Another Heyday.

Photography's history has always been inextricably connected with technological advancement. Joseph Niepce, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, William Henry Fox Talbot, Frederick Scott Archer, and others all made significant contributions to its technical evolution. In 1884, George Eastman embarked on his quest to make photography "an everyday affair." (1) Four years later, the Kodak Camera entered the market with the slogan, "You push the button, we do the rest," and the era of amateur photography was born.

Between 1884 and 1991, photography continued along a fairly well-defined path. While there were minor departures, film, paper, and chemistry remained the necessities of photography. But, in 1991, the first tremors of significant change were felt. With Kodak's introduction of the first commercially available digital camera, the DCS-100, the digital era was ushered in. The movement from silver to pixels had begun, and at no time in its history had the nature of the craft been so fundamentally challenged.

During the next few years digital camera sales soon eclipsed the sales of traditional film cameras. Even professional photographers were making the switch from large negatives to mega-pixels. Today, onetime pioneering companies like Agfa, Ilford, and Kodak are struggling to survive, reorganizing, or declaring bankruptcy. Yet, in spite of the shift from darkroom to digitization, a group of practitioners is moving away from pixels and computers and returning to the craft's roots: light, chemistry, and hands-on involvement.

These artists pursue their vision independent of technological advancement and have discarded the notion that one must continually invest in the latest equipment to make compelling and meaningful images. They rely on what are now known as alternative, Do-It-Yourself (DIY), or adaptive photographic processes. Many pursue the craft without something as seemingly necessary as a lens. This is not to say that these artists disdain technology; instead, they embrace the idea of a hands-on photographic aesthetic that is not dependent upon materialist acquisition of goods. The direct hands-on involvement inherent in alternative techniques unites photographer and process.

It has been argued that the use of such "primitive" techniques is regressive and hinders what some consider photography's obligation to continue its long march of technological evolution. But it could also be argued that it is only through the use of alternative and adaptive techniques that photography can be freed from the interests of corporations motivated by profit margins, shareholder interest, and a global culture of consumption driven by messages of desire, obsolescence, and acquisition. And perhaps, from this more independent perspective, photography can give insightful, meaningful commentary on the world in which we live.

Hardly a uniform endeavor, artists are applying these difficult, labor-intensive techniques and processes in a variety of ways. Some insist on a purity of means: they construct their own equipment; use film or nineteenth-century processes such as calotype, collodion, or daguerreotype as negatives; and make prints using traditional wet darkroom techniques. Others marry digital image capture with alternative-printing techniques. Still others fall somewhere within this spectrum, altering and adapting tools to achieve their vision.

In keeping with the individuality of the endeavor, images produced using these methods are not bland, homogenized products of mass production. Instead, these artists depart significantly from the status quo by allowing themselves to create printed images that are utterly unique. Rather than blindly adhering to an ethos of endless reproduction, they have consciously decided that not only is it permissible for each print--even multiple prints from the same negative--to be different, but that it is desirable. This mode of thinking conflicts with common perceptions regarding the nature of contemporary photography. For many, photographic processing has become an unthinking practice in which an image may be identically reproduced an infinite number of times by simply pressing "enter" on a computer keyboard. For those who work in alternative processes that require an intense amount of time and labor, the speed of production is not a concern. The focus is placed instead on the hands-on experience, depending on human involvement, not machinic production.

Many use photography to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our world. This goal is commonly pursued through the production of images that isolate the subject, capturing it in a fraction of a second of time. For example, people are often photographed in moments of poignancy. These photographs provide documentation of an otherwise quickly passing instant. The subjects of these images appear frozen, as if they exist outside of time and apart from our world of continual flux and change.

The capturing of such moments has been a guiding aesthetic for many photographers. Henri Cartier-Bresson articulated his photographic approach in the 1952 book The Decisive Moment. Here he defined the act of photography as "... the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression." (2) Harold "Doc" Edgerton's 1931 development of the electronic flash could quite possibly be seen as the apex of a photographic quest to stop action and time. Images such as Milk Drop Coronet (1957) and Bullet Through Apple (1964) depict single instantaneous events impossible for the unaided eye to see.

While images made with these alternative processes are often beautiful, they could also be viewed as sentimental, encouraging individuals to cling to particular moments and events in a world of impermanence and change. Perhaps they represent the failure of photography to fulfill its potential to "show things as they are": fundamentally changing and impermanent. In response to these challenges, the craft's unique blend of mechanical and artistic facets endow it with many possibilities photographers might utilize in the production of their work. Through the use of extended exposures, photography can transcend single, isolated moments and provide a more complex representation of the world in which we live.

Photographers use assorted techniques to achieve these longer exposures, such as a tiny aperture without a lens or filters to reduce the amount of light reaching the film. No matter how photographers achieve these longer exposures, the resulting images reveal the temporary and ever-changing nature of the world around us. These images, exposed over time, contain artifacts of motion--blurred objects and ghosted, semi-transparent forms. In this "continuity of moments" we are arguably able to see more deeply into the world.

When photography is approached through these processes, not only the images but also the actions of the photographer change. Prolonged exposures give photographers time to fully engage with the subject in a contemplative way. In this direct, focused encounter a photographer moves from observation to engagement, becoming fully conscious and aware throughout the exposure. From the moment the shutter opens to the time it closes the photographer monitors all aspects of the subject, including light conditions, motion, sound, and all of the subtleties that continually occur but often go unrecognized during a conventional, short exposure.

Of course exposure times vary in length: some may be measured in days or months, others in hours or minutes, and some in a few short seconds. A photograph can only show a segment of time, but if an exposure is long enough to give representation to time, it can result in a subject that may be seen to transcend the world of everyday appearances and provide that long-sought glimpse of the sublime ordinariness and plain beauty that continually surround us. Jonathon Keats, for example, has recently started a project at the Hotel des Arts in San Francisco that will utilize an exposure time of one-hundred years. The photographs and the act of making them are both an exploration of time, culminating in the representation of past, present, and future in one still image.

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Nothing about these techniques comes easily. They take time and require great effort, yet it is clear that we are squarely in the middle of a photographic renaissance. At no time in the craft's history have so many artists and photographers experimented with such a wide variety of photographic techniques. Many artists seem to be getting involved with these processes as a reaction to digital methods--both digital cameras and the digital darkroom--that some consider alienating and impersonal. Others are exploring them precisely because of the ease of digital methods.

Regardless of the motivation for this renaissance, its exponential growth can be credited to the Internet. The Web is ideally suited to connect geographically dispersed people with niche interests. There are several Web sites and discussion forums that focus specifically on or offer information regarding these hands-on techniques. (3) The discussion rises above the traditional barriers of space and time, politics and language, in an exchange of images and information. In the May 2005 issue of Artforum, photographer Tim Davis declared that photography was in a "Heyday!" where "anything is possible." (4) Judging from the renewed exploration of alternative methods and means going on now I might say he's right.