Marek Matusz

Marek Matusz photographs landscapes and nature objects. See his Chrysotypes, gum bichromates, Lumens and pt/pd prints.
From: Poland, lives in Houston, Texas, USA.
Shows: Chrysotypes, Gum bichromates, Lumen prints, Satista print, Tri Coloured Gum bichromates, Platinum & Palladium, Ziatypes.

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Marek was born in Poland. He now lives and works in the United States, calling Houston, Texas his home. He likes the landscape of the American West and travels extensively to the National Parks of the West with his 4×5 view camera. He has a chemistry degree and is a self-taught photographer. He has exhibited his B&W work in several local juried shows. About two years ago he read Mike Ware’s article about the new Chrysotype process and decided to give it a try.

Chrysotype is a process of making photographic prints out of pure gold. He believes that gold is the last element to be discovered for the purpose of making photographic images (it has an extensive use as a toning reagent). It has a unique property of making colloidal solution of different colors. What that means for the photographer is that pink, red, magenta, blue, black and all the shades in between can be used in a creative photographic process. Split tones of blue and magenta are possible and are a trademark of the Chrysotype process. Several hundreds of prints later some of his work is ready to be shown.

“Finally I can match the color of the picture to my mood. After all we live in a world of color even if we take our pictures on a black and white film.”

About chrysotypes:

The use of gold in photography goes back to the beginnings, when Herschel discovered a method for making prints out of gold and named the process Chrysotype. The process never gained any popularity among photographers because of difficulties in making gold sensitizers. It wasn’t until the discovery of new gold chemistry by M. Ware (see his page on this site) in the 1990’s that the prints of gold made by the new Chrysotype process became a reality. I should warn the reader the process is not for the faint of the heart. I have spent hundreds of hours experimenting with Ware’s process, making extensive modifications of it, as well as developing new Chrysotype recipes that are closer to the original attempts of Herschel.

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