An Introduction to Photogravure

In a time when images are everywhere—fast, loud, and endlessly repeatable—what does it mean to make one that quietly invites attention?

Photogravure doesn’t demand to be seen. It doesn’t shout its meaning. Instead, it leans in, hushed and deliberate, offering itself as an echo rather than a declaration. The viewer is invited not to decode or react, but to dwell - to sit with the image and allow it to unfold in time.

This is the beginning of a series about photogravure. Not as a process guide or a historical timeline, but as a conversation about what it feels like to make and experience these prints. About what this medium allows, and why that matters now more than ever.

Photogravure occupies a unique space. Between photography and printmaking. It’s photography, yes, but softened and filtered through a tactile, handmade process. It doesn’t live in the same world as high-gloss digital photos or the cold, surgical sharpness of inkjet prints.

It’s something slower. Something quieter.

The process itself encourages interpretation. The image, once precise, begins to dissolve: softened by the grain of an aquatint screen, warmed by the ink, held in the gentle pressure of the press. By the time a photogravure print emerges, it’s no longer a document—it’s an invitation. Less about what happened, more about how it felt.

In that sense, photogravure resists the expectations of photography as evidence. It favours the poetic over the factual. The suggestive over the explicit. The hand, the gesture, the imperfection—these become integral, not incidental.

This first post opens the door. Over the next several entries, we’ll explore how photogravure blurs boundaries: between photograph and print, craft and concept, past and present. We’ll look at how its ambiguity isn’t a flaw—but the point.

If you’ve ever stood before a print and felt something you couldn’t quite name—something soft, slow, and deep—you’ve already felt what photogravure can do.

Let’s explore it together.

Coming next: Digital Sharpness vs. Handmade Softness — how the medium’s materiality sets it apart in a world of perfect pixels