Historical
Experimental
Alternative
Digital
Hybrid
Photographic
Processes
'What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.'

John Berger, Uses of Photography (1972)

The ‘Studio of Light’ is a research laboratory and studio dedicated to photography and its reproduction bringing together the contemporary and the antiquarian – digital, the analogue and the hybrid.

The studio is based at Loughborough University in the School of the Arts supported by the expertise of other disciplines including Chemistry, Engineering and Materials Science.

We are currently focused on reviewing ‘alternative’ photographic and reprographic processes that date back to the 19th-Century to bring them into a 21st-Century context for the benefit of contemporary photographers, artists, conservators and educators.

This web site will act as a repository for our research. We hope it will be of interest to the community. We make no claims to any superior expertise - we make no recommendations – we are learning as we explore. We are interested in sharing our ideas with likeminded professionals.

We are grateful to our sponsors

Studio of Light Projects

Paul Hill : Prenotations Remastered

Argentea Gallery 17th September - 29th October
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Paul Hill and Alan Duncan inspecting final platinum-palladium prints in the Studio of Light lab.

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Paul Hill checking large negative prior to UV exposure and prining.

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Paul Hill standing in front of the finish framed prints at the private view in the Argentea Gallery.

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Scene from the private view.

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Installation of exhibition.

Text from the Argentea Gallery accompanying Paul Hill's exhibition : Turning 80 this year and still as creatively productive as ever, acclaimed British photographer Paul Hill has produced a limited edition set of platinum-palladium prints of some of his most recognised and seminal images. Prized for their rich, subtle tonal quality, wealth of fine detail and stability, platinum-palladium prints are at the summit of traditional photographic printing.

Proposing a fresh interpretation of a selection of the original 35mm negatives from his renowned Prenotations series of the 1970s, these exceptional images have been printed at a larger-scale to truly celebrate Hill’s remarkable compositions together with the superior qualities that platinum-palladium has to offer. Boasting fine detail and extreme archival stability, these beautiful prints have been handcrafted with the assistance of contemporary technology.

For the past 18 months, Hill has been working with Studio of Light at top ten University of Loughborough – specifically the photographic research and development expertise of Alan Duncan and Ben Dolman – who have devised an innovative approach to platinum-palladium printing by uniting this 19th century historical process with contemporary image making.

Opting for images that would offer a strong tonal range and impact, the negatives were scanned and digitally processed to make optimal files for the enlarged negatives ready for contact printing in the darkroom. Mastering this challenging process, they can now create consistently superior and exquisite prints, as presented in this exhibition of just 10 photographs from Hill’s most memorable work.

Hill comments

“I was so excited to get this invitation from Loughborough to participate in their venture into platinum printing and have my work printed by Alan and Ben. Their reputation as photographic innovators is well known, so I knew I was in safe hands. This is particularly important as there is only ONE negative existing of probably my best-known image – Man Against Snow – made in 1974! When they told me that the prints would last for at least 1,000 years it was an easy decision. To think that if a photograph was made by this process at the time of the Norman Conquest and it would still be OK today is phenomenal!”

Argentea Gallery is extremely honoured to work with Hill and Loughborough University to exhibit these outstanding prints in The Midlands where much of Hill’s work was conceived. These rare prints of such beguiling luminosity, made with premium noble metals, attentive patience and meticulous precision will appeal to collectors who relish both the unique materiality and exclusivity of these influential images.

Signed copies of the recently released 3rd edition of Hill’s seminal book Approaching Photography, which includes several photographs from the exhibition, is also available to purchase alongside a selection of smaller, vintage prints from our Print Room.

Born in Ludlow, Shropshire in 1941, Paul Hill now lives and works in the Peak District of Derbyshire with fellow photographer, Maria Falconer. Hill has exhibited internationally and co-authored numerous books. His works are held in prestigious private and public collections including The Hyman Collection; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford; the Arts Council Collection; the Government Art Collection; the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm; the Australian National Gallery, Canberra and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the Yale Center for British Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Cleveland Museum of Art in the USA; and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

He was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 1990, and awarded an MBE for services to photography in 1994. He has honorary doctorates in art from Derby and De Montfort Universities. The Paul Hill/Photographer’s Place Archive is held by Library of Birmingham.


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Paul Hill : Man Against Snow, Austria 2021 made from original 1974 negative

30" x 40" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Legs over High Tor, Matlock Bath 2021 from original 1975 negative

30" x 40" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Girl in Anorak, Matlock Bath 2021 from original 1977 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Girl in Striped Shirt, Matlock Bath 2021 from original 1976 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Hand in Car, Brassington 2021 from original 1976 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Astrobouncer, Shrewsbury Flower Show 2021 from original 1975 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Hand and Legs in Water, Buxton 2021 from original 1975 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Airbed and Swimmer, Bradbourne 2021 from original 1976 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Shadow on Toilet Wall, Ashbourne 2021 from original 1974 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Paul Hill : Josephine, Nottingham 2021 from original 1974 negative

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320


Loughborough University Enterprise EPG Funded Project

The aim of this EPG funded project from Loughborough University's Enterprise Office was to enable the Studio of Light to develop a network with leading artists, photographers, galleries and curators, to create a portfolio of platnium-palladium prints that showcased Studio of Light work and potentially in the future offer master workshops in digital imaging and platnium-palladium printing.


The images below are from artists and photographers who have contributed to the development of the Studio of Light portfolio which will continue to add new work to demonstrate a wide range of subject and approaches to image making. The intention now is to loan out the portfolio sets to potential collaborators, curators, archivists, public and private galleries so they can physically see and inspect the work being done by the Studio of Light.


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Paul Hill : Early Work

Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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Paul Hill : Early Work

Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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John Higginson : Indigenous

Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Sophy Rickett : Stones

Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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Abigail Lane and Lala Meredith-Vula: Exhibit 01

Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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Ben Dolman : Wanlip Pool

Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Alan Duncan : Daz

Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320

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Alan Duncan : Beth

Platinum and Palladium on Bergger Cot 320


Olympics Portrait Project

In preparation for Tokyo 2020 the Studio of Light is working on a project to display photographs of athletes – past and present – to show the impact that Loughborough has had on the world sporting stage through art.
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Lord Coe

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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David Moorcroft OBE

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Crystal Lane

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Beth Dobbin

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Dan Greaves

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Sam Ruddock

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Ian Armiger

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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George Gandy

Photograph by Alan Duncan


The Forest Is The Museum : Abigail Lane & Lala Meredith-Vula


Text from Fineshade Woods contemporary art exhibition, 30 November 2019 – 30 March 2020 : The culmination of Abigail Lane and Lala Meredith-Vula‘s residency at Fineshade Wood recontextualises lost property collected in the forest, the artists working with Forestry England to reflect the human presence within these woods as well as our ongoing relationship with nature and managed natural spaces.

Our possessions follow us and the process of losing, finding, and handing belongings into a lost property point is familiar worldwide. Each of the ninety items which now comprise The Forest is the Museum collection were considered important enough to carry into the forest by someone and, once lost, identified by a passerby as something worth an attempt to reunite with its owner. Most items have little monetary value, but tagging and cataloguing the collection re-empowers these objects, imbuing each with new value and significance.

Notably, many of the objects are plastic, a material which survives long past our individual human lifespan and arguably beyond that of many of our natural spaces.

The installation and accompanying photographs project our current existence into the future, treating the everyday artefacts of our recreation as future archaeological specimens or articles of evidence.

This exhibition features the beginnings of a new body of work in collaboration with Loughborough University‘s Studio of Light, with artefacts from the collection forensically photographed and presented as incredibly detailed platinum prints, a highly specialised photographic and reprographic process that dates back to the 19th century.

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Abigail Lane & Lala Meredith-Vula

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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Abigail Lane & Lala Meredith-Vula

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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Abigail Lane & Lala Meredith-Vula

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag

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Abigail Lane & Lala Meredith-Vula

20" x 24" Platinum and Palladium on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag


Olympics and Culture: Tracings, Projections and Intersections

Joint Exhibition of Joshibi of Art and Design, and Loughborough University. July 2018 Tokyo

For this curated joint exhibition between the staff and students of Loughborough University and Joshibi University of Art and Design the Studio of Light decided to make a set of print platinum-palladium prints using Awagami’s Platinum Gampi handmade paper. The Gampi paper is one of the thinest papers you can use for platinum printing weighting only 30 grams which makes for very exacting coating of the paper and developing of the print as it can tear at any moment but it affords the resultant print with a delightful luminosity and translucent quality.

To coat the paper the Studio of Light had to invest in and used a specialist Kobayashi 6” soft synthetic brush as it is the only brush which did not damage the delicate surface of fine washi Japanese paper. Making the 25” x 38” Gampi prints was technically challenging and very expensive but the experience of making these prints was highly rewarding and set a new bench mark of what the Studio of Light could offer to photographers and artists in the making of unique high-end photographic prints and artefacts.

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Joshibi Exhibition, July 2018

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Joshibi Exhibition, July 2018

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National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine, Loughborough University

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Sport Technology Institute, Loughborough University

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine, Loughborough University

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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2012 London Olympics Torch, Wetplate Photograph

Photograph by Alan Duncan

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Great Britain Team Blazer from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Loughborough University Archive

Photograph by Ben Dolman

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1948 London Olympics Torch, Wetplate Photograph, Loughborough University Archive

Photograph by Alan Duncan


To restore or re-master?


The Frangenberg Collection Exhibition 2020

Text accomplying exhibition : This exhibition presents a selection from the large collection of contemporary art acquired by Dr Thomas Frangenberg (1957-2018) and donated by his executors to Wolfson College. Curated by his colleague for a quarter of a century, Professor Phillip Lindley, the exhibition presents a representative sample of Thomas's purchases in London over his four decades as a collector. The works are of a distinctive type, ideas-driven and demanding of the spectator's dynamic engagement. Several Turner Prize winners and a host of nominees are included in this remarkable collection which will transform Wolfson's importance as a home for cutting-edge art.

The Studio of Light was approached by Professor Phillip Lindley to see if we could restore a photograph by Abigail Lane "For his own good" which had been damaged by broken glass leaving deep scratches across the surface. The artwork was from the Frangenberg collection and it was to be included in a forthcoming exhibition (in 2020) at Wolfson College, Cambridge. It was decided that we would explore a range of options and work closely with the Abigail Lane in restoring the picture.

The first stage of the project was to digitally archive the artwork in its current state using a high end digital copy camera and then making an archival print using hot press inkjet rag paper and Piezography Pro inks. The next stage was to use the digital file made by the copy camera and retouch it in PhotoShop and repair the damage areas, the retouched image was then made into another archival digital print.

The final stages of the project was to make a new silver gelatine print on warm-tone paper and high quality scan from the original negative which was kindly loaned by Abigail Lane. The silver print was made using the same techniques and materials as the original image by Alan Duncan who is a master traditional darkroom print maker.

The rescanning of the original negative was done using a Hasselblad Fightight X5 virtual drum scanner and the scan revealed more of the original image, this was most notable in the rear paw of the dog on the left side of the image and from this new master digital file another archival print was made.

Four new prints were made, a copy of the damaged image, a retouch version, a silver print from the original negative and a new remastered digital negative. All four prints were shown to Abigail Lane and she chose the new remastered digital print from the original negative. The end result of this project might not have might not have been what a conservator might have chosen but the artist in this case preferred the image that used the latest digital imagery and printing technologies because they enhanced the original photographic negative and made for a striking piece of artwork.

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Abigail Lane "For His Own Good" 1995

The original print damaged by picture glass fragments that left deep scratches across the surface of the print

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Digitally restored version made from photographing original print using a Hasselblad medium format digital copy camera and retouching in PhotoShop

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New digital master and print version made from scanning original negtive using a Hasselblad Flextight X5 virtual drum scanner

The Studio of Light possesses a comprehensive range of resources both analogue and digital that support our research and services.

Studios: There are two photographic lighting studios offering both professional Profoto flash photography and continuous lighting. Both studios have a variety of backdrops, tripods, accessories and stands.

Imaging: The Studio offers a full range of digital cameras including the latest Hasselblad technology, including mirrorless. The studio also has a selection of 35mm and medium format cameras, Wista and Ebony 4x5 large format cameras, Toyo and Tachihara 8x10 large format cameras for film and Polaroid, and a purpose-built ultra large format studio camera with a 20x24 film back.

Lenses: A full range of focal lengths for all cameras as well specialist lenses such as Cooke Portrait and Triple Convertor lenses, Schneider for 4x5 and 8x10 and ultra large format Fine Art lenses.

Digital Scanning: The Studio has a Hasselblad Flextight X5 virtual drum scanner and Epson V850 flat-bed scanners that can scan 8x10 negatives. There are also high resolution digitisation facilities for the copying of art works.

Digital Computing: The Studio employs the latest Apple Computer technology supported by a variety of Image processing software and large colour calibrated monitors.

Calibration and Measurement: X-Rite spectrometry devices allow for the calibration of computer screens and density and colour measurements particularly of digital negatives and test prints. The Studio has a wide range of other measurement systems to ensure quality control including humidity and moisture content, pH measurements etc. The Department of Materials at the University supports the Studio with a range of microscopic devices for the analysis of printed images.

Digital Printing: The Studio regularly updates its digital printers to ensure the latest developments can be explored. Epson and HP large format printers are employed to produce high quality prints on a large range of papers. By optimising the technology, the Studio is able to produce digital negatives [up to 44”] of exceptional resolution and density. The studio also offers both proprietary archival pigments and Piezography Pro inks. Regular tests of new paper offers from all the paper producers are undertaken to establish their appropriateness.

Negatives and Papers: With such a large number of darkroom-produced images it has been necessary to develop specific negatives to maximise quality appropriate for each process as well as matching them to a wide variety of papers. These include traditional European and American machine-made papers and handmade papers from across the World and particularly from Japan, such as Gampi.

Chemistry: The Studio is supported by the Chemistry Department at the University to quality assure and provide safe practices for all the chemicals it uses in the studio and darkroom. Importantly the Department also provides support in the preparation of some of these chemicals against rigorous benchmarks for quality and consistency, and the effectiveness and precision of delivery systems including autoclavable pipettes. The Studio has recently developed a variety of highly effective coating methods for a broad range of papers.

The Darkroom: The Studio has a number of darkrooms including a purpose-built lab for printing large images from negative up to 48”x36”. A De Vere 10x8 enlarger and a 48”x 36” UV exposure unit allow the preparation of prints. The main darkroom is temperature and humidity controlled. There are 4 sink units to accommodate large prints with temperature and water-purification functions and a 24”x20” print washer.

Darkroom Photographic Processes: The Studio currently has the capability to process a large number of historic photographic processes for, B&W and Colour, exhibition quality, and prints

Print Finishing: A full range of finishing and framing facilities, including encapsulation, are available to produce exhibition quality presentations for museums and galleries.

Noble metals and their future contribution to photography

The inspiration for this research-funded project, generously supported by Anglo Platinum Marketing Ltd., was the evidence from the comparatively recent spike of interest from artists, students, authors, curators, conservators, as well as the general public, in 19th-Century photography and its processes.

One relevant event was the 2014 three day symposium and workshop: ‘Platinum and Palladium Photographs: Technical and Aesthetic History, Chemistry, Connoisseurship, and Conservation’, Washington, organised by the American Institute of Conservation. Many of the debates at this symposium produced more questions than answers with regard to the understanding of our photographic heritage, its chemistry, and conservation.

What is shared between artists and conservators is the acknowledgement of the need to access current science and technology not only to understand the experiments that photographers conducted in the 19th century but also how today’s technology, including the digital, can be used to create contemporary artifacts and reproduce the original innovations of the early pioneers.

As contemporary practitioners, our objectives are different from those of the conservation world. To some degree there are not the same constraints, both ethical and cultural, that are the expected values within the conservation community. However, as artists, we believe there is common ground that through dialogue and collaboration could produce tangible benefits in understanding for all.

Our research will operate alongside the comprehensive printmaking workshop facilities that were originally established at Loughborough from 1895. There are those who believe that such facilities are unsustainable and largely irrelevant to contemporary art practice and education. Today it might seem counter-intuitive to be making a significant investment exploring discarded or apparently redundant processes from the past when much of current technology seems to offer such cost-effective and timesaving solutions for the contemporary artist. The answer is, of course, that the intrinsic aesthetic qualities, so evident in early photography, are increasingly relevant to contemporary artists who seek alternative means of visual expression other than the digital.

The principal objective is to establish hybrid-printing technologies that can achieve widespread utilisation by formulating systemetised, quantified, optimised and commercially viable processes. This requires cross-disciplinary collaborations supported by scientific methods of investigation, alongside existing craft sensibilities.

Portrait of Ben Dolman
Ben Dolman

University Teacher in Creative Digital Technologies
School of Design & Creative Arts
Portfolio : ben-dolman.com

Portrait of Alan Duncan
Alan Duncan

University Teacher in Photography
School of Design & Creative Arts
Portfolio : alan-duncan.com

Portrait of Terry Kavanagh
Professor Terry Kavanagh

Chair of Design & Applied Arts [Emeritus]
School of Design & Creative Arts

Portrait of Paul Kelly
Professor Paul Kelly

Associate Dean [Enterprise}
Department of Chemistry

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