T57. How to Make Memories Disappear with John Steck Jr.

In this workshop, participants will explore photography as a mutable medium shaped by disappearance, fading, and transformation. The session approaches time, memory, and personal photographic archives as active forces that can alter the image rather than simply preserve it.Participants will work with copied images from their own archives, especially photographs linked to difficult or complex emotions, and will engage in a process that allows the images to change physically over time. The theoretical component examines photography as a keepsake and memory device, contrasting early attempts to freeze time with contemporary practices that embrace decay and disappearance, with time itself acting as a visual and conceptual element.The practical component combines technical and creative workflows. Participants will prepare digital files in Adobe Photoshop to create inkjet transparencies, learning resizing, inversion, tonal adjustment, and print settings. These negatives will then be used to produce disappearing photographs on gelatin silver paper, working with different emulsions and light sources to observe how material choices influence fading and transformation.The workshop encourages participants to rethink photographic memory as something dynamic, where images evolve alongside personal experience rather than remaining fixed in time.

Outline

1. Theoretical session: photography, time, memory, disappearance, historical and contemporary references
2. Technical practical session: preparing digital files and inkjet transparencies using Adobe Photoshop
3. Artistic practical session: producing disappearing photographs on gelatin silver paper using digital negatives and experimental emulsions

Participants must bring: digital image files (scans or regular digital photographs) that they would like to make disappear during the workshop.The files should be medium resolution (240 DPI or higher) and suitable for printing at sizes between 4×5 inches and 8×10 inches (or larger).The images can be brought on a USB thumb drive or shared in advance through a Google Drive folder.