Primitive Photography : A Guide to Making Cameras, Lenses, and Calotypes

Primitive Photography considers the hand-made photographic process in its entirety, showing the reader how to make box-cameras, lenses, paper negatives and salt prints, using inexpensive tools and materials found in most hardware and art-supply stores. Step-by-step procedures are presented alongside theoretical explanations and historical background. Streamlined calotype procedures are demonstrated, featuring different paper negative processes and overlooked, developing-out printing methods. primitive Photography combines the simplicity of pinhole photography, the handmade quality of alternative processes, and the precision of large-format. For those seeking alternatives to commercially prepared material as well as digital photography, it provides the instructions for creating the entire photographic process from the ground up. Given its scope and treatment of the photographic process as a whole, this may be the first book of its kind to appear in over a century.

Alan Greene is a photographer and teacher specializing in view-camera technique, black-and-white printing, and historical processes. His photographic work, dealing with themes like small-town life along the Mississippi and Wabash rivers, and images depicting the American Revolution, has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in both the United States and France. He has taught black-and-white photography, view-camera, and studio lighting courses at the university level. As a leader of workshops, he has taught pinhole photography and the construction of cameras and lenses. Presently, he is researching and writing about 19th century photographers and photographic processes