The Lab · The Alternative Process Lab

Iron and light

Iron salts that print out under ultraviolet. Cheap, stable, and blue.

Herschel's Prussian blue print. Coat, expose in the sun, wash in water.

Silver and iron together, the colour of old varnish.

The longest tonal scale in photography, matte and permanent.

Direct positives on polished plates. Each one unique, each one a mirror.

Silvered copper fumed with iodine. The first process the public ever saw.

Collodion poured on lacquered iron. The fairground portrait, ready in minutes.

Silver in paper fibre and egg white. Where the print run began.

Talbot's salted paper, the first positive from a negative.

Egg white gloss. The look of the whole nineteenth century album.

Prints grown from juice and patience, some never fixed at all.

Crushed petals and spinach, bleached by weeks of sun.

Expired photo paper left in the sun, fixed or left to keep changing.