Making Solarizations

Making Solarizations

by William Lulow

I started making these images a number of years ago, but recently because of the Coronavirus pandemic, I have had more time to make some more. These landscapes of recognizable places with an impressionist feel I call “Solarizations.” They are kind of modeled after impressionist paintings, but they are really my own creation. It’s the way I do them that makes them unique.

First, I look for a particularly colorful image, usually a landscape with come special qualities. Reflections, deep blue skies and many different colors usually work best. I bring the images into Adobe Photoshop and then apply certain filters, tweaking them as to color balance, exposure, hue, saturation and contrast. “Basically, they are solarizations,”  In the days of film and paper printing, a solarization was obtained by exposing the negative or print to a brief, white light during the development and then continuing the processing normally. That tended to migrate the grains of silver toward the light spots and reversed the image so that the shadows were light and the highlights dark. Instead of a positive, you had a positive/negative. Often part of the positive part of the image would remain. This is an example of a straight, black & white solarization:

You can see with this image, how the white highlights become dark and the edges become very white. This is just a straight digital solarization. The only thing that has been done to it is lighten it up a bit, which I used to do with extra fixer solution because the hypo would tend to bleach the silver out a bit and increase the contrast. It’s almost like a negative of the image.

With the digital technique, the result is a synthesis and creates an entirely different image. “It’s difficult to control the results,” because digital solarizations are done with filters in Photoshop which electronically try to mimic the chemical effect. It’s never totally reliable which is why you have to do some digital manipulation. Here is a recent digital solarization:

You can see what happened to the sky and its reflection. These kinds of color shifts are largely uncontrollable while they are taking place, but you can alter them quite a bit afterwards. Typically, I need to add to the contrast and alter the hue and saturation until I am satisfied with the result. Here you can also see what reflections and other highlights do to the image.

I once sold one of these images to a family who wanted the overall tone of the print to match a color of their living room decor. So, I brought them to my office and was able to adjust the image so that it came closer to the color of their interior.

Here’s the same shot as above with the colors altered again:

There are certain things one can look for in capturing an original that would make a good solarization.  As I mentioned, one is blue sky with some clouds. Another is water with reflections and a third is lights. If you can find any or all of these elements in your original, you will most likely, come up with a good image to use for a solarization.

“It’s fascinating to see what electronic effects you can get with this technique.” No single result can be replicated because every image is different.  This gives these images their originality.

I have a number of them on my website for purchase, if you like. They can be framed or unframed and you can order them via PayPal using the address: william@williamlulow.com and I have many more as well.  https://www.williamlulow.com/solarizations Prints are made on archival paper (acid free), designed to fit in the following frames: Framatic double shadow mat 16×20 for an 11×14 print: $350 or Unframed 11×14: $250 plus shipping. Of course, they are available in other sizes as well. Call or email for sizes and prices.