ABSTRACT
The 1960s was a time of experimentation in Western society: questioning how and why things were done, trying new procedures, and eliciting fresh outcomes. A rising interest in countercultural ideas sparked a renewal of interest in numerous forgotten photographic printmaking processes and sent many photographers back into photographic history to rediscover alternative techniques as well as encouraging new directions in image making. This revival of historical methods surfaced with the national recognition Jerry Uelsmann received for his surrealistic use of combination printing that visualized the unconscious working of his mind by the seeming irrational juxtaposition of images, which spread to nonsilver approaches such as cyanotypes and gum printing. Major objections to the concepts and methods of the combination printers and Pictorialists were raised in Peter Henry Emerson's Naturalistic Photography, which attacked the concepts of combination printing. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, digital imaging, originally considered an alternative process, has come to dominate professional photographic practice.
