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Photogram projects by Lloyd Godman - photogram artists

This describes developing photograms that have been exposed onto standard photographic Black & White photographic paper.

While the light sensitive material is actually effected by the light during the exposure, in that the silver salts embedded in the emulsion  are changed to metallic silver, leaving the object on top of the sensitive material for an extended  period of time with light falling on it will produce a print with a 'shadow image'. This can take a very long time, perhaps days or even weeks. (I have made photograms using this method with standard photographic paper and the installation @ the Speed of Light from 2002 was based on this.

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However, the development process can be speed up by exposing the material for a much shorter time and then immersing the material (paper in this case) in paper developer. The object laid on the photographic paper during the exposure will have stopped the light reaching the sensitive surface and in this area the paper will remain white, while where the light affected the paper, it will develop up black. This is the basis for all photography, B&W, colour, negatives and colour transparencies alike.

Safe Light

As photographic paper is sensitive only to the blue/green end of the spectrum and we can therefore use a safe light with yellow or red light to watch the image form at the development stage without 'fogging' the paper. 
 
 

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