Contemporary Alternative Photography

As technology evolves in every avenue of art, traditional, redundant or ‘out of date’ methods

are abandoned in favour of the newest machine or process. Just as increasingly, people turn back to the

older, the obsolete, or the redundant, to recapture the experience and enjoy the unique results that

now stand out from the current mainstream tools and methods. Just as musical technology advanced

and the record was replaced by the cassette and then the CD, vinyl albums remain popular as ever and

in recent years people have been rediscovering the fun of making a mix tape. Photography, too, has

been experiencing this phenomenon. Lomography and general film photography is possibly the quickest

turn around in terms of older technology being taken up again after being technologically eclipsed.

While daguerreotypes, for example, took a number of decades before a noticeable rise in practice,

people have gone back to, or taken up, film photography in almost no time at all after being deemed out

of date or impractical by digital photography. This highlights both the economic and ease of use factors

in prevailing technologies; digital photography is easier for the average person, but easier does not

equate to as being better aesthetically (within film photography itself, 35mm became the standard due

to price even though 120mm provided better quality for enlargement).

What is alternative photography, who is currently practicing it and what are the reasons behind this

movement?

“I consider old-time photography as the avant-garde” – Allain Carrillo. 1

Alternative photography is based on the technical medium - pinhole cameras, daguerreotypes,

lomo, for instance - as opposed to styles, such as street, portrait, landscape, etc.

Its early origins can be found in the late 1800s, when division was created between pinhole enthusiasts

and those who used lenses. The former became known as the ‘Linked Ring’, initially a group of twelve,

founded by George Davison.2 They were interested in creating images that didn’t need to be completely

sharp. This was achieved by using pinhole cameras, with the ‘fuzzy’3 results being more in line with

painting. This became known as pictorialism, which was the precursor to art photography. 4 Pinhole

photography then is the earliest form of alternative photography.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, pinhole photography was revived by a number of artists. Their reasons

were not unlike the pictorialists; they re-questioned the sharp, focused, single image and the standard,

mass produced camera.

There are two main streams of alternative photography. One is more process based, using older

techniques to create the image in different ways, practiced mainly by artists. The other is camera and

film based, and is more mainstream.

The former is a group of processes that were mostly invented in the 19th century. Contemporary

photography revivalists do not only create photographs with these techniques but also the conditions,

equipment and chemicals which increase the scale of effort for their photography, immediately

outweighing the relatively quick process of digital capture and print.

The collodion process, for instance, requires that exposure and processing of the image takes place

while the plate is still wet. To do this outdoors, photographers would need portable darkrooms to take

with them on site. Modern collodion process artists also practice this, with some artists converting their

station wagon or vans into mobile darkrooms.

The list of alternative photography processes include:

Platinotype/platinum photograph

Cyanotype

Polaroid

Pinhole

Infrared

Palladium

Kallitype

Salt print

Vandyke

Argyotype

Gum bichromate

Tempera print

Albumen

Polaroid emulsion lift

Calotype

Carbon Print

Woodbury process

Gumoil

Photogravure

Ambrotype

Wet plate collodion

Tintype

Photo intaglio

Lith print

Anthotype

Chemigram

Chrysotype

Uranium print

The latter is film photography, which is primarily being transformed into ‘Lomography’. Originating from Soviet cameras cheaply made for the masses, it is a recent movement and/or fashion scene whose basis is in the idiosyncrasies of a cameras ‘faults’, such as light leaks and vignetting, as well as the use of expired film. This is the comparative alternative to current consumer digital point-and-shoot cameras, and is very popular. Two common uses for lomographic are for travel photography and for documenting a night out, with the resulting images being shared on the internet. Most lomographers shoot digital as well, though it is not uncommon to find those who choose to shoot purely in film. As the genre builds, lomography is starting to become a catch all for film photography, referring to ‘lo-fi’ technology as compared to digital.

Interestingly, the first ‘ready’ or ‘pre-loaded’ camera was invented in 1889 – ‘a pinhole camera that was sold with a glass plate already inside simply waiting for exposure’. 5 The camera was entirely bellowed and folded flat. This can be seen as the very first disposable camera.

In the nineteenth century, photographers were incredibly curious in seeing what the camera

could do, how it could portray something in contrast to our eye, and to create an image that is more

than just a straight documentation of reality. This is a driving force for some contemporary alternative

photographers.

Darren Glass is a photographer who took up building of his own cameras whilst studying photography,

inspired by a paper negative his brother made.

His work often looks at natural or manmade structures that could be converted in to being a pinhole

camera that goes unnoticed, or at least, not noticeably a camera – e.g. a military pillbox. His work takes

the image and process further and further away from ‘the straight photography’. For example, he built a

pinhole camera made from a wheelie-bin, which is moved around to take street photos from the point

of view of your every day garbage bin.

His underwater pinhole camera required the camera to be loaded into an air tight jar which itself is

needed to be loaded into a light proof bag for travelling between the dark room and shooting location.

You swim underwater with the camera still in the bag, before removing the jar from the bag to expose

the image. Once the photo has been taken, the jar needs to be returned to the light proof bag before

resurfacing and transportation to darkroom for developing and printing.

For another camera, Glass used a Paua shell for a lens, where the light reflected off the opal-like interior

surface for an abstract and varying effect. This shows that alternative photography can go wider in

spectrum in both techniques and materials. With Glass’ cameras, they themselves become a piece of

art, blurring the line further between tool and work.

He also created a series of Frisbee cameras, designed to be tossed and then retrieved. He took 365

exposures (“one flight for each day of the year”6) over an 8 year period.

Steve Pippin’s work transcends genres as it is part sculpture, part photography and part performance

art. He uses the everyday spaces and objects, such as bathtubs, washing machines and even an entire

house, and turns them into cameras. In part, this shows what is seen by the object and to reflect on the

material in our life. These cameras have a direct relationship to their subject.

In 1986 German artist Thomas Bachler used his mouth as a camera. He loaded the cut pieces of film in

his mouth and left the dark room. This way, he took self-portraits by standing in front of a mirror and

exposing the film by opening his lips. His lips were now both the shutter and the aperture. This is

possibly the closest way to becoming a human camera, blowing away the notion that photographs are

taken through a plastic or metal object used with your hands, separate from the body and mind.

“My activities are provoked by an interest in how the camera contributes to

the interpretation of its subjects. Like early photographers who transported giant

glass negatives in wagon-darkrooms in pursuit of extreme resolution, I have made

cameras that are large, difficult to carry, and often intended for the depiction of

remote pictorial sites. I like to think that the work of experimental camera design,

begun by Nineteenth Century pioneers of photography, is still in its infancy.”7

– Darren Glass

An attraction to the alternative genre is the varied effects caused by chemicals when printing

such as subtle changes in colour and tone. There remains an element of the untamed lying in the

compounds of film, camera integrity and printing materials. This uniqueness relies on chemical

reactions. Emulsion affected by light, film and paper by developer and fixer. The combination of

different chemical processes in non-digital photography and image making mean that it just needs a

human touch to combine them and get the ball rolling. This makes actual photo-taking just a small part

of an overall larger process, greater than that of the digital point and shoot method.

The human user gives up areas of control in different ways. An expired film can affect irreproducible

photos; the user has given up control over the colours in the photograph. Light-leaks can create random

streaks in images and some lenses (often made from plastic) can alter the image by blurring, morphing

or adding a vignette to the photograph. The redscale method of loading a film ‘backwards’ so that the

image is exposed through the emulsion gives a red-scale effect which is entirely surreal.

While it’s true that there are valid parallels in post-processing images by using an enlarger with dark

room methods, and post-processing digital images in Photoshop, the latter lacks physical presence and

the overall ritualism of alternate photography processes.

Alternative photography can also mean an alternative look at the world, where something between the

actual and the processed gets lost, gained, or changed. This may not be a true representation but its

basis in reality combined with an abstract post processing gives a dream like feeling that is often surreal.

This is a popular aspect of alternate photography processes for the added depth it can give an image.

Artists have expressed that such images have more atmosphere, soul, or emotion. Sarah Van Keuren

noted long exposure portraits with pinhole cameras capture the truth in a person, as ‘fleeting

expressions’8 are not recorded due to the exposure time, bringing the inner feeling to the fore.

Hungarian Sándor Szilágvi believes that digital photography and the replacement of physical film and

chemicals with data as being a ‘depersonification’9 between artist, people, subject and format.

Photography is, in his view, a ‘human transaction’10 and experience, such as having a physical image to

pass between people.

Unfortunately, history shows that technical elements override the artistic qualities, with factors such as

price, availability, ease of use and quality eclipsing the creative aspects. Daguerreotypes were phased

out in favour of new technology. Looking at them retrospectively, it is one of the (if not the) most

beautiful and interesting forms of photography, which makes you wonder how it was so quickly

abandoned.

“The daguerreotype is a magic window that transforms the world it presents.”11

Alternative photography can be likened to home cooking. While digital technology is like fast

food, in being able to get exactly what you want in quick time, the alternative methods are like meals

you make yourself. It’s a process that gets you involved in every aspect of the meal, paying attention to

the changes in the state of the ingredients, ability to add subtle flavouring to result in a self-satisfying

and well composed meal. Through this you can learn and master the techniques to make cooking (like

photography) instinctive and intrinsic. By continuing to practice these processes, eventually you are able

to make work that you completely understand and emotionally linked to. A continued hands on

approach gifts more satisfaction than computer screen and mouse, making alternative photography

more of an experience than a medium, whereas digital photography doesn’t carry the same physicality

as its analogue predecessors. It’s the briefest form of photography ever invented, with no need for

rituals such as choosing, buying and loading film, learning to correctly estimate settings and why (as

opposed to taking multiple digital shots until right, ignoring the need to learn how), develop the film,

make prints, then hang, place in an album or to pass around amongst others.

Some alternative methods are not simply, or at all, the process of a camera recording an image.

Alternative photography can also move into the areas of performance or have sculptural elements to

their exhibition, composition or experience. Glass’ camera works in particular showcase that

photography doesn’t stop with conventional cameras or printed images. The creation of cameras and

photos in many bizarre and wonderful, imaginative ways, expands the scope of the already wide field of

photography. Alternative processes allow the composer freedom from the responsibility and limitations

of representing the world and the moment.

Through the revival of old techniques, there is a way of looking forward by looking back.

Bibliography

Fabbri, Malin. Alternative photography: Art & Artists. Alternativephotography.com, 2006.

A book showcasing a large number of contemporary alternative photographers, their work and the

processes they used. Highlights the incredible range and places photography can go.

Fuss, Adam. Pinhole Photographs. Washington & London: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1996.

Interview and photos by Adam Fuss, as well as looking at his techniques.

Glass, Darren. A Field Guide To Camera Species. Auckland: Johnston Press Ltd, 2009.

Presents a large number of different pinhole cameras built by Darren Glass. Has a different look at the

approach of image making.

Pippin, Steven. The Rigmarole of Photography. Brighton: ECA, 1993.

Artists book with a number of images and concepts for large-scale cameras.

Renner, Eric. Pinhole Photography - Rediscovering A Historic Technique. Oxford: Focal Press Elsevier Inc.,

2004.

Gives a great historical look at pinhole photography, as well as current artists and the many different

types of pinhole cameras that have been built.

Rexer, Llyle. Photography's Antiquarian Avant Garde. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002.

Examines alternative photography artists and practices in history and looks at contemporary artists and

examples of their work.

1 Fabbri, Malin, Alternative Photography: Art & Artists (published by alternativephotography.com, Sweden) 2006, 35.

2 Renner, Eric, Pinhole Photography – Rediscovering a Historic Technique (Focal Press, Elsevier Inc., Oxford) 2004, 58.

3 Renner, Eric, Pinhole Photography – Rediscovering a Historic Technique (Focal Press, Elsevier Inc., Oxford) 2004, 57.

4 Renner, Eric, Pinhole Photography – Rediscovering a Historic Technique (Focal Press, Elsevier Inc., Oxford) 2004, 58.

5 Renner, Eric, Pinhole Photography – Rediscovering a Historic Technique (Focal Press, Elsevier Inc., Oxford) 2004, 59.

6 Glass, Darren, A Field Guide to Camera Species (Johnston Press Ltd, Auckland) 2009, 29.

7 Glass, Darren, A Field Guide to Camera Species (Johnston Press Ltd, Auckland) 2009, 4.

8 Rexer, Lyle, Photography’s Antiquarian Avant Garde (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York) 2002,

9 Rexer, Lyle, Photography’s Antiquarian Avant Garde (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York) 2002, 74.

10 Rexer, Lyle, Photography’s Antiquarian Avant Garde (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York) 2002, 74.

11 Rexer, Lyle, Photography’s Antiquarian Avant Garde (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York) 2002, 23.