Description
One-day workshop · 9 am – 4 pm · ??? 2026
Every alternative photographic process requires a carefully adjusted negative that responds to the specific tonal characteristics of the medium. This workshop will equip you with the technical understanding and practical control needed to create digital negatives tailored to a wide range of alternative printing techniques.
Digital negatives form the essential bridge between contemporary digital photography and traditional analogue printing. By mastering how to shape and manage tonal values with precision, you’ll gain the ability to transform any digital file—whether captured on a phone, a digital camera, or sourced online—into a unique, handcrafted print. This skill opens the door to working confidently across historic and experimental processes, each with its own expressive potential.
Through clear, step-by-step instruction in Photoshop, you will learn how to generate a customised negative specifically calibrated for analogue silver gelatin prints. Once you understand this workflow, the same principles can be applied seamlessly to other alternative processes such as cyanotype, salt printing, platinum/palladium, or gum bichromate. The result is a versatile and reliable method that you can adapt with precision to suit your individual creative vision.
What to Bring:
- A laptop and digital images you would like to print.
- Please make sure your images are suitable size and resolution for printing.
- An apron or similar or wear old clothes.
- A notebook.
Your Tutor:
Joachim Froese is an art photographer and educator who holds a PhD in Art from RMIT, Melbourne. Working across digital and historical photographic processes, his images are known for their technical precision and conceptual depth. Across three decades, his work has been exhibited extensively in Australia, Europe, Asia, and North America, and his photographs are held in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery, and QAGOMA.
An experienced educator, Joachim has taught and lectured in photography at universities in Australia and Germany since 2001, sharing his practical expertise across a broad range of photographic techniques.
