Congratulations to all involved in the conception and building of the new Lishui International Handmade Photography Centre in Lishui, Zhejiang, China. I am honoured and excited to be an Advisor to the Centre to share knowledge and expertise in a range of historical and alternative photographic printing processes, in particular Chrysotype and Salted Paper.
Spotlight on: Tony McLean
Based in the UK, Tony’s photographic work includes landscapes, street scenes and interactions between people or wildlife. The detail and tones in many of his landscape images are beautifully accentuated by the effect of printing in platinum and palladium.
Tony began exploring chrysotype gold printing in the late 1990s as an alternative to the black and brown hues of his platinum prints. His experiments with chrysotype and fixed-out baryta fibre-based paper show the many possibilities of working with this print-out process.
To aid his experimentation, Tony describes scouring auction sites for ampoules of antique gold chloride and being gifted gold solutions from a friend who made these by dissolving scrap gold sourced from a jeweller.
Bavarian Roof Tops shown above is a favourite image of mine. To view more of his work with 19th century photographic printing processes, visit Tony’s Flickr page.
To read about Tony’s explorations with chrysotype, click here to purchase a copy of Chrysotype: A Contemporary Guide to Photographic Printing in Gold.
Chrysotype: a contemporary guide to photographic printing in gold
Available in October 2020, the front cover for Chrysotype has been released. The book is divided into three sections: history; preparation and how-to; and the work of contemporary artists using chrysotype.
A big thank you to the 'foundations' that have enabled my art practice, which has led to writing this guide to photographic printing in (nanoparticle) gold - Centre for Creative Photography, Adelaide, Mike Ware, Ellie Young (Gold Street Studios), Christina Z. Anderson.