The Aesthetics of Photographic Production by Andrea Jaeger

This exposition forms part of the research project exploring the often-overlooked sensory and material facets of photographic production, challenging the traditional focus solely on the visual aspect of photographs. The research questions the prevailing view that understanding photography is limited to analysing the final image, suggesting instead that the process of making a photograph—its production in real-world environments such as laboratories, factories, and manufacturing spaces—holds equal aesthetic significance. The aim is twofold: to redirect attention to processes of photographic making, exploring the aesthetic dimension beyond the photograph itself, and to examine how this shift influences the overall understanding of photographic practice. Employing practice-based research across diverse photographic settings, this study uncovers the aesthetic nuances of C-type printing processes, including the tensioning, fogging, and tearing of photosensitive paper. It adopts an event-centric viewpoint, moving beyond the visual to explore multisensory handlings—listening, touching, and feeling—that are integral to photographic production, and acknowledges the contributions of more-than-human agency in photographic making. This approach allows for a multi-modal presentation of findings, combining traditional written analysis with experiential expositions to highlight the importance of non-visual outputs in photographic making. The contributions of this research are manifold. Firstly, it critically reviews the dominant focus on the visual analysis of photographs, advocating for a broader understanding that includes the tactile and auditory dimensions of photographic making. Secondly, by immersing in the physical environments of photographic production, it provides empirical insights into the everyday practices that remain hidden from view. Thirdly, the study pioneers an artistic research methodology that emphasises showing over telling, utilising a variety of exhibition formats to convey the embodied nature of photographic making. Lastly, through in-depth case examples, it uncovers the complex interplay of materials, technology, and both human and non-human agency, suggesting a more nuanced concept of photographic practice that surpasses the conventional visual-centric, human-centric and photograph-centric paradigm. By advocating for a comprehensive view that embraces the sensory and material complexities of photography, this thesis enriches the medium's aesthetic understanding beyond the photograph as centre.

'Tensioning photosensitive paper is a skilled practice enveloped in darkness that amplifies the senses beyond mere sight through deep listening, touching and feeling that sweet spot when the paper is not too loose, not to tight but sits just right.'

Andrea, August 2022

This section recounts what I learned about ‘listening and touching’ performed in the complex practice of tensioning photosensitive paper from my many on-site conversations with the image technicians at Bayeux. In particular, a how-to instructional session walked me step by step through this practice. As I followed how they engaged and listened closely to the materials, I noted the subtleties of each element, recalling Lange-Berndt’s account of ‘how to be complicit with materials’(Lange-Berndt, 2015).

What I learned helped me to deepen my understanding of tensioning’s praxis as it unfolded in a room crowded with space-hungry machinery. Most importantly, the room fell into total darkness; filled with sounds and vibrations, it became the black universe commonly referred to as in the dark.

This is where Chromira lives. Chromira is built around light-emitting diode (LED) technology. The LED printhead exposes colour negative Type C photographic paper; ‘C’ stands for chromogenic and refers to the multiple layers of emulsion that negatively sensitize the paper to different wavelengths of light. Once Chromira has digitally exposed the sensitized paper, it is removed to be processed by Colenta, using commonplace darkroom chemistry to create a perfect archival digital C-type print.

Photosensitive paper from manufacturers like Hahnemühle or FujiFilm arrives at the laboratory in light-tight boxes of differing length, quality, finish, and weight. The paper is wound tightly around a cardboard tube, and its shape returns it to that tight tubular form when released.

Chromira’s process employs a light-sensitive emulsion; in photographic settings, the most common emulsion is based on silver salts and comprises at least three layers (red, blue, and green), which register the primary colour composition of the image to be exposed. That exposed image is invisible or latent until the exposed paper from Chromira is transferred to Colenta. The image becomes visible after being washed with chemicals that release the colours in the emulsion layers after drying.

To exploit Chromira’s high-end printing capability, the light-sensitive paper must be threaded onto the machine’s long cylindrical drums and wound tightly around them. Before each print job, the paper must be tensioned to ensure a tight fit. Tensioning must be performed in total darkness because, as the image technician put it, ‘the paper will see every teeny tiny bit of light’. The imaging technician threads the paper around the left and right drums inside Chromira’s light-tight body; the paper on the right drum is called the leader, and the paper on the left drum is called the tail. Correct tensioning of the leader and tail are vital for smooth and flawless flow, but despite their importance, they are discarded once the image is produced.

In the production of the artwork ‘Too loose, too tight and just right’ (as I subsequently called it), I sought to capture...

In the production of the artwork ‘Too loose, too tight and just right’ (as I subsequently called it), I sought to capture aesthetically the listening with subtle noises in touching and feeling tensioned photosensitive paper in the dark. ‘Listening and touching’ so argued in the research, are overlooked aesthetic productions made in photographic production that are commonly overlooked due to an understanding of photographic practice that is dominated by the photograph. Choosing sounds I had listened to and recorded at Bayeux, I foregrounded those sounds within a moving image format to produce a video essay that attempts to ‘show’ listening and touching’ as two aesthetic productions made in the practice of tensioning photosensitive paper in the process of C-type printing photographs. ‘Too loose, too tight, and just right’ is to be projected inside an enclosed black room; a speaker emitting the sounds produced by Chromira’s printing activity and the practice of tensioning.

Those sounds are accompanied by the transcribed step-by-step instructional session and dialogue with the image technician, which rolls across the screen, allowing the viewer to read about the process of tensioning. The video essay discloses an unheard conversation and the sounds of a practice that no one can see. The words rolling across the screen do not match the sounds the audience is listening to – a paradox that conveys the attention needed to attune with listening to the subtle noises made of touching tensioned paper, which is anything but visual.

I watched the audience engaging with this piece during a screening at the Film Free and Easy screening night ‘Fleshmeet’ at the Primary Gallery Nottingham on May 6, 2022. Soon after the video started, an eerie silence fell in the total darkness of the room. The viewers sitting next to me bent forward; as they told me afterwards, they were trying not to miss any of the video’s soft and subtle sounds. One audience member remarked on the intimacy expressed by the radically reduced imagery of the black screen, which extended into the screening room and intensified the urge to listen deeply.

Before walking you through the piece...

I invite you to first engage with the work with hedaphones on (duration 12 min 22 sec).

The piece opens in darkness – a subtle soundscape of soft voices and the humming of a machine. In the centre of the black screen, the word PAPER emerges in fine white letters and slowly grows bigger before fading and giving way to the next word, TENSION, followed by AIR, ROLL, and SOUND. At one minute in, the words other side mark a sudden change in the rhythm of the humming sound; one tap, and it begins: the melodic back-and-forth of a printer at work.

As the word PROPERLY grows in size on the screen, the back-and-forth sound stops for a moment, and the rhythmic action returns in sync with the emergence of the word EXPOSE, followed by the words FLOATS, MACHINE, TIGHT, PRINTS, STRAIGHT, LINES, DRUM, PRINCIPLE, and METRES. The pace of succession shifts, as words appear more quickly and for a shorter time. The words shown are those most often mentioned in the original dialogue (number of mentions determines on-screen duration) and precede a conversation about tensioning that starts after a short sounds-only interval (2.05–3.34). The first part of the conversation (3.35–6.40) rolls from the bottom of the screen to the top; no voices are heard, but the low hum of the machine continues. One highlight of this first part of the conversation is the image technician’s observation that ‘It’s weird doing it in the light. Usually, I’m doing it in the dark, and now I’m looking at what I’m doing, and I don’t normally look’ (4.05).

As the conversation continues to roll across the screen, a squeaky door (5.05) signals the moment when the image technician enters the room. The sound of a lid opening (5.40) indicates that tensioning is about to begin. Now, the sounds become louder, more erratic, and more rapid in pace. At 6.45, the text phases out, and there it is: a stroking sound (6.50–6.54). Nothing to see, just a very soft and delicate sound.

I chose to place the climactic aesthetic event of tensioning at the midpoint of the piece (6.50–6.54). In that brief interval of four seconds, we hear the delicate sounds produced by the technician’s hands stroking the photosensitive paper. Intentionally, the conversation is briefly interrupted, allowing these subtle and almost imperceptible sounds to take centre stage.

Part two of the conversation (6.55–11.20) begins with the words ‘You have to do all this in the dark’. A highlight of this second part of the conversation is the image technician’s assertion that ‘Once it’s on, we just feel it’ (8.15). At the end, in response to my inquiry about ‘this move that you can hear’, the image technician observes that it is about ‘making sure it sits tight. You know you feel confident with it’. As the last of the text rolls off the screen, the title of the piece is revealed, along with a short description of the video essay’s content.

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