Alberto Bouzón Tirado. From Pixels to Prussian Blue

 

From Pixels
to Prussian Blue: Alberto Bouzón Tirado and the Path Towards the Material Image

Contemporary alternative photography does not necessarily imply a rejection of digital technology. On the contrary, historical photographic processes are increasingly being incorporated into digital workflows, becoming one stage within a broader creative process. The work of Spanish photographer Alberto Bouzón Tirado, from Huelva, offers a particularly revealing example. His engagement with cyanotype is not a nostalgic return to an analogue past. Rather, it is an attempt to bring together two different photographic experiences: the precision and control of digital photography and the physicality of a hand-made photographic print.[1]

Alberto Bouzón is particularly interesting in this context because his photographic practice is closely connected with his professional background. He is a technical engineer and a technology teacher with more than twenty years of experience in digital technologies, including digital communication, computational thinking and artificial intelligence. Photography therefore develops in his practice at the intersection of image-making, technology, experimentation and education.[2]

A Digital Photographer Enters the Darkroom

Alberto Bouzón encountered film photography during childhood, but photography only became a serious pursuit for him much later, in the digital era. His relationship with analogue processes changed when he began exposing film, developing negatives and making prints in the darkroom. This hands-on experience fundamentally altered his perception of the photographic image: what had previously existed as intangible digital information became a physical object.[3]

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, cyanotype became an important bridge between these two experiences. The process allowed Alberto Bouzón to retain the precision and compositional control he had developed through digital photography while introducing the materiality of paper, chemistry and manual printing. He initially chose cyanotype partly because of its accessibility and relatively simple chemistry, after seeing the possibilities of historical processes such as cyanotype, albumen and Van Dyke brown in the work of his friend and photographer José Ramírez.[4]

Cyanotype is therefore not simply being used to reproduce an already completed digital photograph in another medium. It becomes part of the way the image itself is conceived.

The Digital Image Does Not End on the Screen

Alberto Bouzón describes his current workflow as a continuous journey rather than as a sequence of completely separate photographic stages. The process begins with a digital camera and continues through RAW processing, the preparation of a digital negative, printing on acetate, sensitising the paper, exposure and chemical processing.[5]

What is particularly significant is that cyanotype begins to influence his thinking before the physical printing stage. For approximately the past year, he has increasingly imagined how a scene might appear in Prussian blue before making the photograph. He compares this with the way photographers working in traditional black-and-white photography sometimes learned to visualise the world in monochrome.[6]

Digital processing consequently serves a different purpose here from conventional post-production. It is not simply a matter of preparing an image for display on a screen or for output as an inkjet print. Alberto Bouzón processes the RAW file with an awareness of how particular tonal and visual characteristics will behave during the subsequent chemical printing stage.[7] This is why his statement that “it is all photography” is particularly significant. For Alberto Bouzón, the digital and chemical stages are not competing definitions of photography but components of a single creative workflow.[8]

Even his use of artificial intelligence follows this logic. He has used AI-based tools to modify elements of photographs he has actually captured, while maintaining what he considers the original meaning and credibility of the scene. At the same time, he draws a conceptual distinction between modifying an existing photograph and generating an image entirely from scratch. In the latter case, he believes that the use of AI should be explicitly disclosed.[9]

The Negative as a Score

The digital negative occupies an interesting position in this workflow. It is not simply an archival record of a finished photograph, nor is it merely a technical intermediary. It functions as the starting point for a subsequent physical interpretation. Once the negative is transferred to sensitised paper, the final image depends on a range of variables that cannot be completely predetermined on a computer: the choice of paper, its surface, the application of the sensitiser, exposure, masking, washing and drying, as well as later interventions such as toning or bleaching.[10]
The negative therefore provides a structure, but the final print emerges from the interaction between that structure and the physical conditions of the process. This becomes particularly relevant in relation to Alberto Bouzón's recent reflections on exhibition practice. After participating in a collective pinhole exhibition involving photographers from different parts of Spain, he noticed that although photographic capture remained important, the visualisation of the final work, its materiality and its presentation in space appeared to acquire greater significance. He also recognised this as a direction in which his own practice is currently developing.[11]

It is important not to generalise this observation into a claim about the field of alternative photography as a whole. It is, first and foremost, Alberto Bouzón's account of a particular experience and of a change that he is consciously undergoing in his own practice. Nevertheless, it raises an important question for contemporary photography: what happens when the negative becomes less a completed image than the starting point for constructing a physical artwork?

From the “Perfect Shot” to the Print-Object

Alberto Bouzón's earlier photographic practice was strongly oriented towards technical control. He describes an earlier emphasis on extreme sharpness, dramatic landscapes, filters and intensive post-processing aimed at immediate visual impact. Over time, however, that pursuit of visual spectacle has become less important to him than the coherence of projects and series.[12]

Cyanotype introduced a different rhythm. The physical print cannot be reduced to the digital file from which it originated. Paper, chemistry, exposure and manual intervention all leave traces in the final result. Variations that might otherwise be regarded as technical imperfections can become part of the character of the work. This leads Alberto Bouzón towards what he calls the “print-object”: a photographic print whose physical existence is an integral part of the artwork rather than simply a carrier for an image.[13]

In his view, a cyanotype produced from the same negative will never be perfectly identical to another. Differences introduced by chemistry, toning, bleaching, coating and manual handling contribute to the individuality of each physical print.[14]
The photograph therefore becomes not only an image to be viewed, but also something that has been physically made.

Controlled Chance

This does not mean that Alberto Bouzón simply abandons control. His approach combines experimentation with a systematic, almost laboratory-like attitude. He accepts what he calls “controlled accidents”, but at the same time documents formulations and results in a notebook and attempts to reproduce successful experiments.[15]
This combination is revealing. His engineering background encourages measurement, documentation and repeatability, while the photographic process introduces variables that cannot always be fully controlled. The final print is therefore neither completely predetermined by the digital file nor entirely governed by chance. It emerges from a negotiation between intention, material conditions and experimentation.

Materiality: Not Yet the Destination, but an Increasingly Important Tool

Alberto Bouzón is also explicit about the difference between his experience with digital photography and his much shorter experience with cyanotype. He has worked with digital photography for more than twenty years, whereas his engagement with cyanotype dates back only approximately three or four years.[16] This difference is important when considering his growing interest in materiality. His knowledge of paper, surface and chemical variation is still developing through practice. He primarily uses cellulose-based papers and turns to cotton papers when greater durability is required, particularly for multi-colour and bleaching experiments.[17]

Materiality is therefore becoming increasingly conscious within his practice, but it would be misleading to portray it as a fully developed theoretical programme. Alberto Bouzón's own testimony suggests a process of development rather than a completed position. The important point is not that materiality has replaced the image. Rather, materiality is becoming one of the ways in which the photographic image acquires physical presence and meaning.

Who Is the Author of the Print?

The question of authorship becomes particularly complex in Alberto Bouzón's practice. In his own work, he considers authorship to encompass the entire process: conception, photographic capture, digital processing, preparation of the negative, chemistry and printing.[18] His work with the Puerto Azul Huelva project introduces a different model. He may produce the final cyanotypes from photographs made by other participants, but he does not claim authorship of their images. He describes his contribution as primarily technical and coordinative.[19]
This distinction separates authorship of the photographic image from authorship of its material realisation.  The person who makes the original image and the person who transforms it into a physical photographic object may, in contemporary practice, be different people. The question is therefore not simply who physically made the print, but where creative authorship is located within the entire chain of production.
Alberto Bouzón's position is clear: in a collaborative context such as Puerto Azul Huelva, authorship of the image remains with the person who made the original capture, even when he produces the final cyanotype.[20]

When Does a Print Become an Artwork?

This question becomes particularly visible in Alberto Bouzón's installation Resiliencia es nombre de mujer · El hierro sensible (Resilience Is a Woman's Name · Sensitive Iron). The project, exhibited at the Provincial Library of Huelva from 19 January to 14 February 2026, combines cyanotype images with sculptural elements made from iron washers and open, non-solid female figures. The work was conceived as an installation rather than as a conventional photographic exhibition.[21]
The relationship between the iron forms and the cyanotypes is not merely illustrative. According to Alberto Bouzón, the iron functions as the conceptual and spatial backbone of the installation, while the photographic images translate the sculptures from three-dimensional objects into photographic form.[22]

The material and conceptual levels therefore remain closely connected: industrial metal becomes the source of the photographic image, while the cyanotype becomes part of an installation in which the physical qualities of the original material remain conceptually present.[23]
An additional distinction appears here. During the production of the installation, Alberto Bouzón made numerous experimental prints using different chemical toners and procedures. Some remained working proofs rather than components of the final installation. He nevertheless considers these individual prints capable of existing independently, whereas the cyanotypes incorporated into the installation become fragments of a larger sculptural whole.[24]

The status of the photographic print consequently depends not only on how it was produced, but also on how it functions within the larger artwork. The same physical print can therefore occupy different positions: it can operate as a photograph, as a photographic object or as a component of an installation.

The Book, the Workshop and the Transmission of Knowledge

Alberto Bouzón's practice extends beyond the production of photographic works. In 2025 he published Cianotipia para Fotografía en la Era Digital, a handbook intended specifically for photographers approaching cyanotype from a digital background.[25] His educational work is significant because it turns technical knowledge into another dimension of his artistic practice.

When preparing the book and teaching workshops, he developed structured procedures and recipes, attempting to make the process less intimidating for photographers without previous darkroom experience. Public demonstrations also led him to develop a compact, portable darkroom that allows him to demonstrate cyanotype printing in front of an audience.[26] Teaching, however, is not simply a one-way transfer of established knowledge. Alberto Bouzón describes an ongoing feedback loop in which students' questions, mistakes and experiments lead him to reconsider the chemistry and refine his own methods.[27]

Alberto Bouzón's educational practice reveals a continuous exchange between making, teaching and further experimentation. Questions and mistakes arising in his workshops do not simply remain within the classroom; they often lead him back to the chemistry and practical problems of the process, encouraging further testing and refinement. The knowledge gained through this work can then return to his teaching and photographic practice. In this sense, the historical process becomes not only a way of producing images, but also a means of generating, testing and transmitting knowledge.

Slow Photography Without Rejecting Digital Technology

Alberto Bouzón describes the broader transformation of his practice as a movement away from some of the priorities of digital visual culture and towards what he calls “slow photography”.[28]

This does not involve rejecting digital photography.

The digital stage remains fundamental to his workflow. What changes is the rhythm and structure of the process as a whole. Instead of the image being completed almost instantaneously within a digital environment, it passes through a sequence of physical operations: preparing the negative, coating the paper, exposing it, washing it, drying it and evaluating the result. He describes the experience of moving from the camera sensor and computer screen to chemical trays, paper, brushes and drying lines as transformative. The photograph acquires what he calls a “material body”.[29]

The significance of “slow” photography in this context therefore lies less in rejecting contemporary technology than in deliberately extending the time between capture and the finished artwork.

The Boundaries of Photography: Camera-less Practice and AI

Alberto Bouzón also takes a relatively strict position on the definition of photography. For him, photography in the strict sense remains connected to the camera, the camera obscura and optical mediation. He has worked with photograms and lumen prints and recognises their artistic value, but does not necessarily classify them as photographs in the strict sense.[30]

This is a conceptual position rather than an uncontested definition of the medium. Historically, the boundary is considerably more complicated. Camera-less photography has been part of photographic practice since the nineteenth century. The Victoria and Albert Museum discusses photograms, radiographs, luminograms and chemigrams within the history and continuing practice of camera-less photography.[31] The case of Anna Atkins is particularly relevant. Atkins used cyanotype to produce direct images of botanical specimens without a camera, placing the specimens directly onto sensitised paper. Her Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, begun in 1843, is recognised by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the first book to be photographically printed and illustrated.[32]

This historical example complicates any simple equation between “photography” and camera-based image capture. A similar distinction appears in Alberto Bouzón's approach to artificial intelligence. He accepts the modification of a photograph that he has actually captured, but distinguishes this from generating an image entirely through AI. For him, the origin of the image remains decisive when considering its photographic status.[33]
This creates an important problem for contemporary alternative photography: the material process alone can no longer determine what kind of image we are looking at.

Two visually similar cyanotypes may have radically different histories of production.

From Photographing to Constructing the Artwork

Alberto Bouzón's current trajectory can be understood as a gradual shift in where he places the centre of the photographic process. The act of capture remains important, but it is increasingly followed by a series of decisions that shape the image through digital processing, the preparation of the negative, the chemical process and the physical realisation of the print. In this approach, the original photograph is no longer necessarily the endpoint of the creative process, but the beginning of a longer process of transformation.

The negative can therefore function as a starting point for interpretation rather than simply as a record of an already completed photographic image. The physical print may introduce further decisions and new forms of authorship, while its presentation in an exhibition space can give it another dimension, allowing it to become part of an object, an installation or a larger conceptual structure. For Alberto Bouzón, this shift is still underway. He does not present himself as having abandoned photographic capture in favour of material production. Rather, his recent exhibition experiences have made him increasingly aware of the possibilities contained in what happens after the photograph has been taken.[34]

This makes his practice particularly relevant to a central question in contemporary alternative photography:

What happens when the photographic process no longer ends with the photograph, but continues until the image becomes a physical artwork?

In Alberto Bouzón's case, cyanotype provides the mechanism through which this question becomes tangible. Digital technology supplies control and precision; the historical process introduces materiality and contingency; the negative becomes a point of departure; and the final print can acquire an existence that extends beyond the digital image from which it originated. The result is not a return to the past.

It is a contemporary photographic practice in which a historical process becomes a means of reconsidering what a photograph is — and, perhaps more importantly, when a photograph becomes a work of art.

Notes

1. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 1.

2. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 11.

3. Ibid., Question 1.

4. Ibid., Questions 1–2.

5. Ibid., Question 3.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., Question 4.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., Questions 3–7.

11. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, follow-up email correspondence with the author, 2026.

12. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 12.

13. Ibid., Question 5.

14. Ibid., Question 9.

15. Ibid., Question 6.

16. Ibid., Question 7.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., Question 8.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Alberto Bouzón, Resiliencia es nombre de mujer · El hierro sensible, Biblioteca Pública Provincial de Huelva, 19 January–14 February 2026; see also Huelva Información, “La biblioteca municipal acoge la nueva exposición de Alberto Bouzón”, 2026.

22. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 10.

23. Alberto Bouzón, “Resiliencia”, CODIGA, 2026, https://codiga.es/resiliencia/.

24. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 10.

25. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, Cianotipia para Fotografía en la Era Digital, 2025.

26. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 11.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., Question 12.

29. Ibid.

30. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, follow-up email correspondence with the author, 2026.

31. Victoria and Albert Museum, “Cameraless Photography”, V&A, https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/cameraless-photography.

32. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Anna Atkins, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/286656.

33. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, responses to the author's research questionnaire, 2026, Question 4.

34. Alberto Bouzón Tirado, follow-up email correspondence with the author, 2026.

Illustrations

Fig. 1. Alberto Bouzón presenting his work. Photograph published on Alberto Bouzón’s Facebook profile. Source: publicly available material on the artist’s profile, accessed 17 September 2026.

Fig. 2. Detail from a work by Alberto Bouzón. Photograph provided to the author by Alberto Bouzón via email correspondence, 2026.