Discovering Van Dyke Brown Printing
Photography has been part of my creative practice for many years, although much of my photographic work has remained in my personal archive. I have primarily used my photographs as references for drawings and linocut prints, rather than treating them as finished artworks in their own right.
I have always been drawn to handmade techniques and the physical experience of working with materials. While I loved taking photographs, digital printing never quite felt like the right way to bring them into the physical world. I wanted something more tactile, something that involved my hands, materials and the unpredictability of an analogue process.
During my MA Fine Art: Printmaking at the University of the West of England, Bristol, I had the opportunity to work in the darkroom. It turned out to be the discovery I had been waiting for.
I was immediately fascinated by photograms and their ability to create images directly through light and physical contact. I also discovered cyanotype, a wonderfully simple historical photographic process that felt completely aligned with my love of handmade methods. There was just one problem: the blue.
As much as I appreciated the technique, its characteristic blue colour never quite suited my visual language. So I kept looking.
That search led me to Van Dyke Brown printing, another historical alternative photographic process, closely related to cyanotype in its contact-printing approach but using silver-based chemistry to produce beautiful warm brown and sepia tones.
And that was it. I had found what I was looking for.
For the first time, photography felt naturally connected to my printmaking practice, not only through the images themselves, but through the physical act of making them.
From Photograms to Linophotograms
My first experiments with Van Dyke Brown printing involved creating digital negatives, printing my photographs onto transparent film and using them for contact exposure. I then began exploring traditional photograms, creating images directly with light and objects, without a photographic negative.
But a new question emerged: what if I could create my own negatives entirely by hand, without using digital technology?
This brought me back to linocut, the technique at the heart of my artistic practice.
Could I use a linocut print to create a handmade photographic negative? And what kind of image would emerge when a relief print was translated into a light-sensitive photographic process?
These questions became the starting point for my experiments with LINOPHOTOGRAMS, bringing together two familiar methods of image-making and exploring the possibilities that emerge between them.
Photographic Chemistry Partner
The photographic chemistry used in my Van Dyke Brown prints is supplied by Bexhill Darkroom, supporting my ongoing exploration of historical and alternative photographic processes.