Natural Photograms

Natural Photograms are created without the use of a camera.

Plants are arranged on photosensitive paper, placed in the sun and, after exposure, immediately processed, washed and dried on site.

Each photogram is unique; there are no negatives and no digital manipulation. The artist controls everything from choosing and collecting the material to the presentation of the final picture.

The resulting image, while being an exact imprint of the subject matter, is also influenced by differing solar activity, humidity and the plant’s own chemistry. Results can never be exactly predicted, the variables involved are limitless. The colours generated are usually a surprise.

In some ways these photograms could be termed plant self-portraits: traces of reactive, living plants transfixed in the ambient conditions of the place and time of their exposure. Images truly, Caught in Time.

‘I can think of few things more surprising than seeing the appearance of a picture on a blank piece of paper.’

William Henry Fox Talbot