Searing Joy, with cameraless photography
These words accompanied my cameraless photography creations on display at the Art Gallery of Burlington, Fireside Lounge, from 28 August to 24 September 2024.
Joy is an essential part of life. Sometimes it just happens. Other times it needs to be created.
Display at the Art Gallery of Burlington, Fireside Lounge.
The cameraless photography creations in “Searing Joy” are an ode to the early scientists, artists and curious folks who pioneered photography as a mode of expression. The title “Searing Joy” is also a nod to photographic theorist Walter Benjamin who, in his “Short History of Photography” (1931), observed that a unique aspect of photography, compared to other artforms, was the fact that no matter how much control a photographer may be able to exert on the image being created, they will never have as much control as a painter or illustrator because there is always “the tiny spark of chance, of the here and now, with which realty has, as it were, seared the character in the picture” (emphasis added). These cyanotypes (on eggshells) and lumen prints (on black and white darkroom paper) are an essential form of photography, or ‘writing with light’, that have seared in their emulsions plants from natural surroundings that bring me happiness and comfort. The process of making the cyanotypes and lumens is magical and intensely satisfying. As such, these creations become “seared joy”.
The eggshell cyanotypes honour Anna Atkins and the nameless – and countless – other women involved in making photography accessible to everyone.
Four of the eight cyanotype eggshell creations. Each eggshell contains it own little world of magic.
Anna Atkins was a botanist and photographer best known for her cyanotypes of British algae and, later, of ferns. Publishing in the early 1840s, just a couple of years after the introduction of Daguerreotype photography, Atkins is widely acknowledged as one of the first female photographers and the first to publish a book with photographic images. Unlike the more common black and white image of the era that used silver, cyanotypes rely on iron salts as the light sensitive element, which gives the images their characteristic cyan-blue colour. To create her images, she directly laid plant specimens on paper coated in cyanotype emulsion and left them in the sun to make exposures. The result are negative images outlining, often in superb detail, each botanical. With no ability to reproduce cyanotypes, Atkins made a limited number of volumes containing her creations; each one is unique.
Decades later, photographs became more easily reproduceable and accessible to the majority world. The advent of photographic paper made with egg whites – known as albumen paper – massively increase photography’s popularity and accessibility. Albumen was used to carry silver emulsion, which had become the dominant light-sensitive material of choice as it created rich black and whites with broad tonal ranges and unsurpassed detail. The process of making albumen paper in the 1880s was incredibly manual and relied heavily on female labour. Thousands of women cracked eggs, whisked them to a froth, floated paper in the fermented egg-white baths, and hung the sheets to dry. Alongside the labour of women, albumen paper required enormous quantities of eggs. According to Reilly (1978), to make 500 sheets of 16 x 20-inch paper required 9 litres of egg white from 27 dozen eggs. One of the largest manufacturers of albumen paper in late 1800s, a company in Dresden, Germany, is said to have been able to use over six million eggs a year. For this “Seared Joy” exhibit, I used about 10-dozen eggs (accounting for breakage and some less than successful results).
Lumen prints differ considerably from cyanotype primarily because of its reliance on silver as its light sensitive material.
Lumen prints made with nature (sunlight and plants) on resin coated black and white darkroom paper.
Lumen printing is a way of playing with the silver contained in black-and-white darkroom paper to draw out its colour capacities. Yes, colour. Similar to the cyanotypes, these lumen images were created by laying plants directly on the photographic paper. By exposing them to UV light (directly in the sun or from an artificial source), the photographic paper—otherwise considered ‘ruined’ by darkroom enthusiasts—begin to exhibit shades of purple, and golden, earthy tones. Like the cyanotypes, the magic begins to appear as the emulsion shifts in hues as it exposes under the sunlight. The final effect happens when rinsed under a ‘fixer’ solution. Being light-sensitive photo paper, lumen exposures only become archive when treated in the fixer (a heavy salt solution normally containing sodium thiosulphate). Onto the surface of some of the images displayed here are bits of plant matter that have seared themselves into the silver emulsion.
Lumen printing is as old as photography itself with Henry Fox Talbot having experimented with cameraless photography and salted paper in the 1830s. With advancements in camera and darkroom technologies that increased image detail and reproducibility, approaches like cyanotypes and lumen printing fell out of favour. Creative artists continued to play with these approached over the past century, but it is really with the revolution of digital photography that has contributed to a resurgence (of sorts) of these older photographic methods. Indeed, it is thanks to the precision, relative ease, and speed of digital photography that has turned the darkroom into a creative, experimental place resulting in a growing interest in alternative and nineteenth century photographic processes in the twenty-first century.
Joy makes life worth living. It inspires, it motivates, and it rewards us for being courageous, curious and creative.
Sonya de Laat
References
Anderson, Christina. 2022. The experimental darkroom: contemporary uses of traditional black & white photographic materials. Routledge.
Benjamin, Walter. "A Short History of Photography.” 1931." One-Way Street and Other Writings (1977): 240-257.
Reilly, J. M. 1978. The manufacture and use of albumen paper. The journal of photographic science, 26(4), 156-161.
Leger, Emile. 2024. Transforming Objects – Cyanotypes on Teabags and Shells. https://www.alternativephotography.com/cyanotypes-teabags-shells/
Walther, Peter, Ed. Anna Atkins: Cyanotypes. 2023. Taschen. https://a.co/d/61lbeje
Biography:
For much of my life, I’ve played with, worked with, and studied photography. I’ve also drifted away from it for years as my focus got redirected to other priorities. Personal upheavals and global anxieties over the past few years changed my perspective, shinning a light on the vital necessity of creativity. While I’ve returned to photography, it’s on different terms. Exploration, excavation, experimentation and enjoyment fundamentally shape my current practice. This time, photography is giving me the space to activate my varied interests: creativity, history, social justice, and curiosity. Exploring different histories of photography and its social aspects, excavating my values and their origins to guide me, experimenting with alternative and nineteenth century techniques: combining this altogether has brought me great joy.
When I’m not playing with photography, I think deeply about images with students and other academics though workshops and university courses. I also work as an academic advisor at McMaster University and as an historical interpreter at Whitehern Historic House & Garden for the City of Hamilton. I’m VP of the Women’s Art Association of Hamilton and the Latow Photographer’s Guild, a mother to three outstanding humans, and actively working to inspire curiosity, creativity, and joy in whomever I meet. You can find me at www.sonyadelaat.com and @sonyadelaat on Instagram.