Kate Young felt an immediate connection to photography when she was introduced to her first manual film camera in high school. Her art teacher recognised her growing interest in the medium and gave her access to a darkroom during lunch hours. As an introvert, the darkroom became more than a place to experiment with silver gelatin printing. It was a quiet, meditative environment where time moves differently.
Years later, that same desire for slowness has become central to her practice. Young increasingly works with cameraless and alternative processes in which elements of nature not only appear in her prints but also help to shape them.
Nature as subject and collaborator
Nature has become a primary focus of Young’s work over the past three years. In her cyanotypes, lumen prints and phytograms, nature functions as subject, material and active participant in the image making process.
Young describes becoming more attentive to factors such as UV index, humidity, time of day, season and the opacity of the materials she uses. Working with contact printing has taught her to pay as much attention to the conditions surrounding the process as she does to the subject and composition themselves.
The eclipse and what remains unphotographed
One of Young’s most important bodies of work began with the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024. She took only two photographs during the event before putting her camera down.
Being present for totality mattered more than producing exhaustive documentation. The experience was too large to be reduced to a successful photograph, and Young preferred to preserve most of it in memory.
Later, she returned to those two exposures, translating them into cyanotypes and lumen prints. The process brought her work full circle: using ultraviolet light from the sun to expose prints made from photographs of the eclipse itself.
When materials remember a place
Materiality is not an afterthought in Young’s work. A photographic process can carry physical evidence of where and when it was made. Quality of light, weather, water and organic material leave traces that make the print inseparable from its conditions.
That gives place and memory a physical form. An experience that might otherwise survive only as recollection becomes embedded in paper through the behaviour of actual materials.
Giving an image enough time
Young also resists making immediate judgments about her finished work. With time and distance, an image can take on new meaning. Negatives and prints she once paid little attention to have become favourites when revisited later, after the pressure of an initial evaluation has faded.
A broader evolution has taken place in her practice, too. Her earlier work was highly collaborative, centred on portraits of other creative people. Today, her practice is more solitary. Making prints has become a way to step away from the pace of everyday life, slow down and reconnect with nature.
Moving backward as the world accelerates
As digital life becomes faster, Young finds herself moving further into photography’s history. The labour is not an inconvenience but part of the attraction. Processes that require hand coating paper, drying times, long exposures and toning create a tempo that contemporary life rarely offers.
The alternative process workshops she teaches suggest the desire is shared. Other people are also looking for tangible ways of making images that resist immediacy.
Recently she began exploring salted-paper printing. She describes the patient processes involved in the work, and the brown and aubergine tones that interest her. She wants to spend more time with the process and discover where it might lead.
The eye of the storm
“When I am making prints, I feel a little like I am in the eye of the storm.”
Young describes making prints as standing in the eye of a storm. While the world outside may feel increasingly fast and unstable, the process of coating paper, waiting for exposures and accepting the materials’ responses offers a temporary sense of calm.
That may be the most important function of slowness in her work. It is not simply about nostalgia for historical processes, but a practical way of becoming present again.
Developing Stories is a Berlin Photo Studio editorial series about the people, memories and lives behind the photographs we encounter.
Interview and editing: Emiliano Vittoriosi / Berlin Photo Studio, based on Kate Young’s written answers. Artworks and photographs: Kate Young; titles, dates and processes supplied by the artist.
Explore Kate Young’s work and read more conversations in Developing Stories.
Questions about Kate Young’s photographic processes
Which processes does Kate Young work with?
She works with analog processes and alternative printing techniques, with a focus on cyanotype and lumen printing. She has also begun exploring salted-paper printing.
What happened during the 2024 eclipse?
Young made two photographs, then put the camera down to experience totality. She later returned to those exposures through cyanotype and lumen printing.
Why does slowness matter to her?
Hand-coating, waiting and working with materials create a pace that helps her become present and reconnect with nature.
