Alternative Process – Cameron Young

Salted Paper Prints

I submitted the following to the 2026 Exposure Photography festival:

Artist Statement:

In my work, I aim to reveal the essence of urban parks—spaces often overlooked, yet rich in subtle beauty. Using a simple, large-format, pinhole camera, the long exposures and dreamlike focus imbue these familiar landscapes with a sense of quiet timelessness. This soft, ethereal quality contrasts with the sharp edges of city life, revealing the subtle beauty and tranquility that can be found within the urban landscape. The long exposures allow light to paint the scene slowly, blurring the lines between what is real and what is felt. The resulting images are not about technical perfection but about feeling and memory.

After the image is captured, I bring the negative to the darkroom, where I use the salted paper process to create a physical object. The final contact print is not just a copy of the negative but a unique, hand-coated object, a result of light, chemicals, and human touch. This hands-on method connects me to the origins of photography, imbuing each print with a unique character and a tangible sense of history.

Through this work, I seek to create a space for reflection. My images are a gentle invitation to pause and to reconsider our relationship with the land—not as a static backdrop, but as a living, breathing entity, a story told slowly through light, time, and the enduring beauty of the handcrafted print.

Inglewood Bird Sanctuary – Salted Paper Print

Kodak Brownie

I have started using Kodak Brownie #2 Model F from 1936. I shooting Iford FP4 and contact printing the results as salted paper prints.

Salted paper print

Cyanotype on stone.

For the past year, I have been collecting river rocks, printing a cyanotype on them and then returing them for others to find.

Cyanotype on Bioplastic

Have been experimenting with cyanotype on bioplastic. The bioplastic is made of agar agar, cornstarch and water. I am mixing the cyanotype emulsion directly into the bioplastic and coating glass sheets. In the following examples, the yellow tint is from insufficient washing because the emulsion was thick in that area. A longer wash combined with better coating technique seems to have solved the problem.

Cuprotype

I was interested in trying the cuprotype process and finally got around to it. I used the information I found on darkroomdoc. I printed a couple of pinhole images that I had shot on Arista lith film. I am quite pleased with the results and will be working with this process more.

Aqua Oculus

I first became interested in how elements of the environment could participate in the image making process during the “Beneath” project. For “Beneath” I was using a modified film development tank as a pinhole camera. As I was filling the tank with water in order to make the photograph, I realized that the water became an active component in the image making process.

I was interested in seeing how the water collected from the environment where the image was being made, could contribute to the final image. The clarity and quality of the water all had an effect on the final image.

I constructed the camera around a 4×5 film holder and a salvaged shutter from a discarded Nettar camera. I created a compartment in the front of the camera to hold a plastic sphere that I could fill with water. I filled the sphere with water that I collected on location, placed it in the compartment and taped it shut to make it light tight. The light entered through the shutter and the water filled sphere became the lens to form the image.

I made the exposures onto photo paper that I had loaded into the film holder. Most of the images had exposure times of 1/25 of a second.

Anamorphic Pinhole

A new group of anamorphic pinole photographs that I shot over the summer. I printed them as cyanotypes and toned them using green tea.

Gum Bichromate Prints

I have simplified my gum printing process. I am using oiled, plain paper negatives on unpreshrunk and unsized Stonehenge paper. I am printing a single layer of a Burn Umber / Ivory Black mix.

Soil Chromatography

Back in June, I took a Soil Chromatography workshop hosted by the Land Art Collective and lead by Hannah Fletcher. Soil chromatography is a photographic process. Finely ground soil is absorbed by filter paper that has been prepared with a weak silver nitrate solution, and thanks to capillary action and exposure to light , a ‘picture’ of that soil appears.

Cyanotype on Stone

Have been experimenting with printing cyanotype on stones. Two coats of cyanotype solution and a 13 minute exposure using a digital negative seems to be working well.