Camera-Less Photography Workshop

Welcome to the Camera-Less Photography Workshop!

Photography means “writing with light” and while we associate it with cameras, there are cameraless ways to make photographic art.

Join us at City Tavern for a hands-on experience in capturing images without a camera. Learn how to create stunning photographs using alternative techniques like photograms and cyanotypes. No need for fancy equipment – just bring your creativity and enthusiasm! Take home what you make.

Photographer Nancy Breslin will guide you through the process, from preparing your materials to developing your unique prints. No experience required. Don't miss this opportunity to unleash your creativity and produce one-of-a-kind images!

Participants will create two types of cameraless photographs – lumen prints and cyanotypes. For lumen prints, one works under subdued light to place objects such as leaves and flowers on darkroom photographic paper and cover it all with a piece of plexiglass. When placed in the sunshine the white paper will grow darker with time while areas under the leaves will remain white. Back in subdued light, bathing the paper in a fixative chemistry bath will prevent further darkening. The rinsed and dried print will be a cameraless photo. For cyanotypes the first step is to paint the green cyanotype sensitizer onto watercolor paper and let it dry. Then, using a similar process to lumen prints, objects are placed between the paper and plexiglass and placed in the sunshine. The sensitizer will change from light to very dark green. When the print is then washed under subdued light, a bright blue shadow print will remain.

Nancy Breslin is a Washington, DC based artist who specializes in photographs taken with pinhole and toy cameras. She has exhibited widely and taught at the University of Delaware and George Washington University. She has a popular "Five Minute Introduction to Pinhole Photography" on Youtube, and a timelapse of the camera obscura she installed in her apartment gathered almost 2 million views on Tiktok. iwww.nancybreslin.com.

Host or Publisher Greenwood Chamber Arts Program, Tulsa, OK