Gum Bichromate Printing Workshop

A Two to Three Day Hands-On Intensive workshop in 19th-Century Photographic Alchemy.

Step away from the screen and into the tactile, unpredictable beauty of gum bichromate printing — a 19th-century photographic process where light, pigment, and paper become your raw materials.

Across two to three full days, we’ll explore how to create richly layered, handmade photographic prints using this expressive and painterly technique.

What You’ll Learn

• Preparing and working with digital negatives for gum printing

• Mixing your own light-sensitive emulsion using watercolour pigment, gum arabic, and ammonium dichromate

• Hand-coating high-quality watercolour paper

• Exposing your prints with UV light using digital negatives

• Developing images in water — watching them emerge by hand

• The art of multi-layer printing for tonal depth and painterly richness

We’ll focus on building up to four layers per image during the workshop — enough to create striking results and give you a real sense of the process. (In my own practice, some prints involve 4–9 layers.) You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of the technique and several prints of your own.

Before You Arrive

To get the most from your time in the workshop, I ask each participant to send in:

• Two colour image files (300dpi, 10” on the long side)

• One optional black & white image file

These will be used to prepare your digital negatives. Full instructions will be provided after registration

Who It’s For

This workshop is ideal for:

• Photographers interested in alternative processes

• Artists exploring the space between image and object

• Anyone curious about handmade photography

• No previous darkroom or analogue experience needed — just a willingness to experiment.

Enquire or Register

Interested in joining the next workshop? Get In Touch or Register Interest using the form below.

Mentoring
 For Artists & Photographers →
 For Emerging Artists & Graduates →