Getting Technical: Alternative Photographic Processes

Exhibition Details

2026 FotoFocus Biennial exhibition

Photography is a chemical process, and this exhibition examines ways artists have used historical, non-traditional or experimental processes to make unusual and strange photographs—often through adjustments to chemistry, through darkroom manipulation and through hand-worked compositions. Ideas vary on what exactly is an alternative process, and this exhibition will help viewers to develop a working understanding of what we can include.

Photography is a medium marked by trial and error, experimentation and innovation. In its relatively short history, dozens upon dozens of processes, techniques and technological advancements have been driven by creative minds and out-of-the-box thinkers. Whether creating new camera bodies, modifying darkroom chemistry or reworking the print surface by hand, photographers find countless ways to make the medium their own. This exhibition features numerous photographic formats and processes: from early processes like wet-plate collodion, to lensless ones like chemigram, to experimental processes like solarization.

Support for this 2026 FotoFocus Biennial exhibition was provided in part by FotoFocus.

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SPONSORS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Support for this 2026 FotoFocus Biennial exhibition was provided in part by FotoFocus.

Getting Technical: Alternative Photographic Processes is part of the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial: The Long View. Now in its eighth iteration, the Biennial activates over 70 exhibitions at museums, galleries, universities, and public spaces throughout Greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Northern Kentucky in October 2026. 

About The Long View Theme, Short Option 

The 2026 FotoFocus Biennial theme, The Long View, considers aspects of time and perspective in photography and film, and how these mediums shape our understanding of the world.