“Light Dreams” - Between Pictorialism and Post-Photography

This essay was written as part of the research project From Pictorialism to Post-Photography: The Functioning of Bichromate Processes in Contemporary Fine-Art Photography.

Contemporary exhibitions of alternative photography are often described through their techniques: cyanotype, gum bichromate, platinum and palladium, wet-collodion, pigment processes and other historical methods. This is, of course, necessary, but it is not sufficient. A more revealing question is what contemporary artists do with historical photographic techniques, and what their use tells us about the status of photography today.

This is why “Light Dreams,” presented in 2026 at Light Art Space in Silver City, New Mexico, deserves attention. Juror Jill Enfield selected 33 works by nineteen artists from across the United States. Among them was the Polish artist Marek Matusz. The exhibition was conceived as a presentation of contemporary work made through alternative and historical photographic processes, but it was not confined to a single aesthetic or to the reconstruction of historical photography. [1]

Light Between Physics and Memory

Light is the starting point of Light Dreams. The organizers do not treat it merely as an optical phenomenon. In the exhibition description, light appears as something physical, but also psychological and symbolic. It connects memory, imagination and emotion; it may reveal only fragments of reality and create a space for experiences that are more intuitive than documentary. [2]

This shift is important. The exhibition is not primarily a demonstration of historical photographic processes. Technique is subordinated to the experience of the image.

That distinguishes Light Dreams from an exhibition devoted to historical reconstruction. The question is not simply what photography once looked like, but what historical processes can do to the contemporary image.

The photographs published by the gallery reveal a broad range of approaches. Traditional photographic prints appear alongside works involving textiles, frames, glass, archival material, text and spatial elements. Photography is therefore present not only as a flat image, but also as material and as part of a larger construction.

This is one of the exhibition’s most significant qualities.

The alternative process is not primarily a visual style here. It becomes a way of constructing the artwork.

Pictorialism as the Beginning of the Problem

This is where Light Dreams can be situated within a broader history of photography.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Pictorialism was not simply an aesthetic style. It was a response to the problem of photography’s artistic status. Photographers associated with movements such as the Photo-Club de Paris and Photo-Secession sought to demonstrate that photography could possess artistic autonomy and that its value did not have to be confined to the reproduction of the visible world. The debate over how far the photographer could intervene in the image was also a debate about authorship and about the boundary between mechanical recording and artistic interpretation. [3]

Processes that allowed the photographer to intervene physically in the image were therefore crucial. Robert Demachy played an important role in the development of gum bichromate as an artistic process, while Émile Puyo was a significant figure in Pictorialist circles working with pigment and oil-based processes. [3][4]

The Pictorialist gesture can therefore be understood very simply:

I do not merely record the image; I give it a form of my own.

Technique became an argument for authorship.

A Different Question a Century Later

In Light Dreams, the situation is different. There is no longer any need to prove that photography can be art.

The problem has moved elsewhere.

A contemporary artist working with a historical photographic process can ask:

what remains of photography when process, material and object become as important as representation itself?

This question is central to the character of the exhibition.

Some of the works remain close to familiar photographic languages: landscape, botanical imagery, the human figure, atmosphere and tonal structure. Others move toward the object, installation or archive.

This does not mean abandoning photography.

It means expanding the field in which photography can operate.

Pictorialism Does Not Disappear - Its Function Changes

One of the interesting aspects of the exhibition is the presence of images that recall elements of Pictorialist photography: atmospheric softness, emphasis on light, landscape, botanical forms, and figures immersed in evocative spaces.

Such imagery should not, however, be understood simply as a return to Pictorialism.

The historical form is being used within a completely different visual environment.

These works now exist alongside digital photography, film, installation, archives, social media and computer-generated imagery. Their resemblance to historical aesthetics can therefore be understood as a conscious choice of visual language, rather than an attempt to recreate an earlier artistic system.

This distinction matters.

Pictorialism is not simply the past here. It becomes one of the resources available to contemporary photography.

From Print to Object

The most compelling works are those in which materiality ceases to be merely a characteristic of the photographic print and begins to organize the artwork itself.

The installation photographs published by the gallery show works printed or constructed on textiles, works incorporating frames and glass, and suspended objects whose shadows participate in the visual composition.

There are important parallels for this approach in contemporary art.

Wolfgang Tillmans has long treated photography as material, object and spatial installation. His exhibitions are not simply arrangements of photographic prints: photographs, reproductions, printed material and objects form installations in which the mode of presentation becomes part of the work’s meaning. Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen emphasizes Tillmans’s sustained redefinition of photography as an artistic medium and his development of the photographic exhibition as an installation. [5]

A similar shift can be observed in several works presented in Light Dreams. Textile, frame, glass, transparency and shadow do not merely serve as display devices. They participate in the construction of the image and its meaning. Photography begins to function not only as representation, but also as a material object occupying space.

This is significant from the perspective of photographic history. Pictorialism expanded photography through intervention in the making of the print. Contemporary alternative practices can expand it further by incorporating the material support, the exhibition space and the physical conditions of viewing into the work itself.

When the Process Becomes Visible

This shift also concerns materiality itself.

Historical photography often concealed its own process behind the final image. Contemporary alternative processes frequently expose what happened between light and the photosensitive surface.

Gum bichromate is an especially revealing example. Pigment layers, washing, selective removal of the image and repeated intervention mean that the surface can retain traces of the artist’s successive decisions.

The time required to make the image is no longer simply the time necessary for its production.

It can become part of the visible structure of the work.

This connects with the broader contemporary interest in photographic materiality. Discussions of artists such as Tillmans have emphasized photography as matter, object and physical surface rather than merely as an informational image. [6]

Camera-less Photography as a Relevant Context

Another important context is the development of camera-less photographic practices.

The Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition “Shadow Catchers: Camera-Less Photography” brought together five contemporary artists, including Susan Derges, Adam Fuss and Garry Fabian Miller, whose practices construct photographic images without a conventional camera. The fact that a major museum dedicated an exhibition to camera-less photography demonstrates that abandoning the camera does not necessarily mean abandoning photography. It can instead return attention to the fundamental relationship between light and photosensitive material. [7]

Light Dreams belongs to this broader history.

The underlying question is similar:

what remains of photography when the camera, the conventional print or the traditional support no longer defines the entire process?

Jill Enfield - A Key to Contemporary Uses of Historical Processes

The role of juror Jill Enfield is especially revealing in this context.

She is a photographer, educator and author whose work focuses extensively on historical and alternative photographic processes. Her own practice demonstrates that contemporary use of historical techniques does not have to mean reconstructing historical conditions of image production. [8]

In the description accompanying Light Dreams, Enfield discusses her series “The Way Home.” The Hudson River landscapes were first photographed with an iPhone, then transformed into wet-collodion ambrotypes, and ultimately produced as platinum-palladium prints. [8]

This is one of the most revealing facts surrounding the exhibition.

The process runs in the opposite direction from historical reconstruction:

a digital image becomes the source for a historical process, and the historical process becomes another stage in the transformation of the image.

Digital technology is therefore not presented as the opponent of historical photography. It becomes one stage within the process.

This is a crucial characteristic of contemporary alternative photography: historical processes can be incorporated into a hybrid, contemporary ecology of image production.

Light Dreams Between Historical and Contemporary Photography

This is why the exhibition can be productively read through the framework of From Pictorialism to Post-Photography.

Not as a simple historical sequence, but as an accumulation of recurring problems.

Pictorialism introduced the question of authorship and intervention.

Historical processes preserved the possibility of physically shaping the photographic image.

Contemporary alternative photography expands that possibility into material, object and space.

Post-photography describes a situation in which photography is no longer necessarily a stable, self-contained object, but operates within a larger environment of images and technologies.

Joan Fontcuberta has described this transformation in relation to the proliferation of images in the digital age and the changing status of photographic representation. Camila Moreiras likewise examines post-photography as a condition in which images operate within an expanded environment of technology, networks and data. [9]

Light Dreams is not a post-photographic exhibition in the strict sense. It nevertheless reveals a material version of the same expansion: photography moving beyond the singular, stable print and opening itself to other materials, objects and modes of existence.

Gum Bichromate as a “Medium of Transition”

Within my research, gum bichromate is particularly significant.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art identifies Demachy as a central figure in the revival of gum printing as an artistic process and places it within the international network of Pictorialism. [3][4]

At that time, gum bichromate helped photography escape the charge of mechanical reproduction.

Today, the same process can serve an almost opposite function: helping photography recover materiality in an age of automated image production.

This is why gum bichromate can be understood as a medium of transition.

Not because it simply connects two historical periods, but because in different technological circumstances it allows artists to respond to different problems concerning the status of the photographic image.

In the age of Pictorialism, it contributed to photography’s emancipation as art.

In the digital age, it can become a tool for questioning what photography means when image production can be increasingly automated.

Contemporary Photography as a Field of Possibilities

The works documented in Light Dreams can therefore be situated within several important tendencies in contemporary art.

The first is materiality — an interest in paper, textiles, surfaces and physical traces.

The second is hybridity — combining photography with archives, text, objects and other media.

The third is installation — the point at which the physical arrangement and spatial existence of the work become part of the artwork.

The fourth is medium reflexivity — photography beginning to address not only the world, but also the conditions of its own production.

Finally, there is the conscious reuse of history. Historical processes are no longer treated as closed chapters, but as resources available to contemporary artists.

Taken together, these tendencies make Light Dreams a significant example of contemporary process-based photography.

Why Light Dreams Matters

The significance of the exhibition does not lie in the discovery of unknown photographic processes. On the contrary, most of the techniques represented have long and well-documented histories.

Its significance lies in demonstrating that historical photographic processes can still generate contemporary meanings.

That distinction is fundamental.

A historical process is not presented as a museum object here.

It remains an artistic tool.

It is not used merely to produce an “analog” appearance.

It can be used to explore memory, light, time, materiality, archives and objects.

In this sense, Light Dreams suggests that the contemporary revival of alternative processes need not be interpreted as nostalgia for photography before the digital age.

It can instead be understood as a conscious expansion of the medium through its own technological history.

Light Art Space - The Place That Makes This Possible

Only at this point does the significance of Light Art Space fully emerge.

The gallery has operated in Silver City since 2018. Its historic building at 209 West Broadway contains not only exhibition spaces, but also a second gallery, studio, black-and-white darkroom and a darkroom dedicated to alternative processes. [10]

Its director, Karen Hymer, is an artist, educator and long-time photography teacher. Her own practice combines photosensitive materials, digital media, printmaking and encaustic processes, while Light Art Space offers workshops in alternative techniques. [11]

The gallery describes its activity as hybrid. In a seven-year summary, it reported 85 exhibitions and more than 45 workshops, with many exhibitions involving artists from outside the United States. [12]

This is particularly important from the perspective of my research.

Light Art Space does not simply present alternative photography. It helps create the environment in which alternative photography can be produced, learned, evaluated, exhibited and brought into wider circulation.

In 2026 the gallery also received a $24,593 grant from the New Mexico Creative Industries Division to install an HVAC system supporting year-round workshops, lectures and exhibitions. [13]

This is more than an administrative detail. It demonstrates that the infrastructure of alternative photography is material as well as intellectual. Darkrooms, studios, education, funding and exhibition space are conditions under which the practice can survive and develop.

Conclusion

Light Dreams is valuable above all because it presents historical photographic processes as active contemporary artistic tools.

The exhibition reveals a continuity between the Pictorialist concern with authorship and intervention and contemporary interest in materiality, process and the expansion of photography beyond its traditional boundaries.

The most important question is therefore not simply whether gum bichromate, cyanotype or other historical processes are present.

The more important question is what artists do with their potential.

Pictorialism used technique to bring photography into the world of art.

Contemporary practice can use the same historical technologies to allow photography to move beyond its own historical boundaries.

This is one of the central issues explored in From Pictorialism to Post-Photography: a historical photographic process does not end its history when it ceases to be a dominant technology. It may acquire a new life precisely when it is released from its original function.

And the example of Light Art Space demonstrates that this transformation requires more than individual artists.

It also requires places that enable experimentation, transmit knowledge, provide opportunities for selection and exhibition, and bring historical processes into the contemporary art world.

This is why Light Dreams deserves to be considered both as an exhibition of contemporary alternative photography and as evidence of the ecosystem that sustains and develops this field.

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Notes

[1] Light Art Space, Light Dreams — Juried Alternative / Historical Process Exhibition, 2026. Official exhibition description, concept, juror and submission information. (lightartspace.com)

[2] Light Art Space, Light Dreams. Description of light as a physical, psychological and symbolic presence, and of memory, imagination and emotion as conceptual dimensions of the exhibition. (lightartspace.com)

[3] Lisa Hostetler, “International Pictorialism,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. Discussion of intervention, Pictorialism and the international development of the movement. (metmuseum.org)

[4] Lisa Hostetler, “Pictorialism in America,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. Discussion of gum bichromate and the Pictorialists’ demonstration of photography’s expressive potential. (metmuseum.org)

[5] Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, materials on Wolfgang Tillmans and his treatment of photography as installation, object and spatial practice. (kunstsammlung.de)

[6] Mikkel Søndergaard, “Wolfgang Tillmans’s Abstract Mediations and Other Ecologies,” Afterimage, 48(2), 2021. Analysis of photographic materiality and the relationship between image, technology and space. (online.ucpress.edu)

[7] Victoria and Albert Museum, Shadow Catchers: Camera-Less Photography, 2010–2011. Exhibition devoted to contemporary camera-less photography, including Susan Derges, Adam Fuss and Garry Fabian Miller. (media.vam.ac.uk)

[8] Light Art Space, Light Dreams exhibition materials and Jill Enfield’s description of The Way Home: images first made with an iPhone, then transformed through wet-collodion ambrotypes and platinum-palladium printing. (lightartspace.com)

[9] Camila Moreiras, “Joan Fontcuberta: post-photography and the spectral image of saturation,” Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 18(1), 2017.

[10] Light Art Space, About The Space. Information about the building, galleries, studio and darkrooms. (lightartspace.com)

[11] Light Art Space, About The Director. Information about Karen Hymer, her artistic practice and educational background. (lightartspace.com)

[12] Light Art Space, 7 Year Itch. Summary of the gallery’s activity, including exhibitions, workshops and its hybrid model. (lightartspace.com)

[13] Light Art Space, information on the $24,593 New Mexico Creative Industries Division grant supporting HVAC improvements and year-round programming. (lightartspace.com)

Further Reading

Hostetler, Lisa, “International Pictorialism,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Hostetler, Lisa, “Pictorialism in America,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Stevens, Isabel, “Shadow Catchers: Camera-Less Photography,” Aperture, Fall 2011.

Søndergaard, Mikkel, “Wolfgang Tillmans’s Abstract Mediations and Other Ecologies,” Afterimage, 48(2), 2021.

Fontcuberta, Joan, writings on the post-photographic condition.

Illustration

The photograph documenting the “Light Dreams” exhibition was originally published by Light Art Space on its official Facebook profile. For the purposes of this article, I have made a small graphic adaptation of the original image.

Source of the original photograph:
Light Art Space — Facebook