David Harms. Photography as a Laboratory

 

Photography as a Laboratory

David Harms belongs to a group of photographers for whom technique is not a closed set of procedures but an open field of investigation. His practice has developed through large-format photography, darkroom printing, self-built cameras, gum bichromate, carbon printing, cyanotype, image transfer onto glass, and other alternative processes. What connects these activities is not an attachment to any particular historical method, but a persistent interest in what might happen when the camera, optics, negative, chemistry and printing process are treated as parts of the same photographic system. [1]

This approach is especially visible in his recent work, where some images move decisively away from conventional photographic representation towards abstraction. Colour, texture, layering and the physical behaviour of printing materials become active elements of the image. In one work, the photographer describes using a cyanotype as the base for further gum printing; in another, he experiments with a CMYK-like structure, combining cyanotype with yellow and magenta and replacing black with sapphire blue. [1] These historical processes are not being used simply to recreate the appearance of an older photograph. They become means of producing something new, in which the photographic source may remain visible while the final work is increasingly shaped by colour, surface, gesture and material transformation. This tension between historical process and contemporary image-making is one of the most revealing aspects of David Harms's practice.

The camera and the conditions of authorship

David Harms began studying photography at a time when digital technology had not yet become dominant. His education introduced him to 4 × 5 large-format cameras, traditional film and darkroom printing, and he soon discovered that printing interested him more than taking photographs. He describes himself as “slow and methodical”, a temperament that he found particularly well suited to large-format work. [1] This experience established an important principle that remained present in his later practice: the photograph did not end with the exposure. The negative opened a much longer process in which further decisions had to be made.

His experience of commercial photography reinforced this position. He encountered a professional environment shaped by clients' expectations, technical requirements and established conventions. One of his teachers had worked as an assistant to Ansel Adams, and when David Harms asked what to do if he did not want to follow the established commercial model, he was essentially told to create his own. [1] In retrospect, that advice became more than a professional suggestion. It pointed towards a way of working in which the photographer does not simply accept a predefined technological system, but gradually constructs the conditions in which his own images can be made.

One of the clearest examples is David Harms's decision to build photographic equipment himself. Fascinated by the Polaroid 20 × 24 camera, he constructed his own large-format camera measuring 12 × 20 inches. The project involved considerable technical difficulties, including light leaks and the high cost of materials, but it also shaped his understanding of large-format photography in a fundamental way. [1] Independent documentation from 2010 confirms his involvement with wet-plate collodion and the existence of the self-built 12 × 20 camera. [3] For the artist, the camera is not simply a transparent device placed between the photographer and the subject. Its format, movements, optics and physical construction affect the kinds of images that can be made. David Harms points out that every lens has its own “signature”, while front and rear movements allow the photographer to influence focus, perspective and spatial relationships. [1] This has broader implications for authorship: the photographer's decisions begin before the shutter is released, because the apparatus itself forms part of the conditions from which the image emerges.

Vilém Flusser's theory of the photographic apparatus provides a useful framework for interpreting this aspect of David Harms's practice. For Flusser, the camera operates according to a programme that defines a field of possible actions. The photographer may simply operate within those possibilities or attempt to discover and challenge the limits built into the apparatus. [5] David Harms's self-built cameras can be understood in this context. He is not merely using a technological system; he is testing what happens when its parameters are changed. This does not mean that the photographer consciously follows Flusser's theory. Rather, Flusser provides a useful language for describing something evident in the practice: photographic technology does not have to be accepted as given and final.

Alternative processes and the history of making

The next stage of David Harms's development came through wet-plate collodion. He mentions Luther Gerlach as an important influence, alongside courses in alternative processes where he encountered pinhole photography, cyanotype, gum bichromate and platinum/palladium printing. He later began exploring additional processes with friends. [1] At the time, access to equipment, materials and practical knowledge was considerably more difficult than it is today. Workshops, books, informal networks and shared experimentation therefore played an important role in transmitting knowledge. [1]

David Harms's story points to a broader characteristic of alternative photography: historical processes survive not simply because their formulas remain available in books, but because people continue to make them, test them and pass on practical knowledge. The revival of historical photography is therefore also a revival of a culture of making. In the photographer's case, learning about photographic history takes place through direct engagement with materials. Trying to reproduce an image made by an earlier photographer can reveal the limitations of the process, the possibilities offered by the materials, and the technical decisions that shaped the historical result.

This is also relevant to David Harms's interest in Alfred Stieglitz and his attempts to emulate aspects of Stieglitz's practice through related processes. [1] Alfred Stieglitz worked with a wide range of printing methods, including carbon, gum bichromate, platinum, palladium and photogravure, treating process as part of the way a photographic image could be shaped. [6] For a contemporary photographer, approaching these methods through practice can therefore become a way of entering into the material history of photography rather than simply viewing historical prints as finished objects.
David Harms also describes photographic history as a sequence of modifications and experiments. He points, for example, to dichromate chemistry as a basis for a number of pigment-related processes. [1] Gum bichromate and carbon printing belong to a wider family of processes based on the light sensitivity of dichromated colloids. [4] What matters for his own work is the conclusion that follows from this history: these processes need not remain fixed as technologies belonging exclusively to the past. They can still be investigated, adapted and combined. This is where the artist's practice intersects with an experimental aspect of Pictorialism. The connection is not primarily stylistic. Pictorialist photographers used processes such as gum bichromate and carbon printing partly because these methods gave them greater control over the tone, surface and visual character of the print. [4][6] David Harms takes up this technological freedom in a contemporary context, using historical procedures not to reconstruct a Pictorialist aesthetic but to explore how far the processes themselves can still be pushed.

From historical process to contemporary image

One of the most revealing statements in David Harms's account is simple: “I consider every facet a tool.” [1] The camera is a tool, but so are the lens, film, light, chemistry, format, negative and printing method. This shifts the question away from which process defines the artist and towards which process may be useful for a particular image. It is one reason David Harms is difficult to classify simply as a gum printer, wet-plate photographer or large-format photographer. These are elements of a larger technological vocabulary, and within his practice they can be combined, altered and placed into different relationships.

His metaphor of the “farmer” makes this attitude even clearer. David Harms distinguishes between practitioners whom he describes as “fine watch makers”, refining a process with exceptional precision, and his own tendency to keep “turning over new dirt looking for that next process”. [1] The distinction is not about a lack of technical discipline. Alternative processes require substantial knowledge of materials, chemistry and exposure. The difference lies in the purpose of the work: rather than bringing one method to a definitive state of perfection, the artist is interested in seeing what may emerge from the next experiment. An unsuccessful result can therefore remain useful because it becomes information for the next attempt. Photography becomes a form of research in which the process itself remains an open question.

This is particularly evident in his use of gum bichromate. The significance of the process does not lie simply in its historical status, but in the degree of intervention it permits. The image can be rebuilt through successive layers, changes in pigment, variable opacity and physical manipulation. These qualities were among the reasons why gum bichromate attracted Pictorialist photographers who were looking for alternatives to the appearance of mechanically produced silver prints. [4][6] David Harms uses the same potential in a different context. Colour, texture, layering and abstraction become increasingly important, while the original photographic source may recede from the position of primary visual information.

His colour experiments make this especially clear. Colour is not necessarily added to an already completed photograph; it can be constructed through the interaction of several processes. His reference to a CMYK structure is revealing because he adapts the logic of a modern colour system to the behaviour of historical processes. Cyanotype becomes one component, while yellow, magenta and sapphire blue take on roles within a system that resembles, but does not simply reproduce, conventional colour separation. [1] The important issue is not whether this combination can be judged technically “correct”. What matters is that colour itself becomes a field of experimentation and that the final image emerges through a sequence of decisions rather than existing fully formed before printing begins. The same openness appears in David Harms's relationship with digital technology. He admits that Photoshop and digital post-production never became areas in which he felt particularly comfortable, but he recognises the usefulness of digital negatives. [1] For contact printing, a digitally generated negative can be produced at the required size and then used to create a physical print through a historical process. Digital imaging therefore becomes part   of the infrastructure of alternative photography rather than its opposite. [7] At the same time, the photographer continues to value the distinctive visual quality of film, describing a particular “flow” that he finds difficult to define technically but recognises in the way the image behaves. [1] The point is not that one technology is inherently superior to another. Different technologies create different conditions for seeing and making an image.

This also helps explain David Harms's continuing interest in Alfred Stieglitz. He does not simply admire the historical photographer's images; he has attempted to understand aspects of the practice through related processes and techniques. [1] Stieglitz's use of gum, carbon, platinum, palladium and photogravure demonstrates how process could become part of authorship rather than merely a means of reproducing a negative. [6] For a contemporary practitioner, reconstructing such methods can therefore become a way of understanding a historical photograph through its material conditions. The image is encountered not only as a finished historical object, but as something that can be handled, tested and reconstructed. Seen from this perspective, alternative photography becomes a chain of material decisions. The negative can be modified, the process selected or changed, several techniques combined, and successive layers built up through pigment, paper and manipulation of the surface. The photograph is therefore not necessarily finished when the exposure is made, nor when the negative is developed. Each stage can contribute to the construction of the final work. This is one reason alternative photographic practices occupy an interesting position between photography, printmaking and painting.

Flusser's theory becomes useful again here. If the photographic apparatus operates according to a programme, then the possibilities available to the photographer are never entirely neutral. [5] David Harms's practice suggests that this programme can be approached at several levels: the camera can be rebuilt, the format altered, the optics changed, the negative generated digitally, the historical process modified and different processes combined. The result may then move towards abstraction rather than conventional representation. In that sense  what is being tested is not simply the programme of a camera but a much broader set of assumptions about how a photographic image is supposed to be produced.

The next shot

David Harms is sceptical about the possibility of literally returning to the “golden years” of photography. What remains possible is to engage with those periods through contemporary reconstruction and experimentation. [1] A contemporary photographer cannot simply become a nineteenth-century photographer because the materials, equipment and cultural context have changed. Historical technology can nevertheless be used to ask historical questions: how was tonal control achieved, how did the printing surface affect the image, how much of the final work was determined by the negative, where did the photographer's intervention begin, and how did a technical process become an aesthetic language?

These questions remain relevant precisely because the old processes can still be practised. Historical technique is not a costume or a fixed historical identity. It can function as a research instrument, allowing contemporary photographers to examine the material decisions embedded in earlier photographic practices while also testing their present possibilities.

Near the end of his response, David Harms offers a concise formulation: “We are all chasing the same thing. That next shot!” [1] Within the context of his wider practice, “the next shot” means more than another exposure. It can mean the next process, the next experiment, the next technical problem, the next combination of materials, or the next image that has not yet been discovered.

This helps explain why his work resists a single technological definition. Gum bichromate, cyanotype, carbon printing, wet-plate collodion and platinum/palladium are not endpoints but parts of an expanding vocabulary. His self-built cameras show an interest in reshaping the conditions of capture; digital negatives demonstrate that historical processes can coexist with contemporary technology; and his experiments with gum, cyanotype and colour show how historical procedures can lead towards abstraction. His continuing interest in carbon printing, colour transfer on glass and copper photogravure confirms that the process itself remains open to further investigation. [1] The significance of David Harms's practice therefore lies less in any individual historical process than in his attitude towards photographic technology. He treats historical methods as available tools rather than finished destinations. Their continued relevance does not depend on preserving them unchanged, but on testing what they can still produce.

Photography, in this sense, becomes a laboratory: a place where technique remains open, materials remain variable and each completed image can lead to another experiment. The history of photography becomes part of the working process rather than a fixed background. David Harms's practice moves across that history, returning to earlier technologies not simply to repeat what has already been done, but to discover what they might make possible now.

The process remains alive precisely because there is always another problem to solve, another experiment to make and, eventually, another photograph.

Notes

[1] David Harms, responses to research questions, 2026. Primary source for the biographical, technical and conceptual information discussed in this essay.

[2] Christina Z. Anderson, Gum Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice. New York: Routledge, 2017.

[3] Daniel Carrillo, “David Harms”, 25 October 2010. Documentation of Harms's wet-plate collodion practice and self-built 12 × 20 inch camera.

[4] National Gallery of Art, “Stieglitz's Practices and Processes”, in Alfred Stieglitz Key Set. Online Edition. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art.

[5] Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.

[6] Sarah Greenough, Julia Thompson, Constance McCabe, Joan M. Walker, Sarah S. Wagner, Courtney Helion, “Stieglitz's Practices and Processes”, in Alfred Stieglitz Key Set. Online Edition. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art.

[7] Brad Hinkel, Ron Reeder, Digital Negatives: Using Photoshop to Create Digital Negatives for Silver and Alternative Process Printing. Oxford: Focal Press, 2006.

Selected bibliography

Anderson, Christina Z. Gum Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice. New York: Routledge, 2017.

Carrillo, Daniel. “David Harms”. 2010.

Flusser, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.

Greenough, Sarah, Julia Thompson, Constance McCabe, Joan M. Walker, Sarah S. Wagner, Courtney Helion. “Stieglitz's Practices and Processes”. In Alfred Stieglitz Key Set. Online Edition. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art.

Hinkel, Brad, Ron Reeder. Digital Negatives: Using Photoshop to Create Digital Negatives for Silver and Alternative Process Printing. Oxford: Focal Press, 2006.