Alternative Processes

's Ecological Wetroom begins with a part of photographic practice that is usually kept out of sight: what happens to water, chemistry and material residue once the image has been made.

Rather than allowing these materials to disappear down the drain, Scholz collects, observes and recirculates them. Washwater moves through a deliberately low-tech filtration system made from accessible materials such as gravel, sand and activated charcoal, before entering another stage of the installation involving hydroponic plants.

Filtration is not treated simply as a technical solution to photographic waste. The movement of water itself becomes visible and becomes part of the work. Sediment, mineral material, plant roots, filters and changing water conditions are all exposed rather than hidden inside infrastructure.

This distinction is important. The Ecological Wetroom is not presented as a perfect sustainable solution. It is an experiment. It asks what might happen if photographers continued paying attention to materials after their immediate usefulness had ended. Perhaps the most significant idea within the Ecological Wetroom is that the making of a photograph does not necessarily end when the image is finished.

Its materials continue moving through other systems. The water matters. The residue matters. The infrastructure matters. And what happens afterwards can also become part of the photographic process.

You can join Aindreas Scholz in New York this October for two events exploring ecological photography, early processes, and material experimentation:

Artist Talk: Unfixed Landscapes
🗓️ Thu, Oct 8 | 5:00–6:00 PM
BAXTER ST at CCNY (154 Ludlow St)
An illustrated talk connecting Scholz's ecological practice with early photographic research, rethinking historic processes through water, chemistry, and environmental responsibility.

Workshop: Cyanotype to Concertina
Building a Folded Sequence
🗓️ Sat, Oct 10 | 11:00 AM–5:00 PM
Center for Book Arts
A one-day hands-on workshop guiding participants to create cyanotypes and assemble them into a concertina artist’s book grounded in climate-adapted practice.

One of my favourite moments from our recent workshop came from a participant who had never made a chlorophyll print before.

She decided to try printing onto a vine leaf, something we had tested ourselves before, more than once, without ever getting a successful result. I gently mentioned it may not work, but it’s also worth trying.

And somehow, this time, it worked.

There was something really beautiful about watching someone approach the process without any history with it, without knowing what had or hadn’t worked for us in the past, and simply deciding to try.

It’s a good reminder that experience is incredibly useful, but it can also quietly create assumptions. Sometimes a beginner is more willing to take a risk, to test the thing that seems unlikely, and to ask why not.

Anna Goraczko

Some beautiful yet fugitive colours provided by nature!

One of the things I love most about our workshops is helping participants bring a vision to life. If you arrive with a challenging material, an unusual surface, or an idea you’re not quite sure how to realise, I love putting our minds together, experimenting, problem-solving, and finding a way to make the print happen.

The workshops are designed to leave space for each participant to pursue a print, idea, or experiment they’re particularly interested in, with dedicated time to explore it and receive individual support.

The more we experiment with alternative processes, the harder it becomes to separate these fields.

The Alternative Processes Academy is created to give you a deep understanding of processes through a coherent, research-led curriculum, designed and taught from first-hand experience.

A while back, I found this little pile of agate slices at a garage sale. Since then, I’ve experimented with them extensively, using processes like cyanotype, anthotype, and traditional darkroom printing.

After working with alternative photographic processes for a long time, I’ve developed a strange little superpower: I’ve learned to look at an object not only for what it is, but envision what it could become through a photographic process.

In this case, , I'm more interested in its surface, translucency, texture, density, and the kind of image it might produce, rather than that slightly questionable synthetic appearance.

This is one of the things I love most about experimental photography: it changes the way you look at an object. You start seeing photographic potential everywhere: in plants, minerals, soils, fabrics, found objects, and materials that were never intended to become photographs in the first place.

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The plant is not simply being represented, It is participating in the image-making process

Our Substack is the research journal behind Alternative Processes. It’s where we document experiments in more depth: testing, failures, comparisons, field notes, material behaviour, and the questions that emerge along the way. If you enjoy our newsletters and would like to support the research behind it, you can subscribe there!

Another workshop has just ended and our hearts are so full! So grateful to this wonderful group for filling our studio and garden with questions, experiments, conversations, and so much creative energy. If you want to join one of our workshops in 2027 please register to the in-person worlshop waitlist, we’re

Reflecting on alternative photographic processes not only as ways of placing images onto surfaces, but as methods for revealing what is already present in those surfaces.