Solarisation

Solarisation, in photography more precisely the Sabattier effect, is a technique in which a partially developed negative or print is briefly exposed to light, after which development continues. As a result some tones invert, and along the borders between light and dark areas distinctive bright outlines appear, the Mackie lines, resembling a halo effect. The image acquires a graphic, faintly metaphysical quality, combining positive and negative within a single frame. Although the phenomenon was known in the nineteenth century, it was developed artistically around 1929 by Man Ray and Lee Miller within the Paris Surrealist circle, for whom chance and the transformation of the image held special value. Solarisation was applied above all to portraiture, where it emphasized contour and lent the face a mysterious detachment. The technique remains a tool of experimental and art photography, and its aesthetic is often imitated in digital processing.