Lumen Prints
Quarantine created a unique opportunity to explore this process from home. Silver gelatin paper is covered with ephemera and exposed to extensive amounts of sunlight that transforms the surface into unique photograms. Often artists scan the prints from this process before they reach wet processing, digitizing the remarkable colors that would otherwise fade. But with experimentation I've discovered several ways to preserve and even push them in new directions. All of the prints here are toned using small amounts of Gold and/or Selenium. When the prints are finally "fixed" for permanence, they retain these colors with minimal shift.
The darkroom is filled with technical details, but many of the papers I use in this process are quite old and technically imperfect. It's gratifying to find a way to use material that would otherwise be deemed useless.