Process
The articles on this page explain the techniques behind Brandon James work with Alternative Process photography. Alternative Process
refers to photographic methods which have fallen out of favor or which may always have been foreign to mainstream photography. Such photographic
methods include: albumen prints, argyrotypes, cyanotypes, daguerrotypes, kallitypes, and many more.
Box Photographs
This series of mysterious objects in an ambiguous space were photographed with a home built lens mounted on a 4x5 camera. Instead of film, the images were cast onto paper, which I then used as a negative. By combining the distortion of my lens with the softness of these paper negatives, I was able to create truly ethereal images.
Taos Cyanotypes
These images were made with a handmade camera, set with a simple lens. Sir William Henry Fox Talbot used a similar camera in the 1830’s called
a mousetrap
camera because of its size.
I created my negative with a piece of vellum hand coated with a light sensitive emulsion, placed in the back of the camera wet, and exposed for 4 to 6 hours in the bright New Mexico sun. I then contact printed my negative onto a piece of paper which had been photo-sensitized with a cyanotype solution.
A cyanotype is a very early non-silver photographic process invented in 1842 which uses two chemicals: Ammonium iron(III) citrate and Potassium ferricyanide. This material may not be used for enlargements, as such all cyanotypes are contact prints. UV radiation, either through lamps or the sun, are used to burn an image into the material. The chemicals used in this process create the attractive prussian blue for which cyanotypes are known.
The Car Book
I produced the imagery in The Car Book with a hand made camera. This camera was designed to be a little smaller then a deck of playing cards. The lens I used casts an image a half an inch in diameter (12.7 mm). The book contains 24 images, all of which are cyanotypes, a very early non-silver photographic process invented by Sir John Herschel. (For more on cyanotypes see the Toas Cyanotype article above.)
Kallitype Book
This book presents a fictitious and mysterious narrative centering around experiments that have been long abandoned. I wanted these images to look like something out of the 1860's. Kallitypes are from that period and have the antique look I needed to enhance my story.
I spent a few weeks working on different variations of developers and emulsions before I settle on the following:
My negatives are Kodak Tri-X 4x5 film processed using their HC-110 developer.
I coated sheets of Cranes Platinotype, neutral paper using a kallitype solution consisting of equal parts Silver Nitrate to Ferric Oxalate (8 drops of each) and 1% Gold Chloride (1 drop). The emulsions was applied once with a Hake brush and the blown dry.
Using a contact printing frame, I placed my negative firmly against the front surface of my photo-sensitized paper. I then placed it in a UV box and exposed for no more than 4 minutes.
I processed the kallitype using Adjusted Sodium Acetate Developer with additional Sodium Acetate. The print was water washed before clearing in EDTA using a traditional three bath method. Next, I used a 5% solution of hypo and then washed for a half an hour.
