To celebrate the art of handcrafted prints, Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, our eleventh-annual, international juried exhibition of images created using traditional darkroom, historical, and alternative photographic processes and methods.
In the current takeover of imagery presented on computer screens and the overwhelming volume of digitally printed pictures, the purpose of our Light Sensitive exhibition is to celebrate, promote, and reaffirm the art of handcrafted prints that uniquely belong to the tradition of light sensitive creative processes. Each year we search for work representing creativity, passion, and display of the beauty these light sensitive processes bring.
Banner image by Rebecca Zeiss
Awards Special thank you to Brian Taylor for his insightful vision as our juror. Choosing awards in an exhibition of highly amazing works proved to very challenging and much consideration (and pacing through the galleries) was given to all of the darkroom creative art in the galleries. Congratulations to the awardees and everyone juried into Light Sensitive.
First Place – Rebecca Zeiss Second Place – Richard Hricko Third Place – Sara Silks Award of Excellence – Diana Bloomfield Honorable Mentions – Allan Barnes – Matt Connors – Wendy Constantine – Susan Elizabeth de Witt – Elizabeth Davis – Anne Eder – Jeannie Hutchins – Jen Leahy – Maureen Mulhern-White – Emily Penrod – Gerado Stübing – Vaune Trachtman
Juror Art Intersection is honored to have Brian Taylor jury this year’s Light Sensitive exhibition. He is known for his innovative explorations of alternative photographic processes including historic 19th Century printing techniques, mixed media, and hand made books. His work has been exhibited nationally and abroad in numerous solo and group shows and is included in the permanent collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
Brian served as the Executive Director of the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA for 4 1/2 years, retiring in 2019 to return to his art practice in the studio. He received his B.A. Degree in Visual Arts from the University of California at San Diego, an M.A. from Stanford University, and his M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico and served as a Professor of Photography for over 35 years, and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at San Jose State University.
The platinum/palladium process is one of the most beautiful and archival processes, and in this workshop, you will create platinum/palladium prints from your images. Ryuijie will teach a one-day workshop about this luminous 19th century process in the Art Intersection Photographic Arts Lab and the participants will take home two to three prints of their images.
As a participant, you will send digital files of black and white images to us and we will create a digital negative adjusted for Ryuijie’s process. You will hand-coat fine art paper with the light-sensitive solution and expose the sanitized paper through your digital negative using one of our UV light sources. After processing the exposed paper, you will have your photograph on a platinum/palladium print.
Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, our ninth-annual, international juried exhibition of images created using traditional darkroom and historical and alternative photographic processes and methods. In the current trend of imagery presented on computer screens and the overwhelming volume of digitally printed pictures, Light Sensitive reaffirms and promotes the art of handcrafted prints that uniquely belong to the tradition of light sensitive creative processes.
As our juror this year we are honored to have Christopher James, University Professor and Director of the MFA program in Photography and Integrated Media at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Awards for Light Sensitive
First place $350
Second palce $250
Third place $150
Three honorable mentions
Art Intersection will pay return postage for individuals receiving one of the above awards and honorable mentions.
Acceptable Processes
Process include, but are not limited, to the following: silver gelatin prints, albumen, anthotype, argyrotype, athenatype, Bayard direct positive, calotype, carbon, casein, chrysotype, cyanotype, dusting-on process, gum bichromate, gumoil, Herschel’s breath printing, photopolymer gravure, Ivorytype, kallitype, mordançage, platinum/palladium, printing-out-paper, solarplate intaglio, van dyke brown, wet plate collodion, whey process, Ziatype, combinations of any of these processes, and all photographically based image-making techniques that incorporate traditional studio-based mediums such as printmaking, ceramics, or painting.
Both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work may be submitted.
Conventional, unmodified digital inkjet prints are not acceptable for entry; however, the use of digital negatives, created for printing any of the above processes is acceptable.
Important 2019 Dates
January 23 – Submit online with JPEG files and paid fee by midnight MT (GMT-7)
January30 – You will receive an email notification of selected Work
February 27 – Due Date for selected Work to be received and ready to install at Art Intersection
March 9 – Light Sensitive seven-week exhibition opens for viewing
March 16 – Light Sensitive Reception from 5 – 7pm, please join us!
April 27 – Light Sensitive closes at 6pm
April 25 – Local Work pick-up
May 2 – Return shipping of Work will begin
May 23 – Last Date to pick up or arrange shipment, after this date Work is considered abandoned
About the Juror
Christopher James is an internationally known artist and photographer whose photographs, paintings, and alternative process printmaking have been exhibited in galleries and museums in this country and abroad. His work has been published and shown extensively, including exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art-Boston. Represented by the Lee Witkin Gallery in New York City for over two decades he has also shown at Pace-McGill (NYC), Contrasts Gallery (London), Michelle Chomette (Paris), Hartje Gallery (Berlin), and Photokina (Germany). He has published extensively including Aperture, Camera (Switzerland), American Photographer, Solstice (for short fiction), and Interview magazine and in books such as The Antiquarian Avant Garde, á Prova de Aguà: Waterproof, Human Documents, and Handcrafted: The Art and Practice of the Handmade Print (China).
All three editions of his book, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, have received international critical acclaim and are universally recognized by artists, curators, historians, and educators as the definitive text in the genre of alternative process photography and photographically integrated media. A significantly expanded 900 page / 700 image, 3rd edition was published in 2015.
Christopher, after 13 years at Harvard University, is presently University Professor and Director of the MFA in Photography and Integrated Media program at Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA. He received his undergraduate degree from Massachusetts College of Art and his masters from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is also a painter, graphic designer, author, and a professional scuba diver. Christopher offers individually customized alternative process workshops and portfolio consultations in his Dublin, NH studio. Christopher’s web site is www.christopherjames-studio.com
You can view images from Light Sensitive 2018 by clicking here.
Michael Puff presents a printing process combining a Cyan-Magenta-Yellow digital print on watercolor paper with the beautiful, warm tones of palladium for the Black layer. This wonderful process connects today’s digital, color imagery with the unique properties of the nineteenth-century palladium darkroom process.
In this workshop you will print using your color digital images, create and print color separations and digital negatives, and coat, expose, and develop the palladium over layer. You will print the CMY (cyan-yellow-magenta) portion of your images onto a watercolor paper, and then finish the Black layer using palladium in the darkroom with a K (black) separated digital negative.
By the end of the workshop you will have created several prints using this beautiful process.
Submissions for Light Sensitive 2018 are now closed. For more exhibition opportunities, please visit our Calls for Work page.
Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, an annual juried exhibition of images created using traditional and alternative photographic processes. Past work has included analog c-prints, platinum/palladium, cyanotype, gelatin silver, gum bichromate, wet plate collodion tintypes and ambrotypes, chemigrams, and other printing processes. Both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work may be submitted.
Art Intersection staff will select up to three artists from Light Sensitive to show additional work during the (re)View exhibition in 2018.
Important 2018 Dates
January 16 – Application with JPEG files and paid fee must be completed by midnight
January23 – You will receive an email notification of selected Work
February 20 – Due Date for selected Work to be received and ready to install at Art Intersection
March 10 – Light Sensitive Reception from 5 – 7pm, please join us!
April 21 – Light Sensitive closes at 6pm
April 26 – Local Work pick-up
May 3 – Return shipping of Work will begin
May 24 – Last Date to pick up or arrange shipment, after this date Work is considered abandoned
About the Juror
scott b. davis is an artist and founder of the Medium Festival of Photography. His photographs are created with wooden view cameras ranging in size from 8” x 10” to 16” x 20”. His photographs explore the Sonoran desert and ordinary urban spaces in the American landscape. davis’s photographic prints are made by hand using the exquisite 19th century process of platinum printing.
His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Village Voice, the New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, and other print media. davis’s photographs have been collected by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Pier 24 in San Francisco, the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum of Photographic Arts, and others.
Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, an annual juried exhibition of images created using traditional and alternative photographic processes. Past work has included analog c-prints, platinum/palladium, cyanotype, gelatin silver, gum bichromate, wet plate collodion tintypes and ambrotypes, chemigrams, and other printing processes. Both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work may be submitted.
The Art Intersection curatorial staff will select three artists from Light Sensitive to show additional work during the (re)View exhibition in November 2017.
Click here: Light Sensitive 2017 to view the PDF Light Sensitive 2017 Submission Guidelines
Important 2017 Dates
January 23 (deadline extended): Application and JPEG submissions due
January 31: Notification of selected work
February 25: Selected work due at Art Intersection
March 4: Opening reception Saturday 6 – 8pm
April 15: Exhibition closes Saturday at 6pm
About the Juror
Ann M. Jastrab is currently the gallery director at RayKo Photo Center located in the SOMA arts district in San Francisco near SFMOMA and the Yerba Buena Arts Center. RayKo is a comprehensive photographic facility with rental darkrooms, digital labs, studio and galleries that has been serving the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years. RayKo Gallery serves to advance public appreciation of photography and create opportunities for regional, national and international artists to create and present their work. RayKo Gallery offers over 1600 square feet of exhibition space and presents eight to ten exhibitions yearly with many nationally recognized artists; there is also a section of the gallery called The Marketplace that is reserved for Bay Area artists and displays a wide variety of photographic work. RayKo also has a thriving artist-in-residence program.
Besides being a curator, Ann Jastrab, with an MFA degree, is a fine art photographer, master printer, and teacher as well. Ann has curated many exhibitions for RayKo as well as juried exhibitions for the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Artspan, SFAI, the Center for Fine Art Photography, and other national and international venues outside of San Francisco. She has reviewed portfolios at the Seoul International Photography Festival in Korea, FotoFest, Photolucida, GuatePhoto, Review Santa Fe, Review LA, PhotoAlliance (Our World), SPE, Medium, Palm Springs Photo Festival, Filter, Lishui International Photography Festival in China, and Click646 as well as being a juror for Critical Mass. She has also been teaching courses at the Maine Media Workshops (formerly the Maine Photographic Workshops) in Rockport, Maine since 1994.
Ann is always looking for new artists for the gallery, both for solo shows and group shows. She is most interested in seeing documentary projects, fine art photography, alternative processes/historical process work, and also work made with traditional film cameras as well as plastic and pinhole cameras. Ann is not interested in seeing work that is obviously digitally manipulated. Ann can offer exhibition opportunities as well as resident artist possibilities.
Application to Light Sensitive 2017 is now closed.
You can view images from Light Sensitive 2016 by clicking here.
Late last month we had the pleasure of hosting a Platinum/Palladium workshop in our Photographic Arts Lab led by San Francisco-based artist Michael T. Puff! A master of this luminous, tonally-rich process, Michael led our eleven participants in making gorgeous prints of their own images.
Platinum/Palladium printing, a photographic process invented in the 19th century, has long been a favorite of alternative process photographers for its highly archival nature and infinite variations of gray tones as highlights shift to shadows. In the process Michael uses, ferric oxalate, palladium, and sodium chloroplatinate are mixed together, hand-brushed onto 100% cotton rag paper, exposed to UV light through a digital negative, and then processed with potassium oxalate and sodium thiosulfate. The end result is a handcrafted print that is estimated to retain its appearance for a thousand years!
Thank you to all of our wonderful participants, and of course to Michael for traveling to us to share his expertise!
Michael instructs the class on mixing the chemicals and coating their paper
The participants mark where the image portion of their digital negatives will be centered on their paper
After exposing a coated piece of paper to UV light, Michael demonstrates developing the print
Participants process their exposed prints
Cyd looks at the class’s finished work at the end of the day
Gorgeous work produced by the students pinned up on the critique board
Michael talks about successes and things to work on with the students
Beautiful work by Lloyd Matthews
Luminous prints by Deb Alberty
A delicate, icy print by our very own Business Manager, Debra Wilson!
The platinum/palladium process is one of the most beautiful and archival processes, and in this workshop, you will create platinum/palladium prints from your images. Michael will teach a one-day, introductory workshop about this luminous 19th century process in the Art Intersection Photographic Arts Lab and the participants will take home two to three prints of their images.
As a participant, you will send digital files to us and Michael will create a digital negative adjusted for his process. You will hand-coat fine art paper with the light-sensitive solution and expose the sensitized paper through your digital negative using one of our UV light sources. After processing the exposed paper, you will have your photograph as a platinum/palladium print.
Art Intersection will supply all materials for this workshop. The making of a digital negative will be discussed, but for the workshop itself, please send two color or black and white image files (300 dpi at 10” on the long side), at least one week prior to the workshop. An email with details will be provided once you are registered.
Before the workshop, learn more about your instructor and get a preview of the platinum/palladium process! Michael will give a free lecture on his artistic practice on Friday, October 28 from 6:30 – 8pm.
Michael T. Puff
Michael T. Puff lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s been a visual artist since early childhood, working as a painter and sculptor. During his years in higher education studying Theater Arts and Egyptian Archaeology, Puff worked as a theater set designer and received many awards for his work from San Francisco Bay Theater Critics. Today he works as a systems computer programmer at Stanford University and builds miniatures, while also pursuing his passion of fine art photography.
Puff began photographing in 2004 and later, under the guidance of master printer Mark I. Nelson, learned the platinum/palladium printing method he uses in his current work. Puff uses modern digital image capture with the extremely permanent and hand-crafted platinum and palladium printing process, merging the contemporary with the historical to produce unique and captivating images. The time-staking printing process he uses, which incorporates platinum and palladium metals into the chemistry, allows for a unique image with a beautiful color and tonal range.
Puff’s love for the theater is evident in much of his work, as he photographs on stage-like sets, often using dancers and actors as models, with images that could function as small moments from a larger narrative. A surreal theme runs through much of his work, as he uses his strong digital editing skills to manipulate scale and mood creating complex otherworldly images.
An image that will be featured in Michael T. Puff’s solo exhibition in Ryan Gallery
Phoenix Rising by Michael T. Puff – featured in the Off the Wall exhibition and silent auction
Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, an annual juried exhibition of images created using traditional and alternative photographic processes. Past work has included analog c-prints, platinum, cyanotype, gelatin silver, gum bichromate, wet plate collodion tintypes, chemigrams, and other printing processes. We are honored this year to have Susan Burnstine as the juror for Light Sensitive.
The Art Intersection curatorial staff will select three artists from Light Sensitive to show additional work during the (re)View exhibition in December 2016.
Click here: Light Sensitive 2016 to view the PDF document Light Sensitive 2016 Submission Guidelines
Important 2016 Dates
January 11: Application and JPEG submissions due
January 23: Notification of selected work
February 20: Selected work due at Art Intersection
March 5: Opening reception from 6 – 8pm
April 16: Exhibition closes at 6pm
About the Juror
Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Susan is represented in galleries across the world, widely published throughout the globe, teaches workshops internationally and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column for Black and White Photography Magazine (UK).
Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, an annual juried exhibition of images created using traditional and alternative photographic processes. Past work has included analog c-prints, platinum, cyanotype, gelatin silver, gum bichromate, wet plate collodion tintypes, chemigrams, and other printing processes. We are honored this year to have Susan Burnstine as the juror for Light Sensitive.
The Art Intersection curatorial staff will select three artists from Light Sensitive to show additional work during the (re)View exhibition in December 2016.
Click here: Light Sensitive 2016 to view the PDF document Light Sensitive 2016 Submission Guidelines
Important 2016 Dates
January 11: Application and JPEG submissions due
January 23: Notification of selected work
February 20: Selected work due at Art Intersection
March 5: Opening reception from 6 – 8pm
April 16: Exhibition closes at 6pm
About the Juror
Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Susan is represented in galleries across the world, widely published throughout the globe, teaches workshops internationally and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column for Black and White Photography Magazine (UK).
