Darkroom Fun with Photograms

The photogram is an alternative photography printing process in which you create images by simply laying objects on the photographic paper or emulsion and expose it to light.I’ve been experimenting with photograms so far and I’m here to share the things I learned while doing the technique.

Searching for Inspiration

Before starting work on my own photograms, I found it very useful to scour the Internet for examples of what other people have produced. No-one is an Island and seeing what other photographers have done helped open my mind to the possibilities of what can be achieved with a photogram. I have started this Pinterest board with some of the best examples I have found so far. I was amazed at the fantastic works other photographers had produced with the technique. Famous artists such as Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy helped pioneer Photograms in their early days. Since then, experimental photographers have kept pushing the boundaries with creative ideas; Klea McKenna, for example, produces photograms of rainwater – How cool is that!

Playing with Materials

To see how an object or material acts in a Photogram, it’s very useful to test it out and see for yourself. I collected a bunch of materials to test in my experiments such as:

• A Cassette Tape
• Feathers
• Light Bulbs
• Nails and other small metal objects
• Cling Film/Plastic Wrap
• Cotton wool
• Steel wool
• Water
• Soap bubbles

Playing with Composition and Chance

Getting good results with Photograms depends a lot on how you compose and arrange the objects. This certainly takes some practice to see how each object relates to each other and how to place them to get interesting results. However, despite the importance of composition, I have also found I got the most interesting Photograms when I accepted and embraced the ideas of playfulness and randomness. For instance, I often like dropping lighter objects (such as cotton wool) onto the photo paper. I also followed this notion for the Photogram shown below. The square shapes are actually dice – The image was made using two short exposures and in each exposure, I dropped the dice onto the paper from above so they landed in different positions.

Playing with Texture and Abstraction

My favorite object I have found so far for producing photograms is cling film/plastic wrap. I really like the texture it produces, especially when it overlaps on itself (another thing which often happens by chance). In the photograms, it produces a look reminiscent of wispy smoke in some cases.

I started my Photogram fun focusing on specific objects (such as the light bulbs and cassette tape) for each composition. I enjoyed doing this but recently have found I find it even more exciting to produce more abstract images with no specific focus since this allows me to be more free in the materials I use. The great thing with photograms is that every image is unique since you will never have exactly the same arrangement of objects.

Playing with Surfaces

Looking to play with Photograms, even more, I also started moving away from experimenting on paper and have now also begun testing them on stones using liquid emulsion. Below are a couple of my attempts so far. If you are interested in seeing more, please follow along on my Instagram page!

Share your darkroom experiments with fellow Lomographers by uploading your prints to your LomoHome!

written by tomas_bates on 2016-04-08 #tutorials #tipster #darkroom #photogram