Constantinos Loumakis. The Historical Process as an Open System

The Historical Process as an Open System

Constantinos Loumakis and the Contemporary Transformation of Alternative Photography

Introduction

Contemporary interest in historical photographic processes is often described as a return to the past: the reconstruction of old recipes, the recovery of obsolete materials, and the revival of procedures displaced by the industrial standardisation of photography. Yet this description is no longer sufficient. In contemporary practice, historical processes may function not as closed forms of technological heritage, but as environments in which materials can be modified, relationships between processes can be reconfigured, and new forms of photographic authorship can emerge.

The practice and thinking of Constantinos Loumakis are particularly revealing in this respect. In his responses concerning gum bichromate, cyanotype, pigments, negatives, material contact, teaching, and the relationship between chemical photography and digital technology, he consistently presents the photographic process as an “open system.” For him, a historical recipe is a starting point rather than a boundary. A process remains open as long as it can be investigated, modified, and developed further.

His final response condenses this position into a striking formulation: “Photography isn't a technique. […] It's alive.” Loumakis adds that “the negative, the pigment, the paper, the light—they all have agency.”[1] These statements are not scientific claims in the strict sense, but rather a practitioner's way of describing his experience of working with photographic materials. Nevertheless, they have important methodological implications. They shift the discussion from fidelity to a historical procedure toward the question of how a historical technological system can function within contemporary practice.

From Recipe to Open System

Loumakis contrasts two ways of understanding a photographic process.

The first follows a prescriptive model:

materials → a defined sequence of operations → an expected result

The second is based on openness:

historical foundation → experiment → observation → unexpected result → adjustment → further experiment

In his view, a recipe provides a foundation but does not exhaust the possibilities of the process:

“Recipes are there to give a foundation for creativity, not the other way around.”[2]

This position finds a significant precedent in the history of gum bichromate itself. The pigment process, developed from the mid-nineteenth century and later embraced by Pictorialists, offered considerable scope for variation in materials, coating methods, exposure, and development.[3] Technical studies of Pictorialist gum prints further demonstrate that historical practice included numerous variations and combinations of processes, including the application of gum over earlier silver and platinum prints.[4]

Loumakis therefore does not introduce experimentation into a process that was historically rigid. Rather, he develops one of its longstanding characteristics: its openness to intervention.

Process Beyond the Recipe

The most distinctive feature of Loumakis's methodology is the way he understands experimentation. He does not begin with a fixed list of variables. Instead, he observes the behaviour of the process and allows one result to determine what should be investigated next. Humidity, paper preparation, exposure time, pigment properties, and the physical contact between negative and paper become variables whose significance often emerges only through practice.[5]

Within this model, failure is not simply unsuccessful execution.

“Your job isn't to control the outcome. Your job is to listen, respond, adjust.”[6]

He develops the point further when discussing failure:

“Failure isn't error, it's feedback from a living system.”[7]

This does not imply a rejection of technical knowledge. On the contrary, Loumakis's approach is deeply grounded in technical observation. What changes is the function of that knowledge. It is no longer used solely to achieve a predetermined result; it also provides a means of interpreting what the process reveals.

This can be understood as a form of material experimentalism, in which knowledge emerges not only through the application of established theory but also through attentive observation of material behaviour.

APP: From Printer to Pigment

The clearest example of this approach is the Algorithmic Pigment Process (APP).

According to Loumakis, the project began with a seemingly incidental observation of a printer and its toner. The CMYK system, and particularly the black channel, “K”, prompted him to question the physical nature of the material: its structure, its behaviour in water, and its basic properties. Toner ceased to be simply a component of a printer and became, in his reasoning, an industrial pigment that might be introduced into an alternative photographic process.[8]

The significant shift is therefore one of function:

CMYK → toner → pigment → gum bichromate

This may be understood as a form of contemporary technological archaeology: a material is detached from the device for which it was designed and reinterpreted within another technological system.

Loumakis describes APP as a “hybrid approach to an old-fashioned system” and as a “bridge that connects the 1800s chemistry to the current technological system.”[9] At the same time, he does not present it unambiguously as a completely autonomous photographic process. He also uses the terms “hybrid modification,” “co-process,” and “co-agent pigment making”.[10]

From the perspective of photographic technology, it is therefore more cautious to understand APP as a new technological configuration based on connecting a historical process with a contemporary material, rather than as an entirely separate photographic process. Its significance lies not in replacing gum bichromate, but in expanding its material possibilities.

Loumakis has also reported that Bostick & Sullivan are currently evaluating the APP solution and that the results appear promising.[11] At this stage, this should not be treated as independent validation of the process. It is nevertheless significant as evidence that the experiment has entered a stage of external technical assessment.

The Paradox of Industrial Pigment

APP reveals a further paradox. Toner belongs to an industrial technology designed for rapid, repeatable image reproduction. Gum bichromate, by contrast, was one of the processes employed by Pictorialists to move away from the appearance of mechanical reproduction.[12]

Loumakis reverses that relationship: a material developed for industrial image reproduction becomes part of a unique, hand-made photographic object.

The opposition is therefore not simply between analogue and digital photography. Instead, materials and technologies move between them:

digital infrastructure → industrial pigment → chemical process → material object

Contemporary technology does not necessarily displace the historical process. It can become a source of new material possibilities for it.

Layering, Colour, and Visual Equivalence

A related logic can be found in Loumakis's Duotone – Gum Over Cyanotype and Platinum Without Platinum projects.

Here colour is not simply an aesthetic addition. Loumakis is interested in perceptual qualities associated with platinum and palladium — particularly the relationship between tone, grey, colour, and the metallic character of the image.[13]

He is not attempting to reproduce platinum chemically. Rather, he is seeking visual equivalence: a related perceptual effect through a different material system.

Historical gum practice provides an important precedent. Gum was applied over other photographic processes, including platinum, while contemporary literature documents gum over cyanotype, gum over platinum, and multilayer colour variants as established areas of practice.[14]

What is distinctive in Loumakis's approach is the way he treats individual processes as components of a larger system. Cyanotype may provide a tonal foundation, gum may contribute pigment and surface, while additional layers can alter colour and structure.

The process is no longer simply a single procedure. It becomes a system of functions.

The Voice of Blue

In his later message, Loumakis extends this idea to cyanotype itself through a short reflection entitled “The Voice of Blue.”

The argument is significant because it moves beyond the question of combining processes. Cyanotype, he suggests, should not be reduced to a technique, a base layer, or an infrastructure for something considered more important. It can itself become a voice of the medium.[15]

Loumakis compares cyanotype with music. Music is not dismissed as mere craft simply because it can be taught through technical rules. In the same way, cyanotype, in his account, cannot be reduced to what can be prescribed, repeated, and reproduced. Its behaviour in response to light, humidity, time, and intention can become part of the artistic expression.

This raises a more precise question than whether cyanotype is “craft” or “art”:

When does a photographic process become the voice of its own medium?

The question is important because it does not assume that technique automatically becomes art. Instead, it asks when the material characteristics of a process cease to be merely technical means and begin to participate in the production of meaning.

Loumakis's description of changing colour — red emerging from blue, purple appearing unexpectedly, green remaining beneath the surface — should be understood as the artist's description of his experience of the process, rather than as a general technical claim. What matters analytically is the status he assigns to this variability: it becomes evidence that the process itself can participate in the articulation of the image.

The Negative as Medium

A similar expansion occurs in Loumakis's understanding of the negative. He describes it as “the creator story in visual format” and then states:

“The negative is in itself a final medium.”[16]

In the conventional model, the negative is a matrix and the positive is the final image. Loumakis proposes a different hierarchy in which the negative may itself be an autonomous carrier of meaning, later transferred onto another surface.

Photography can therefore be understood not as a single, stable object but as a sequence of material transformations:

negative → process → print → further transformation

A negative may exist independently, be used in gum bichromate or cyanotype, enter another layered process, or become part of a digital workflow. The boundaries between original, copy, and transformation consequently become less stable.

This is directly relevant to post-photographic theory. William J. Mitchell's analysis of the digital image emphasised the increasing mutability of photographic representation and the weakening of the traditional distinction between original and copy.[17] Loumakis extends this problem into the analogue domain, where an image may also pass through multiple material states before arriving at a final form.

Contact: From Technical Problem to Aesthetic Variable

Loumakis's article Contact Printing: Solving the Vacuum-Bag Wrinkle in Alternative Printing extends his experimental method from chemistry into the mechanics of the photographic process.[18]

The issue concerns the contact between negative and paper. Even a small gap between the two surfaces can affect image sharpness. Loumakis modifies an earlier system developed by Bernd Hutschenreuther, using a vacuum bag and a combination of layers intended to produce more even pressure across the print area.[19]

What appears to be a purely technical problem can therefore become an aesthetic variable. The quality of contact does not merely determine whether the process functions correctly; it can influence the character of the resulting image.

This is consistent with Loumakis's broader approach. A technical parameter can become a creative parameter once its effect on the image is understood.

Technology, Access, and Teaching

The vacuum-bag system also reveals an important pedagogical dimension of Loumakis's work. He developed the solution partly for students who should not need to purchase expensive commercial equipment. According to his article, the construction costs less than thirty dollars.[20]

He identifies three principal barriers to participation in alternative processes:

cost, complexity, and fear of failure.[21]

His response is not to eliminate the technical demands of the process, but to reduce the cost of experimentation.

This is expressed in another of his formulations:

“The art of fun, not the art of perfection.”[22]

The statement should not be interpreted as a rejection of craftsmanship. His practice is, in fact, highly attentive to technical detail. Rather, it suggests a change in priorities: the value of experimentation should not be measured solely by the ability to reproduce an idealised result.

Material Agency and a Changing Model of Authorship

The most theoretically suggestive element of Loumakis's thinking is his use of the term agency:

“The negative, the pigment, the paper, the light—they all have agency.”[23]

Loumakis does not develop this claim philosophically, but it resonates with contemporary theories of materiality. Alfred Gell approached artworks and objects through relations of agency, while Jane Bennett developed the concept of “vital materiality” and forms of agency emerging from configurations of human and non-human elements.[24]

Loumakis should not be identified directly with either theoretical position. The important point is the structural similarity of the model.

The human actor is not the only active component of the process.

The model becomes:

author ↔ material ↔ process ↔ environment

rather than:

author → material → result

The artist does not lose agency. Rather, authorship includes recognising the constraints and possibilities produced by the behaviour of materials and responding to them.

“Photography Is Alive”

This provides the context for Loumakis's concluding statement:

“Photography isn't a technique. It's not a tool you use. It's not a record you make. It's alive.”[25]

Within the larger structure of his responses, this should not be dismissed as a purely poetic metaphor.

If photography is “alive”, then a recipe cannot fully define it. The process remains open; failure becomes information; materials participate in the formation of the image; and the artist negotiates rather than completely dictates the course of the process.

Photography becomes, in Loumakis's account, a network of material relations rather than merely a technique of recording.

Algorithm, Hand, and Time

The images Loumakis sent from his Angels series provide a particularly useful material example of this position. He stresses that the project is not finished, but is still evolving. He credits the work:

MISEI / Constantinos Loumakis
“Born of Algorithms, Fixed by Hand and Time.”[26]

The title itself can be read as a concise description of his contemporary photographic model.

Algorithm refers to the digital environment in which the image begins.

Hand refers to manual intervention and the artist's material decisions.

Time refers to the duration of the chemical process and the fact that the final image is not produced instantaneously.

The work therefore does not represent a simple transition from digital to analogue. Instead, the image passes through successive technological and material environments.

The title is particularly revealing because it condenses several of Loumakis's central concerns into three words: digital origin, manual intervention, and material duration.

Chemical and Digital

Loumakis explicitly rejects the idea of a conflict between historical processes and digital technology:

“The future is in the hybrid stage of development, not a war between the two systems.”[27]

The important point is not the terminology itself but the structure of the relationship.

A contemporary photographic workflow may be described as:

digital image → negative → chemical process → hand intervention → material object

In the case of APP, another sequence becomes possible:

digital technology → toner → pigment → historical process → print

Historical techniques therefore do not exist outside contemporary technological systems. They can become active components within them.

Loumakis sees AI as an additional reason to consider this relationship. Generative systems can produce images almost instantaneously, whereas chemical processes require time and sustained attention.[28] This does not establish the superiority of chemical photography over AI-generated imagery. It does, however, point to a different temporal and material logic of image production.

Materiality as a Contemporary Value

Loumakis suggests that five hundred years from now a chemical print may outlast a digital product because it is a physical object.[29] This is a prediction rather than an established fact. The longevity of physical photographs depends on materials, environmental conditions, conservation, and institutional care; digital preservation likewise depends on migration, redundancy, and archival infrastructure.

The more important point is the value he assigns to materiality.

In a digital culture, materiality can become a deliberate artistic position. A photographic print has a surface, structure, weight, and physical history. It is not simply a carrier of information.

Interest in historical photographic processes can therefore be understood not only in terms of conservation or revival, but also in ontological terms: as an attempt to reconsider what a photographic image is when it exists as a material object.

From Pictorialism to Post-Photography

Pictorialism challenged the idea of photography as mechanical and neutral reproduction. Gum printing enabled manipulation of the surface, the introduction of colour, the intervention of the hand, and the construction of images through successive layers.[30]

Loumakis does not simply repeat this gesture. He moves the question to another level.

The Pictorialist position might be summarised as:

“photography can become art because I can intervene in the print.”

Loumakis suggests:

“the process can evolve because I can enter into a relationship with its materials.”

The difference is significant.

In the first model, the print is the principal site of intervention.

In the second, the entire production system becomes open to negotiation.

This is where Loumakis becomes relevant to the transition from Pictorialism to post-photography. The historical process is no longer simply a way of making an image. It becomes an environment in which the image can undergo successive transformations.

Historical Technique and Contemporary Function

At this point, the central question of the larger research project can be posed more precisely:

What happens to a historical photographic process when it enters a contemporary image-making system?

Loumakis's practice suggests several answers.

The historical process becomes a laboratory for experimentation.

It becomes a material system rather than merely a recipe.

It can function as a layered and modular structure.

The negative can become an independent medium.

Mechanical parameters can become aesthetic variables.

Failure can become a means of acquiring knowledge.

Digital technology can become a component of chemical photography.

Materiality can become a conscious artistic position.

This leads to an important distinction:

historical technique ≠ historical image

A nineteenth-century process can therefore be used to produce an image whose aesthetic, meaning, technological infrastructure, and conceptual context are entirely contemporary.

Loumakis as a Systemic Experimenter

On the basis of his responses, Loumakis can be described as a systemic photographic experimenter.

His method follows a recurring sequence:

observation → recognition of material behaviour → modification → testing → interpretation → further modification

APP addresses pigment.

Duotone – Gum Over Cyanotype addresses the relationship between processes and layers.

Platinum Without Platinum addresses visual equivalence.

The vacuum-bag system addresses mechanical contact.

The Voice of Blue addresses the expressive potential of the cyanotype itself.

Angels addresses the relationship between algorithm, hand, and time.

These are not isolated experiments. They share a common logic: the historical photographic process is an environment that can continually be reopened through new questions.

Loumakis within an Open Typology

Within the open and heuristic typology developed for this research, Loumakis occupies several fields simultaneously.

He strongly represents the processual model, in which the process becomes a means of organising time, experimentation, and action.

He equally strongly represents the material model, in which paper, pigment, negative, and light are treated as active components rather than neutral carriers.

The post-photographic model is also particularly pronounced, since historical processes are brought into contact with digital tools, CMYK, toner, and AI.

The aesthetic model remains important, especially in his work with colour and with the visual qualities associated with platinum and palladium.

The reconstructive model, by contrast, is relatively weak. Loumakis does not treat historical technique primarily as a standard that must be reproduced faithfully.

This combination supports the usefulness of an open typology in which a single practitioner may occupy several categories at once rather than being forced into a single classification.[31]

When Does Photography Become Art?

In Loumakis's case, the question of when photography becomes a work of art does not lead simply to the final print.

It may instead be traced through a longer sequence:

exposure → negative → material → process → time → decision → print → object

but also:

algorithm → material → hand → process → time → image

The work does not necessarily begin only when the process is complete. Its status may already be shaped by successive decisions and transformations occurring before the final object exists.

This is where material agency becomes especially important. If pigment, paper, negative, light, and environment all contribute to the conditions of the final image, authorship cannot be reduced to initial intention. It also involves the ability to recognise what emerges through the process and respond to it.

Loumakis therefore does not propose the abandonment of authorship.

He proposes a relational form of authorship.

Conclusion

The case of Constantinos Loumakis demonstrates that contemporary engagement with historical photographic processes need not signify a return to old techniques or the reconstruction of historical aesthetics.

His practice suggests something more dynamic: a historical process can become an open technological system for contemporary experimentation.

APP connects a material associated with industrial image reproduction to nineteenth-century photographic chemistry. Duotone – Gum Over Cyanotype and Platinum Without Platinum treat photographic processes as components of a larger system. The negative may function as an autonomous medium. The vacuum-bag system shows that technological development can also involve the infrastructure of the process. The Voice of Blue shifts attention from technique toward the expressive potential of the medium itself. Angels, with its description “Born of Algorithms, Fixed by Hand and Time,” shows that the relationship between digital origins and material outcomes need not be oppositional.

Across these examples, one principle remains constant.

Loumakis does not treat historical processes as closed objects.

He treats them as environments for action.

This also changes the meaning of the artist. The artist is no longer simply the executor of a recipe or the controller of passive materials. The artist becomes a participant in a process that observes, responds, and makes decisions in relation to material behaviour.

His concept of “surrender” therefore does not mean surrendering authorship. It means giving up the assumption that authorship must take the form of absolute control.

Pictorialism challenged the mechanical neutrality of photography.

Loumakis challenges its technological closure.

Between these positions lies an important history of changing attitudes toward the photographic process: from a recipe to be faithfully reproduced to a system with which the artist can continue to work.

Loumakis's final statement — “Photography is alive” — can therefore be read as the most concise formulation of his position.

Photography remains alive as long as its process remains open.

Its history need not be an archive of completed techniques.

It can remain a repository of possibilities that are still active.

Notes

[1] Constantinos Loumakis, responses to research questions, private correspondence, 2026. Final passage: “The negative, the pigment, the paper, the light—they all have agency. That's why you can let go of perfection and surrender to discovery. Because you're not trying to control something dead. You're working with something alive.”

[2] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[3] Anna Vila, Silvia A. Centeno, Lisa Barro, Nora W. Kennedy, “Understanding the gum dichromate process in pictorialist photographs: A literature review and technical study,” Studies in Conservation, vol. 58, no. 3, 2013.

[4] Vila et al., “Understanding the gum dichromate process in pictorialist photographs…,” 2013.

[5] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Constantinos Loumakis, supplementary message, 2026. Loumakis reported that Bostick & Sullivan were evaluating the APP solution and that the initial results appeared promising. This should not yet be regarded as independent technical validation.

[12] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, materials concerning Robert Demachy and Pictorialism.

[13] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[14] Vila et al., “Understanding the gum dichromate process in pictorialist photographs…,” 2013; Christina Z. Anderson, Gum Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice, Routledge, 2016/2017.

[15] Constantinos Loumakis, supplementary message, “The Voice of Blue,” 2026.

[16] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[17] William J. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, MIT Press, 1992.

[18] Constantinos Loumakis, “Contact Printing: Solving the Vacuum-Bag Wrinkle in Alternative Printing,” AlternativePhotography.com, 2026.

[19] Loumakis, “Contact Printing: Solving the Vacuum-Bag Wrinkle…,” 2026.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford University Press, 1998; Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Duke University Press, 2010.

[25] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[26] Constantinos Loumakis, supplementary message concerning the Angels series, 2026.

[27] Constantinos Loumakis, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, materials concerning Robert Demachy and Pictorialism.

[31] See the open and heuristic typology developed for this research project, in which photographic practitioners may occupy several functional categories simultaneously.

Illustration

The photograph used in this essay was provided by Constantinos Loumakis and shows works from his ongoing Angels series. The artist describes the project as “Born of Algorithms, Fixed by Hand and Time.” The image was supplied for research and illustrative purposes together with the artist’s responses to the research questions, 2026.

Bibliography

Anderson, Christina Z., Gum Printing: A Step-by-Step Manual, Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice, Routledge, 2016/2017.

Bennett, Jane, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Duke University Press, 2010.

Gell, Alfred, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford University Press, 1998.

Loumakis, Constantinos, “Contact Printing: Solving the Vacuum-Bag Wrinkle in Alternative Printing,” AlternativePhotography.com, 2026.

Loumakis, Constantinos, Responses to Research Questions, private correspondence, 2026.

Loumakis, Constantinos, supplementary message concerning The Voice of Blue and the Angels series, 2026.

Mitchell, William J., The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, MIT Press, 1992.

Pla-Vivas, Vicente, “Operating in alternative photography: agency through prolonged photographic acts,” Journal of Visual Art Practice, vol. 20, nos. 1–2, 2021, pp. 64–80.

Vila, Anna, Silvia A. Centeno, Lisa Barro, Nora W. Kennedy, “Understanding the gum dichromate process in pictorialist photographs: A literature review and technical study,” Studies in Conservation, vol. 58, no. 3, 2013, pp. 176–188.