Education focusing on Photography and Drawing from Morris Brown College and her M.Ed, from Lesley University. Taylor’s exhibition and awards record includes international and national exhibitions, including SP-Foto in São Paulo, Brazil, PhotoLucida Critical Mass Top 50 , Gallery 1202, Masur Museum, Zuckerman Museum of Art Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, Atlanta Photography Group, among others. Recognition includes receiving the Funds for Teachers Fellowship studying photography in Santa Fe and San Francisco, the International Photography Awards, and the Virginia Twinam-Smith Purchase Award. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, and private collections.
Natalia L. Rudychev is an award-winning Russian-born New York and Paris-based photographer and multidisciplinary artist. Rudichev’s work has been exhibited in NYC as well as in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Glasgow, Le Mans and Tokyo. Her work on sustainability was awarded the Bronze Prize. The International Photography Awards and Analog Sparks Awards have given additional recognition for her work. Her work is in the public collections of the California State Library, Haiku Literature Museum in Japan, and Duquesne University Library.
Sara Silks is a fine art photographer known internationally for her work in alternative and experimental processes. Silks received her BA in Visual Arts and Art History and her MA in Art History with Honors. She exhibits nationally and internationally in museums and juried gallery shows. She had her first solo exhibition in New York City at the Soho Photo Gallery in October of 2017. Silks was a featured artist in ScotiaBank’s Contact Photo Festival and the Lishui Photography Festival. Her work has been recognized as a five-time finalist in Photolucida’s Critical Mass, and Julia Margaret Cameron Awards.
Vaune Trachtman is a Vermont=based photographer and printmaker. Trachtman received an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation’s Individual Support Grant, was among the 2018 Alternative Processes National Competition winners, and was shortlisted for the 2019 International Hariban Prize, a semi-finalist in The Print Center’s 95th ANNUAL International Competition. The Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts have supported her work. NOW IS ALWAYS was exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Vermont Center for Photography in 2021.
DM Witman is a transdisciplinary artist whose work has appeared in more than 120 solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. She has been selected for artist residencies such as Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Rockland, Maine; Monson Arts, Maine; and How to Flatten A Mountain, Ireland. Witman’s work resides in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, and is placed within many private collections. She is affiliated with the Photo-eye Gallery and the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts. Interviews and publications include Inside Climate News, The Guardian, BBC Culture, and WIRED. Her work has been recognized with grants from the Maine Arts Commission, The Kindling Fund (a re-grantor for the Warhol Foundation), The John Anson Kittredge Fund, and the Puffin Foundation. Witman received her MFA from Maine Media College and holds a BS in Environmental Science from Kutztown University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Yelena Zhavoronkova is a California based Fine Art Photographer and Graphic Designer. She received a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the St. Petersburg Academy of Art and Industry, Russia, and has worked as a graphic designer for over three decades. Her projects have been exhibited in de Young Museum, Anzenberger Gallery, San Francisco City Hall, Corden|Potts, Blue Sky Gallery, and LightBox Gallery, among many other galleries around the United States and Europe. Publications featuring her work included The New Yorker Online, Shutterbug magazine, and the Transformation literary journal, among others. Zhavoronkova’s book, “Memories in Red,” is included in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University and in many private collections and institutions in the USA and Europe. She is represented by the Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna, Austria, and Corden|Potts Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
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Cynthia Gladis
December 12, 2024 at 17:03
Fascinating and inspirational, much enjoyed article, Diana.