Beyond pixels: Friends University’s 'Analog & Alternative' bridges photography’s past and future

The “Analog & Alternative Photography Invitational” at Friends University showcases the work of 30 contemporary artists using non-digital tools to create images by capturing light. This exhibition focuses on the intersection of historical processes and contemporary expression, where there’s more to photography than tapping a screen and choosing an Instagram filter. Some of the artists even employ camera-less techniques that have been around for over 200 years. Others explore the new practice of utilizing coffee (!) to develop traditional film.

Lauren Miller, gallery coordinator at the university’s Riney Fine Arts Gallery, put together the show to “highlight and celebrate analog and alternative photographic techniques and the talented artists who practice and create in this space, as well as use this as an educational opportunity for students and visitors to teach about photographic processes outside of the digital realm.” Indeed, the works in the exhibition are innovative and interesting, and from it the curious viewer can learn about a number of exciting photographic techniques that don’t require a single pixel.

The gallery wraps around a calm study area in the Riney Fine Arts Center. The thoughtfully curated images present a restrained palette overall: many of the techniques represented are necessarily constrained to black and white. The result is a contemplative space to meditate on the metamorphosis of photography.

The educational goal of the exhibit is literally on display. A framed poster offers a glossary of photographic techniques from “contact print” to “ziatype.” Dale Strattman’s framed examples of film negatives will be nostalgic for viewers who have ever used a darkroom to develop film. 

“Analog Photography” was invented in the 19th century and film photography, which was developed in 1885, became the dominant method of photography throughout most of the twentieth century. Digital photography displaced much film photography when it became mainstream in the 1990s. Digital cameras were in turn supplanted by smartphone cameras by the 2010s. However, some artists have continued to work with analog techniques, and succeeding generations have embraced the creative potential of film.

“Alternative Photography” describes any non-traditional process. Some of these processes predate film technology — for example, camera-less prints were first explored in the 1830s. Some contemporary alternative photo artists upend old technology in new ways. If you’ve developed film or made prints in a classic darkroom lab, you will remember how noxious the chemicals could be. What if you could use coffee instead? This modern technique, called Caffenol, came on the scene in 1995.

For Miller, what’s most engaging about the exhibition is the variety of processes on display. The best news for analog/alt photo artists? The gallery plans to make this an annual event, creating a Wichita home to spotlight photographic innovation.

No matter how artists create them, photographs — like all gallery artwork, need to touch the viewer’s emotions. As the 20th century photographer Irving Penn asserted, “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” Besides representing a wide range of techniques, the photographs in this exhibition communicate these positive aesthetic effects.

Brian Gray created “Lazy Sunday” using 35mm film and a vintage Chinon camera. The photo presents a light washed, shadowed interior that draws the eye to the play of light through bicycle spokes and Venetian blinds. A hint of red catches the viewer’s attention. Neither subject — the bicycle and the resting dog — are fully in the frame, adding a sense of mystery to a moment of perfect tranquility.

Justine Teel’s “The Hidden Memory” is a film image developed in coffee. Step-by-step guides to the Caffenol process can be found online. Most recipes replace traditional developer chemicals with a combination of coffee, sodium carbonate, vitamin C, and iodized salt.

Teel’s photo presents a hazy landscape of fence posts marching toward a bright horizon point at the center of the photo; the composition effectively breaks the “rule” about not putting your horizon line mid-center. Vignetting around the edges of the frame enhances the dreamy, nostalgic feeling of the image.

Kelsey Nolin’s “Clover, no. 2” represents one of the camera-less techniques included in this show: lumen printing. Also known as "solar photograms," lumen prints rely on the sun's light to produce images on traditional silver gelatin photographic paper. Since the 1830s, the technique has been particularly favored for botanical subjects. Nolin creates a gentle floral study where delicate ivory leaves and blooms seem to float on a warm sepia background.

The exhibition also features Tyler Longfellow’s striking silver gelatin prints “Leaf” and “Plant.” This technique, around since the 1870s, generates black-and-white photographs using a light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts and gelatin. The characteristic sharp detail and rich tonal range of the process are well represented in Longfellow’s work. “Leaf” boldly centers the subject, creating an engaging interplay between the intricate leaf veining, the human hand holding it, and the softly blurred background.

In “Plant,” the silver gelatin printing technique is a perfect match for Longfellow’s celebration of a bed of hosta leaves. The dynamic excess of ribbed and ruffled textures rendered in restrained gray tones offers a contemplative look at nature.

Adding splashes of color to the show, Kimberly Ivancovich experiments with special-edition Polaroid films. These films, specific to the Polaroid company’s instant camera, replace the typical white layer of the cartridge film with a colored layer. “Pushing Color #6” showcases 25 images Ivancovich shot with Polaroid Duochrome Yellow 600 film, creating dramatic contrasts between bright highlights and textured blacks.

In “Lake Billy Chinook,” Ivancovich takes Polaroid manipulation even further, literally lifting the emulsion layer from the instant photo and floating it onto a new surface. The three stacked images are a compelling cyan color and the wrinkles inevitably created when moving the fragile gel layer add a quiet conversation of texture to the composition.

In “Absentee,” Macalah Ruff adds playful elements to a classic cyanotype process. Cyanotypes, invented in 1842, have become a standby of summer art camps where kids of all ages can create “sun prints” by exposing coated paper to sunlight. Ruff’s composition elevates the sun print to fine art through her use of additional color and ephemeral objects like packing tape and actual safety pins. An enigmatic suited figure, centered in the composition, creates intrigue.

In the Riney Fine Arts Gallery’s “Analog & Alternative” exhibition, we get to experience the creativity of artists who move forward, sometimes by taking a step back into vintage techniques. Photography’s past, present, and future are all wrapped up in an engaging package. 

The Details

"The Analog & Alternative Photography Invitational"
February 7-March 29, 2025, Riney Fine Arts Center on the Friends University campus, 2100 W. University Ave. in Wichita

The gallery is open to the public from 9 a.m.-5 p.m, Monday-Friday. Admission is free.

Learn more about Riney Fine Arts Gallery on its website.

Skyler Lovelace is a poet and painter from Wichita, Kansas. She works from a 1927 former elementary school, where she facilitates poetry workshops from the principal’s office and paints in an upstairs classroom.

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