One of the things I enjoy the most about darkroom photography is the experimentation the process seems to promote. We’ve made photograms, traditional negative prints with both 35mm film, and 120 mm film shot with a Holga, and we recently experimented with toning prints. Now I’m excited to be playing with a technique I discovered from Kristine Thompson while attending the Society for Photographic Education South Central conference in Waco, Texas last month. Kristine creates photograms by placing light-sensitive paper on the screen of her laptop and then developing it to reveal the image. It sounds easy but it’s kind of tricky.

I’ve only just begun to get the hang of my own method, but I’m giving a demonstration on how to make laptopograms (a term I discovered after a bit of research) in a few hours and wanted to share the images I’ve created thus far and my handout for the demonstration.

Handout: laptopogram-guide

 

Laptop Preparation
Digital Negative surrounded by tape to give a clean border.
Books used to apply pressure.
A new way to take a screenshot.
Varying degrees of sharpness and softness controlled by where pressure is applied.
Obviously a Screenshot
I used masking tap for my border but the pressure applied from the books I used as weights caused the software toolbar to come through on the side.
This print was laid on top of the screen without any pressure applied. You have to apply firm pressure to get a clear image.
It could use some tweaking but I’d call this good.
Digital Negative
Notice the ghosting of the image caused by pulling it away while the screen was still on.
I added a black layer at 50% opacity to lengthen my exposure time. It doesn’t appear to negatively affect the contrast of the image.
A combination of positive and negative appearances.