Pierre Zeler. Photography as Process, Matter and Object

 

Pierre Zeler. Photography as Process, Matter and Object

Contemporary interest in historical photographic processes is often described as a return to the past. Gum bichromate, platinum-palladium and photogravure are indeed deeply rooted in the history of photographic art. In Pierre Zeler’s case, however, this interpretation is too simple. He does not use historical processes primarily to recreate the appearance of an earlier kind of photography. Instead, they allow him to continue working on an image after the exposure and to extend the photographic act into the making of the print.

Pierre Zeler has been practicing photography since he was about twenty-five. Several decades ago, he began exploring alternative processes and experimented with gum bichromate, palladium, cyanotype and photogravure. Today, the making of the print occupies a central place in his practice. As he explains, he does not make a photograph simply to print it afterwards. For him, the print is an integral part of photography, and the image continues to be constructed after the exposure.[1]

This idea offers a useful way of approaching his work. The historical process is not treated as an aesthetic quotation from the past, but as a means of continuing to shape an image whose final form emerges only through the act of printing.

From Exposure to Print

For Pierre Zeler, photography does not end when the shutter is released. The exposure is one stage within a longer process, and the operations that follow can influence the final image as significantly as the original act of photographing it.

This is particularly apparent in his use of gum bichromate. Preparing the paper, applying the coating, exposing, washing and drying are repeated several times. In his colour gums, the image is built from four CMYK layers, each contributing to the final result. The photograph is therefore not simply transferred onto paper. It develops through a succession of physical actions and decisions.

Pierre Zeler describes this process very directly:

“On construit réellement l'image.” [2]

The statement shifts attention away from the idea of simply printing a photograph. What matters is the continuation of the photographic process in the material of the print.

The same principle can be seen in the role he assigns to the negative. Zeler describes it as a “matrix”, while emphasizing that it does not determine the final result on its own. It provides an essential starting point, but the image takes its final form through everything that happens afterwards. In colour gum printing, this is particularly evident because the four negatives correspond to the successive CMYK layers and are prepared with the later stages of the process in mind. The negative thus becomes more than a record of the exposure. It is part of the construction of the print. This also explains why digital tools can be integrated into his practice without creating a contradiction. Pierre Zeler prepares his negatives digitally and then transfers the image into a manual printing process involving paper, pigment, water, light and direct intervention. The digital and historical stages belong to the same workflow rather than representing two incompatible approaches.

Matter, Time and the Print

Another important aspect of Pierre Zeler’s practice is the attention he gives to the support. Research on photographic materiality has emphasized that a photograph is not only an image but also a physical object, and that the material qualities of that object influence how the photograph is experienced and understood.[3] Zeler expresses this idea very simply:

“Le support fait partie de l'image.” [4]

The watercolour paper he uses is not a neutral carrier for information that has already been determined elsewhere. Its texture, absorbency and surface characteristics affect the appearance of the image as it is made. The photograph comes into being in relation to its support.

This relationship is closely connected to the time required by the process. A gum print may take several days to complete. Between one layer and the next, materials have to be prepared, the image exposed, washed and dried, and then the sequence begins again. Zeler does not regard this duration merely as a technical inconvenience. He sees it as one of the qualities that give the process its particular character, observing that the time spent making an image remains, in some sense, within the image itself.[5]

The point is not simply that alternative processes take longer than digital methods. The duration of their making can become part of the experience of the finished print. Time belongs to the material history of the work and can become perceptible in the final image.
Manual work does not mean giving up control. Pierre Zeler describes himself as more of a technician than an artist and stresses the importance of understanding the parameters of a process and controlling them as far as possible. At the same time, he recognizes that the behaviour of the materials cannot be predicted in every detail. Paper, pigment, washing and the application of the coating can all produce variations. He accepts these variations, including traces of the brush and differences between layers, but does not treat imperfection as a value in itself. An irregularity becomes meaningful when it contributes to the vitality, fragility or physical presence of the image. The artist remains responsible for the decisions that shape the work while acknowledging that the material has its own behaviour and resistance.

This also affects the status of the print. Two gum prints made from the same negative may differ slightly, giving each one its own history of making. Pierre Zeler describes the result in particularly clear terms:

“c'est une photographie, mais qu'elle devient aussi un objet.” [6]

The image does not cease to be photographic when it becomes an object. Rather, the individual print acquires a physical existence that cannot be reduced to the information contained in the negative. The identity of the work depends not only on its photographic origin but also on the way the image has been realized on a particular support.

This brings Zeler’s practice close to the logic of printmaking. The photographic origin remains essential, but the conditions under which the image is materially produced become part of the identity of the finished work. The same relationship can be seen even more clearly in his work with photogravure, where the final image depends on the interaction between matrix, ink, paper and the pressure of the press. There is a clear historical precedent for such an approach. Pictorialist photographers made extensive use of gum bichromate, pigment processes, platinum and photogravure in order to intervene in the appearance of the print and strengthen the artistic dimension of photography.[7] Pierre Zeler draws on this history, but his practice is not a reconstruction of it. He is interested in what these processes can make possible within contemporary image-making.

A Historical Process, a Contemporary Gaze

Pierre Zeler openly acknowledges the historical dimension of his practice, particularly his interest in photographers such as Edward Steichen and in their departure from the ideal of absolute sharpness and literal description of reality. At the same time, he distinguishes his own work from a revival of pictorialism. His formulation is concise:

“J'utilise des procédés anciens avec une manière de regarder qui est contemporaine.” [8]

The importance of this statement lies in the distinction it makes between the history of a process and the context in which that process is used. The techniques belong to photographic history, but the images produced through them belong to the present. Zeler is not trying to recreate pictorialism. He is using the possibilities of historical processes within a contemporary photographic practice. The relationship between past and present is also visible in his digital workflow. Digital tools allow him to prepare the negatives required for different processes, including the four separations used for colour gum printing. The work then moves into a different physical environment involving paper, pigment, water, light and manual intervention. Digital technology does not replace the historical process; it prepares the conditions in which the process can continue.

This hybrid workflow is significant because using a historical photographic technique today does not require the photographer to reproduce the entire technological environment in which it originally existed. An older process can become part of a contemporary sequence of operations without turning the work into a historical reenactment. The works Pierre Zeler supplied for this study also make it possible to consider materiality beyond the chemistry of the print itself. His photogravures reveal a clear interest in the physical qualities of the printed surface, in the relationship between image and support and in the tonal possibilities of the process. His cyanotypes and gum prints likewise draw attention to the support and to the print as a concrete realization of the image. The presentation of the works adds another dimension to this question. Some are shown in imposing frames, while others retain generous paper margins. The photographs supplied do not always make it possible to determine with certainty whether these decisions were made by the artist or belong to a later exhibition or display context, so they should not be interpreted too quickly as statements of artistic intent. They nevertheless remind us that a photographic work exists within a physical environment that extends beyond the image itself.

Beyond the Return

Several aspects of Pierre Zeler’s practice come together in his understanding of photography as something that continues beyond exposure. The negative functions as a matrix rather than simply a record. The paper contributes to the appearance and character of the image instead of merely carrying information. Time becomes part of the history of the print, while the behaviour of the materials introduces variations that cannot be completely anticipated. The finished photograph consequently carries evidence of its own making.

Photography can therefore become not only a trace of what was photographed, but also a trace of how it was made. Pierre Zeler expresses this idea especially strongly when he describes his desire for photography to become an object carrying the trace of the person who made it.[11] This understanding also gives his practice a particular place within the contemporary image environment. Pierre Zeler points to a situation in which digital technologies, and now artificial intelligence, make it possible to produce and circulate images at unprecedented speed, sometimes without photographing an existing object at all. In such a context, historical processes acquire another significance. They introduce duration, physical matter and tangible presence into the making of a photograph.

As Zeler puts it:

“Le procédé remet de la durée et de la matière dans la photographie.” [9]

He adds:

“l'image peut être un objet et pas seulement un fichier.” [10]

This should not be taken as a claim that digital images are literally immaterial. The distinction is more precise. It concerns the relationship between an image and its particular physical realization. A digital file can be copied and transferred without a specific physical instance being necessary to preserve its identity. A handmade gum print, by contrast, is tied to a particular sheet of paper, a particular quantity of pigment, a particular sequence of operations and a singular history of making.
Seen in this light, Pierre Zeler’s work is less about a return to old techniques than about what those techniques can make possible in the present. Gum bichromate and photogravure become ways of thinking about photography as a construction of the image rather than simply as the recording of something that existed before the photograph was made. His relationship to pictorialism can be understood in the same way. Pierre Zeler does not seek to reproduce images from the past; he uses historical processes with a contemporary way of seeing.[8] His practice can therefore be situated primarily within a material and process-based conception of photography, with a strong interpretive dimension. The post-photographic context is present, but it remains a framework for reflection rather than an autonomous programme. What emerges most clearly is a desire to restore to photography qualities that can become less apparent when the image is understood primarily as information: duration, matter, singularity and physical presence.

Pierre Zeler ultimately summarizes this ambition in a phrase that could serve as the point of arrival for the entire argument:

“que la photographie devienne un objet qui porte la trace de celui qui l'a fabriqué.” [11]

From this perspective, photography does not end with the recorded image. It continues through its material transformation, and the completed work retains something of the process through which it came into being.

Notes

[1] Pierre Zeler, responses to questions by Grzegorz Gorczyński, 2026, point 1.

[2] Ibid., point 2.

[3] Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

[4] Pierre Zeler, responses to questions by Grzegorz Gorczyński, 2026, point 8.

[5] Ibid., point 5.

[6] Ibid., point 9.

[7] Sarah Greenough et al., Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set — Stieglitz’s Practices and Processes, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art.

[8] Pierre Zeler, responses to questions by Grzegorz Gorczyński, 2026, point 15.

[9] Ibid., point 17.

[10] Ibid., point 17.

[11] Ibid., point 18.

Illustration

Pierre Zeler, Mobile Home, gum bichromate, 30 × 40 cm.

Artwork and photograph provided by Pierre Zeler with his permission for the illustration of this article.

Bibliography

Edwards, Elizabeth; Hart, Janice (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

Greenough, Sarah et al., Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set — Stieglitz’s Practices and Processes, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art.

James, Christopher, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, 3rd ed., Boston: Cengage Learning, 2016.

Zeler, Pierre, Alternative Processes, artist’s materials concerning historical photographic processes.

Zeler, Pierre, Polymer Photogravure, artist’s materials concerning photogravure.

Zeler, Pierre, La couleur de mes rêves, artist’s materials concerning the project.

Zeler, Pierre, responses to questions by Grzegorz Gorczyński, private research correspondence, 2026.