Experiments with lace, 2016

Mechanically made white lace handkerchief rendered (and re-rendered) digitally and photographically 

WHF Talbot, the inventor of negative positive photography as we knew it, undertook numerous photographic experiments using pieces of lace from as early as 1834. He placed shaped pieces of lace directly onto paper made light-sensitive, and he exposed this to light. The resulting image showed the lace rendered exactly, in white. If that initial contact image of white lace on paper was to be placed on another piece of coated paper and re-photographed (that is, used as a negative) the lace would be rendered in black. However, if photographed with black and white film, the resulting negative image would have rendered the lace black.