Operating in alternative photography: agency through prolonged photographic acts

ABSTRACT The popularisation of digital photography has widened the gap between mainstream photography and alternative photographic processes. Analyses of the so-called post-photographic era have largely ignored the production and reception mechanisms beyond the hegemonic digital turn. Likewise, scholars and artists working with alternative photography processes have focused on technical proficiency, separating themselves from the photographic ontological theories of the last decade. Nevertheless, some contemporary alternative processes photographers (such as Chris McCaw, Meghann Riepenhoff, Eduardo Nave, Thomas Bachler, and Susan Derges) attempt to emphasise the physicality of the chosen medium and to integrate it with the significance of the image through a methodological operation of the capture time. This article aims to review the theoretical frame of the post-photographic era to encompass the ideas and contributions of these alternative process photographers, focusing on the artists’ agency on photographic communication.