(See individual workshop listings for more information and instructor biographies)
Waterfall Arts is proud to announce a series of exciting workshops to be held in conjunction with the “Beyond Spheres” exhibition of master photographer Koichiro Kurita. Koichiro Kurita will be joined by Jonathan Kline of Bennington College and Anna Strickland of Rhode Island School of Design to lead workshops in antique photographic processes. The workshops will begin Friday October 21, the day after Kurita’s artist talk on Thursday, October 20^th. The workshops will be held at Waterfall Arts' Montville location at Kingdom Falls.

All the antique processes taught by Kurita and colleagues have these characteristics in common: light sensitive chemistry is hand applied by brush on a variety of papers, only contact printing can be employed so one must have a negative the size of the print desired and all the processes are ultra violet sensitive so exposure is done by sunlight and or a UV exposing unit.

There will be two classes of Platinum/Palladium taught by Kurita; one on Friday October 21 for beginners and a Master class for more advanced students on Saturday and Sunday, October 22 & 23. On Monday October 24^th Jonathan Kline will teach a workshop on Calotype and on Tuesday October 25^th Anna Strickland will teach a workshop on gum bichromate.

Platinum’s light sensitivity was first discovered by experiments in Germany in the 1830s but it was not until four decades later that the Englishman, William Willis, patented the process. Platinum/Palladium as we know it today is a monochrome printing process whose broad tonal range is managed in development.

The Introductory Platinum/Palladium class will acquaint the student with the basics of preparing large negatives, mixing chemistry, paper choices, hand application of the chemistry and archival processing. There will be a lab fee to cover the cost of chemistry and paper.

The two day Master Platinum/Palladium Class is for the experienced photographer. Kurita will share his personal techniques and recipes in working with Platinum/Palladium. A highlight of the workshop will be his techniques in working with Japanese gampi paper. Although the basics of creating large negatives will be discussed, students will be expected to come prepared with their own negatives for printing. There will be a lab fee to cover the cost of chemistry and paper.

The Calotype class taught by Jonathan Kline will allow students to try their hand at making negatives on paper using an adaptation of William Henry Fox Talbot’s original Calotype Process, introduced in 1841. The process was quite popular in Europe throughout the 1840’s and 1850’s and used on some of the earliest expeditions down the Nile by the French photographer, Maxime du Camp. An 8x10 camera will be provided, along with all the necessary paper and chemicals for each participant to make a negative on paper. Landscapes and architectural views are encouraged, as exposure times will be very long! There will be a lab fee to cover the cost of chemistry and paper. 
The Gum Bichromate class taught by Anna Strickland will aquaint students with the basics of this pigmented process (powdered pigments, water colors, gouche). Mongo Ponton is credited with the invention of Gum Bichromate in 1839 but it was not until the Pictoralists’ era in the 1890s that the gum bichromate process was widely employed. An additional note about Gum Bichromate is that it may be used to tint Platinum/Palladium prints to great effect.
The Gum Bichromate class will acquaint the student with the basics of preparing large negatives and camera-less photography such as cliché verre, mixing chemistry, paper choices, hand application of the chemistry, archival processing and the specifics of working with a pigment based process. There will be a lab fee to cover the cost of chemistry and paper.

Concord River, Concord, MA - Koichiro Kurita