Description
One-day workshop · 9 am – 4 pm · 28 February 2026
This workshop introduces you to salt printing, the first successful photographic paper process, developed by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839. Alongside the daguerreotype, the salt print dominated early photography until the late 1850s and was used to produce images of remarkable beauty. Salt prints have a distinctive matte surface reminiscent of pastel drawings, with tones ranging from warm reds to deep neutral blacks.
Salt printing offers a unique, tactile way to present your photographs—whether for exhibitions or personal exploration. The workshop adapts this ancient process to create hand made images from digital images. Using Photoshop, you’ll convert a digital image of your choice into a negative on acetate, contact-print it onto your coated paper, and process it into a finished print. Then we will go through the complete workflow of this historic “printing-out” technique. You will learn to:
- Adjust your digital image to the process and create a digital negative
- prepare light-sensitive paper by applying sodium chloride (table salt) and silver nitrate
- expose your hand-coated paper to UV light to create an image
- wash and fix the print to make it permanent
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.
