The Tiles
It began as a black-and-white photograph that Jill Enfield took with an F100 and a 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor of the Friends Seminary School in New York City. And then....
First she coated ceramic tiles with gelatin to prepare them, then with liquid emulsion to receive the image. In her darkroom the tiles went under the enlarger in the same way a piece of photographic paper would, and the image was exposed onto them. Then the tiles went into the developing tray, a few at a time. Next came the stop bath and, finally, two fix baths. After a day or two of drying, the tiles are ready for hand coloring—in this case with pastel chalk. The final steps were coatings: first fixative spray, then varnish.
"Pictures that lend themselves to this technique are simple images," Jill says. "They can't be something with a lot of detail, or the detail can't matter, because brushing on the liquid emulsion is inexact, and the results can be uneven because of varying thickness and the nature of the tile itself. So some areas will pick up more emulsion than others, and you can lose details in some places when the image is transferred."
For Jill, the process is as satisfying as the end result. "I like to work in the darkroom, and I like to work with my hands. I especially like having a lot of choices."
Other tile images that Jill has created were mounted on metal and sold as fine art pieces. This one was donated to the school, where it was embedded into a wall.
You can learn more about this process in Jill's book, Photo-Imaging: A Complete Guide to Alternative Processes.
