Texas Photographic Society is proud to announce By Hand: Alternative Processes, our fifth exhibition featuring hand-made photo-based imagery created using alternative photographic processes and historical printing methods. Our juror is acclaimed artist, educator, writer, and editor Christina Z. Anderson. 

JUROR'S STATEMENT

In the 1960s there was a growing interest in creating photographs no longer tethered to factory-produced photographic paper. 19th century processes were resurrected as was experimentation with traditional and new photographic materials. It was said of this trend:

Now the making process has not only become the subject matter for photographers, but by exploring a variety of new and old processes the shape of ideas as well as images has changed the appearance of what had traditionally been referred to as ‘photography.’…we do not know as yet where the freedom made possible by new techniques will lead. (Van Deren Coke, “Some Thoughts on the 60s Continuum” in Image Vol 15 No. 1 March 1972).

Sixty years later this trend continues. Alternative process photography or “alt pro” is all about engagement with the handmade print. I will be jurying the Texas Photographic Society’s call for contemporary handmade works slated for exhibition in December 7, 2023 through February 7, 2024. Processes that will be considered are numerous*, as long as the end product is a handmade print. My juror’s eye will be toward the contemporary expression of alt pro today.

*Processes such as kallitype, Vandyke brown, argyrotype, platinum, chrysotype, carbon, cyanotype, salted paper, gum bichromate, anthotype, wet plate collodion, tintype, ambrotype, chemigrams, daguerreotype, bromoil, chromo, liquid emulsion, lith, mordançage, cliché verre, lumen prints, and traditional analog materials used in experimental ways.

JUROR'S BIO

Christina Z. Anderson’s work focuses on the contemporary vanitas printed in a variety of alternative photographic processes, such as gum and casein bichromate, cyanotype, salted paper, chrysotype, palladium, chemigrams, chromo, mordançage, lumen prints, and combinations thereof. Anderson’s work has shown nationally and internationally in over 120 shows and 60 publications.

She has six books in print which have sold in over 40 countries: from newest to oldest, The Experimental Darkroom: Contemporary Uses of Traditional Black & White Photographic Materials, Digital Negatives with QuadToneRIP, Demystifying QTR for Photographers and Printmakers (co-authored with Ron Reeder), Cyanotype, The Blueprint in Contemporary Practice, Salted Paper Printing, A Step-by-Step Manual Highlighting Contemporary Artists, Gum Printing, A Step by Step Manual Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice, and Gum Printing and Other Amazing Contact Printing Processes.

Anderson is Editor for Focal Press/Routledge’s Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography series and Professor of Photography at Montana State University. To see her work, visit christinaZanderson.com and @christinaZanderson.