Jacek Piotrowski. Gum Bichromate as a Way of Working with the Image
Jacek Piotrowski. Gum Bichromate as a Way of Working with the Image
When Jacek Piotrowski recalls how his adventure with gum bichromate began, he does not start with formulas, chemistry, or a camera. He starts with an image. On the internet, he came across Willows (Wierzby) by Henryk Rogoziński and, as he recalls, could not decide whether he was looking at a photograph or a painting. Only later did he discover that the work had been made using gum bichromate. That ambiguity became the starting point for further exploration. Soon afterwards, he came across Witold Dederko’s book Guma warszawska. Chromianowa technika fotograficzna and discovered that the image that had attracted him was the result of a specific process, one that began with a negative.¹
This is significant because Jacek Piotrowski’s path into photography has, in a sense, been the reverse of the usual one. Photography is often approached through the camera, followed by the negative, processing, and finally the print. In his case, it was the other way around. His fascination began with the print and with the possibilities offered by shaping an image by hand. Only later did the camera and the negative become important to him. He recalls that he had experimented with analogue photography before, but the conventional process of developing film did not hold his interest. It was gum bichromate and cyanotype that made photography genuinely engaging for him.²
In 2019, Jacek Piotrowski bought an almost century-old 9 × 12 cm camera because he had learned that this negative size was suitable for contact printing. His first prints were made from negatives on X-ray film. The beginnings were not easy. He had to experiment with negative preparation, exposure times, and development, and many early attempts ended up in the bin. Over time, however, he learned how to prepare negatives that produced the kind of image he was looking for.³
This experience points to one of the defining characteristics of gum bichromate. Its value lies not simply in the distinctive appearance of the finished print, but in the number of decisions the process places in the maker’s hands. Colour, pigment concentration, exposure time, and the number of layers can all be adjusted, and each decision affects the final image. Piotrowski describes this freedom in straightforward terms. He does not feel bound by photographic “correctness”: the sky does not have to be blue; it can be yellow, red, or green. Just as important to him is the sense that the print has been made by hand rather than mechanically reproduced.⁴
This way of thinking has a long history. In Pictorialism, the material qualities of the print were among the ways in which the artistic photograph distinguished itself from photography understood primarily as accurate visual recording. Michel Poivert points out that pictorialist pigment processes blurred the boundaries between photography, drawing, and graphic art. The surface of the print, the presence of pigment, and the visible intervention of the hand all played a role in this approach.⁵
This does not mean that Jacek Piotrowski is attempting to recreate early twentieth-century Pictorialism. Rather, he makes use of a similar possibility: the possibility of transforming a photograph through material and through the maker’s intervention. The difference is crucial. In his work, the historical process is not
a reconstruction of an earlier style but a contemporary tool.
Process Rather Than Formula
In Piotrowski’s practice, the photograph remains open even after it has been taken. Sometimes, when he sees a building or a tree, he already imagines what the finished print might look like and begins thinking about pigments, watercolour, and colour. At other times, he returns to photographs he has already made and only then decides which one should be transformed into what he calls a “photographic watercolour.”⁶
This shift in attention from the photograph itself to the print is important in contemporary alternative photographic practice. Christopher James, writing about gum bichromate in The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, presents the process as one in which traditional methods can coexist with digitally produced negatives and other contemporary interventions. The third edition of his book reflects the extent to which alternative processes have evolved beyond the historical procedures from which they originated.⁷
Piotrowski uses these possibilities in a very practical way. He can prepare a negative by printing it on ordinary photocopy paper and then treating the sheet with wax or paraffin. Using image-editing software, he can adjust contrast, levels, and curves to prepare the negative for a particular process. He does not see this as a departure from photography. The digital stage simply becomes one part of making a physical print.⁸ This is where his practice connects with the question of post-photography that I explore in my research project. An image may pass through a camera, a phone, image-editing software, a printer, a negative, a light-sensitive emulsion, and finally a sheet of photographic paper. The distinction between analogue and digital photography is therefore no longer straightforward. More interesting is the question of when the image takes on its final form and where authorship resides within that process.
In Piotrowski’s work, the answer extends across the entire chain of production. The photograph is not yet the finished work. It is the material from which the print is made. This becomes even more apparent in his experiments with three negatives corresponding to the primary colours. Piotrowski combined the Viennese and Warsaw variants of gum bichromate and developed his own method for registering successive negatives. He arrived at the solution through repeated trials rather than by following a single established procedure. As he explains, even a small change in the proportions of the ingredients can alter the final result. He still uses measurements derived from Witold Dederko, while relying increasingly on the experience he has gained through practice.⁹
His attitude towards chance follows a similar pattern. A single negative may produce several different prints, with variations in the proportions of gum, dichromate, and pigment, as well as in exposure time. He is not aiming for exact repetition. At the same time, he does not automatically accept every unexpected result. Staining, incompletely washed-out dichromate, or an unsuccessful final layer may make a print unusable. Yet after some time he often returns to the same image and tries again.¹⁰
Experience has made him better at anticipating how the material will behave, but it has not eliminated uncertainty. This is particularly true when he works with the Parisian variant of gum bichromate, where the surface can be manipulated more extensively during development. He has gained greater control over the process, but a degree of unpredictability remains.¹¹ That tension is also important when considering authorship. In this kind of practice, the maker is neither someone who exercises complete control over the material nor someone who simply leaves the result to chance. Authorship emerges through a succession
of decisions made in response to the behaviour of the material. It is less a matter of absolute control than of negotiation.
Two Processes, One Image
The combination of gum bichromate and cyanotype is a particularly clear example of this approach. Piotrowski does not treat the two processes simply as alternative methods. Each has a specific role. Cyanotype helps bring out shadows and midtones, while successive gum layers introduce colour and texture. Together they produce an image with a stronger sense of depth and a surface that can evoke painting.¹²
This kind of combination demonstrates that contemporary alternative photography does not have to be built around the purity of a single process. Gum bichromate can be combined with cyanotype, while the negative itself can be digitally prepared. A historical process thus becomes part of a contemporary technological workflow.
There is a certain continuity here with Pictorialism, but there is no need to describe contemporary practice as a new form of Pictorialism. In both cases, photography is understood as something that can be transformed beyond the image initially recorded by the camera. The difference is that contemporary photographers have access to tools unavailable to earlier generations: digital image processing, digital printing, and the ability to produce multiple versions of a negative relatively quickly. It is equally significant that, despite using these contemporary tools, Piotrowski places considerable importance on the physical print. He prefers strongly textured papers because they influence the character of the image. Seen at close range, the print reveals brush marks, irregularities in the surface, and variations in pigment thickness. In his view, a reproduction on a screen provides only an approximation, whereas the physical print reveals qualities that cannot be fully conveyed digitally.¹³
This corresponds closely with Elizabeth Edwards’s argument that photography should be considered not only as an image but also as a material object. A photograph has a physical presence, and its meaning is shaped in part by the ways in which it is handled, viewed, and experienced.¹⁴ In gum bichromate, this becomes especially apparent because the surface of the print is not merely a support for the image. It becomes part of the image itself.
A Practice to Which One Returns
One of the strongest themes in Piotrowski’s responses is the importance of the practice itself. He does not describe a single goal that he hopes to achieve one day, nor does he imagine a point at which gum bichromate can be considered fully mastered. On the contrary, he sees the process as offering almost unlimited scope for further experimentation. Ideas set aside because of time constraints can be returned to later.¹⁵ The work is therefore not simply a matter of reaching a final result. Meaning is also found in the act of making: preparing the negative, trying again, waiting for the result, observing how the pigment behaves, and returning to an image that did not work the first time. The print matters, but it does not exhaust the significance of the process.
This kind of relationship with making brings to mind Mieko Kamiya’s writings on the sources of meaning and value in human life, including creativity, self-realisation, change, personal development, and the ability to find significance in one’s own activities.¹⁶
In Piotrowski’s case, it is particularly striking that he does not require external validation in order to continue working. He says that he makes these prints primarily for himself. He does not need to prove anything or achieve a particular result at any cost. What gives him satisfaction is the process itself, the experimentation, and the opportunity to keep exploring new solutions.¹⁷
This attitude seems especially well suited to the character of gum bichromate. The process takes time and demands attention, while some decisions reveal their consequences only after another layer has been applied. Not everything can be predicted, and an unsuccessful stage may mean starting over. For Piotrowski, however, this is not a reason to abandon the process. Another attempt is simply part of the work. There is no final point at which he can say, “Now I know everything.” Experience gives him greater freedom, but it does not close the process. It allows him to approach the next experiment with greater awareness while still leaving room for what cannot be predicted in advance.
In 2023, Piotrowski’s work was included in the exhibition Techniki szlachetne [Noble Photographic Techniques] at the Eugeniusz Haneman Gallery of Photography in Łódź. The exhibition catalogue lists five works by the artist: Alakzaty, Powrót z Turbacza, Karkonosze, Wierzba, and Pośpiech. Powrót z Turbacza was made as a cyanotype, Karkonosze and Pośpiech as gum bichromate prints, while Wierzba combines cyanotype and gum bichromate.¹⁸ His participation in this exhibition places the artist within the Polish field of contemporary alternative photography, but the nature of his practice is more revealing than the exhibition record itself. For Piotrowski, technique is not a closed system to be faithfully reproduced. It is a means of constructing an image, testing possibilities, and developing an individual way of working.
Jacek Piotrowski began his journey with a question prompted by Henryk Rogoziński’s image: photography or painting? Several years later, his own practice still offers no simple answer. Nor does it need to. Gum bichromate can remain photography while drawing on possibilities associated with painting and graphic art. Cyanotype can become part of the same object. A digitally prepared negative can lead to a hand-made print. In Piotrowski’s work, technique does not primarily serve to reproduce a predetermined effect. It creates the conditions for asking further questions. What happens when the pigment is changed? What does another layer contribute? What happens when cyanotype and gum bichromate are combined? How much can be controlled, and how much will remain beyond control?
This is why gum bichromate becomes something more for Jacek Piotrowski than a photographic process. It is a way of working, a way of learning how an image behaves, and a way of spending time. Its value lies not only in the finished print, but also in the possibility of returning to the workbench after an unsuccessful attempt and starting again. The point is not to make the last good gum print, but to have a reason to make the next one.
Notes
Jacek Piotrowski, Answers to the Research Questionnaire “How Did Your Adventure with Gum Bichromate Begin?”, 2026, p. 1.
Ibid., p. 1.
Ibid., p. 1.
Ibid., p. 1.
Michel Poivert, “Materiality and Printing: Hybridity”, in: Pictorialism, lecture materials, p. 6, https://piktorialismus.smb.museum/images/lecture_14.pdf [accessed 28 September 2026].
Jacek Piotrowski, Answers to the Research Questionnaire…, 2026, p. 2.
Christopher James, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, 3rd ed., Boston: Cengage Learning, 2015, chapter “The Gum Bichromate Process”.
Jacek Piotrowski, Answers to the Research Questionnaire…, 2026, p. 3.
Ibid., p. 2.
Ibid., pp. 3–4.
Ibid., p. 4.
Ibid., p. 2.
Ibid., p. 5.
Elizabeth Edwards, “Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image”, Annual Review of Anthropology 2012, vol. 41, pp. 221–234, DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145708.
Jacek Piotrowski, Answers to the Research Questionnaire…, 2026, p. 6.
Mieko Kamiya, Ikigai ni tsuite (生きがいについて), Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō, 1966, chapters 3–4.
Jacek Piotrowski, Answers to the Research Questionnaire…, 2026, p. 6.
Łódzkie Towarzystwo Fotograficzne, Techniki szlachetne. Międzynarodowa wystawa fotografii. Katalog [Noble Photographic Techniques. International Photography Exhibition. Catalogue], Łódź 2023, pp. 37–41.
