Series Overview
The notebook documents experimental darkroom practice, alternative photographic processes, and the intersection of analogue chemistry with contemporary science. Each series explores a specific technique, project, or conceptual investigation.
Core Techniques
001 · A Brief History of Mordançage
Mordançage series · August 2025
Chemistry bites photography. An introduction to mordançage—the process that physically lifts photographic emulsion from its paper base. Covers history (Liesegang to Sudre), chemistry (copper chloride oxidation cycles), modern materials, and safety protocols.
Start here if: You want the foundational technique that recurs throughout this practice.
010 · Sabattier in the City of Lights
Experimental Darkroom · October 2025
Partial tone reversal through mid-development exposure. Applying the Sabattier effect to Paris street photography using a dual-enlarger technique for precise control. Explores the chemistry of silver halide reversal and the Mackie line effect.
011 · Kinetic Darkroom
Experimental Darkroom · December 2025
Intentional enlarger movement—the darkroom's answer to ICM. Physical manipulation of the projected image during printing, with the inverse-square law doing the work.
Lith Printing (3 parts)
December 2025 – February 2026
The chemistry and craft of infectious development—soft warm highlights against gritty, high-contrast shadows.
- 030 · The Chemistry of Chaos — the semiquinone cascade and why lith behaves unlike any other development.
- 031 · Control Through Contradiction — exposure, the snatch point, temperature, snowballs and peppercorns.
- 032 · Materials, Workflow, and the Contemporary Printer — papers that still lith in 2025, chemistry, and process.
Start here if: You want a deep, practical dive into one experimental process.
Projects & Series
004 · Quantum Mordançage
Riso series · August 2025
Photographing quantum computing hardware, then chemically disrupting those photographs with mordançage. A conceptual investigation into decoherence, measurement, and uncertainty—published as a limited-edition Risograph zine (15 copies) and first shown at Experimental 2025, Barcelona.
Start here if: You're interested in the intersection of quantum physics and photographic chemistry.
Beneath the Surface (3 parts)
August – September 2025
Site-specific mordançage prints made for, installed in, and later re-exhibited from Art for All's “Success & Glory” festival at Easton Hansakäytävä, Helsinki.
- 005 · Beneath the Surface — making the prints and installing them in a working shopping mall.
- 007 · Time, Speed, and Improvisation — a reflection on making an entire show under a one-week deadline.
- 008 · Re-exhibiting at Pimiö 25 — the work in a new context at Kameraseura Galleria West, Kaapelitehdas.
Start here if: You want to follow a project from concept through multiple exhibitions.
RA4 Mordançage (2 parts)
December 2025
Pushing mordançage chemistry into colour materials it was never meant to touch.
- 012 · Breaking RA4 Apart — lifting colour emulsion layers from fully processed RA4 prints, and the chemistry of why it happens.
- 013 · Chromatic Archaeology — what the ruins of a colour print reveal about how photographic colour is constructed.
014–016 · Chromoskedasic Sabattier
Experimental Darkroom · December 2025 (3 parts)
Colour from black-and-white materials through physics alone—silver nanoparticles scattering light via surface plasmon resonance.
- 014 · Colour from Silver, Light from Scattering — history and context.
- 015 · The Science of Colour from Silver — Mie scattering, plasmons, and the counterintuitive chemistry.
- 016 · Chromoskedasic DC — applying it to photographs of the Washington DC Metro.
Essays
009 · Finding Mortality Through the Lens
September 2025
A reflection on Tim Carpenter's To Photograph is to Learn How to Die—photography as a practice of attention, transience, and mortality.
033 · The Cleanroom and the Darkroom
February 2026
On making things by hand, and why experimental physics and analogue photography aren't metaphors for each other—they're the same practice.
Technical Investigations
002 · Risography for Photographers
Riso series · August 2025
An introduction to Risograph printing for photographic work—stencil duplication, registration drift, oil-based inks, and aesthetic possibilities.
003 · From Photo to Two-Plate Riso
Riso series · August 2025
A manual separation workflow for two-plate Riso photo prints—cool and warm plates, trapping for drift, and halftoning.
Deep Dives
017–029 · Sustainable Darkroom
December 2025 – January 2026 (13 parts)
A rigorous, evidence-based examination of analogue photography's environmental footprint—and why the conversation is usually pointed in the wrong direction (silver in fixer, not developer choice).
- The Caffenol Question
- Silver's Shadow
- A Defensible Practice
- Colour's Complications: C-41
- The Colour Print Question: RA-4
- Lith Printing's Surprising Profile
- Mordançage: An Honest Assessment
- The Wash Question
- Chromoskedasic: The Workshop Sludge Problem
- Synthesis: A Framework
- Alternative Processes
- The Upstream Cost: Film Manufacturing
- End of Life
Start here if: You want a rigorous look at analogue photography's environmental footprint and harm-reduction strategies.
Suggested Reading Paths
New to alternative processes? 001 · Mordançage → 010 · Sabattier → Works
Interested in quantum + photography? 004 · Quantum Mordançage → 033 · The Cleanroom and the Darkroom
Want to see a project develop? Follow Beneath the Surface from making through re-exhibition.
Want a deep technical dive? Work through the Lith Printing trilogy or the Chromoskedasic series.
Concerned about environmental impact? Start the Sustainable Darkroom series (13 parts).
Just browsing? Explore Works for finished projects and exhibitions.