A Rare Colour Printing Talk with Andy Cross

What if the future of colour photography… was hidden in the 19th century?

Before colour film, before digital sensors, and long before Photoshop, a handful of photographers were already making astonishing colour prints. Their secret wasn’t chemistry from a lab or a clever trick of light — it was colour separation photography, a meticulous process so costly and complex that only royalty, governments, and the very wealthy had access to it.

Today, almost no one in the world still uses these methods.

But Andy Cross does. And for one morning only, he’s sharing how it all works.

Andy’s talk, Back to the Future, explores how colour printing was mastered over 130 years ago — and how those same principles still sit underneath the most modern colour printing processes today.

You’ll hear about:

• The Fresson process — the earliest colour-assembly printing technique
• How photographers produced colour prints decades before colour film existed
• Why these early prints are incredibly stable and non-fugitive
• How Andy built a fully functioning colour-separation camera
• How he now makes colour prints with no colour film and no digital capture
• Why these processes may vanish forever as colour transparency films disappear

Far from an academic lecture, this is a story of craft, invention, and the handmade future of photography.

See Two Rare Bermpohl Cameras on Display

To make this event even more special, we’ll also have two restored Bermpohl large-format separation cameras on display — remarkable machines designed specifically for colour-separation photography.

These cameras are rarely seen outside private collections, and together with Andy’s operational colour-separation camera, they offer a fascinating look into the history (and future) of handmade colour printing.

Featured Prints

You’ll also see a dye-transfer prints created entirely without colour film or digital capture — a spectacular example of what this processes can produce.

Why Attend?

• A chance to hear from one of the few people in the world practicing these methods
• A rare look at separation cameras you’re unlikely to see anywhere else
• A deep dive into how colour photography actually works
• A chance to connect with photographers, analog lovers, and creative thinkers
• And simply… a fascinating story told by someone who lives it