Lumen Prints.
One form of alternative photographic process is called the lumen print. This consists of taking a sheet of regular black&white photographic paper out of its light-sealed envelope, placing it in direct sunlight, placing different vegetation on top of the paper and letting it "cook" for a couple hours with a quick fix at the end. I love the images that can be made using this method, but it goes against everything I was taught in my b&w class about never exposing your paper to light. I still cringe whenever I bring new sheets out.
While experimenting with this technique, I thought about how to combine this with photographic imagery. I printed out digital negatives of an image on transparency paper and then placed that transparency on top of the plant material and let it sit. The almost ghostly qualities of the final prints make me want to explore this whole art form further. The nice part is it only takes a few minutes (once you've printed your transparencies) to do your setup and then walk away for a couple hours to let it process. This gives me plenty of time to work on other ideas.
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