It was middle-March. Caught between winter and spring, the landscape was not inspiring me. To be fair, nothing was inspiring me. I had no new negatives to print, and I really wanted to be in the darkroom printing. One day, I stumbled across a print I'd made in a color class at photography school many years ago—it was a photogram of a fern (see image at right.) Aha...photograms. It was the perfect time to experiment with the technique again because photograms are made without the use of a camera or negatives. Rather, these one-of-a-kind prints are made by placing objects directly onto the photo paper and then exposing it to light.
The creative possibilities are endless. After collecting different objects and materials to try, it is a fun process of experimenting with combining, layering, and arranging them to create the images. Every time in the darkroom, I'd start and not want to stop. Below are some examples I made in March and April 2008. They are all silver prints (traditional black & white chemical process) with actual image sizes of 5 x 7 inches.
The inspiration: a photogram I made in 1995 (color print).
Once I removed the flowers from the stem, these forsythia blossoms looked to me like birds. These are two of my favorite photograms because of it.
Copyright 2006-2008 Tara Wrobel.

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Leaves that have been on the forest floor for awhile become as thin as onion skins, which then makes them translucent enough to show their "bones" in a photogram. (right image: n.44)
From wild turkeys to chickadees, my yard is a haven for birds, so I find a lot of feathers on the ground. I collect them and use them in art projects and images like these. (left: n. 45; right: n.46)
My grandmother's polyester kerchief, of all things, has become an indispensable tool for me in making photograms. It softens the harsh lines of opaque objects and contributes a texture to the background to give images depth. This pair illustrates its usefulness. (left: n. 47; right: n. 48)
I generally only look for translucent materials to use, but the solid ones have their charms, too. In these examples, pine needles (left) and birch skin (right) make bold, graphic statements. (left: n. 49; right: n. 50)
Roses (left) and flowering tree blossoms with lace (right). (left: n. 51; right: n. 52)
In both of these images I used dried flowers. One day I was poking around my father's house looking for materials to use when he emerged with a wand and said, "How about this?" The dried agapanthus flower he had offered me created the firecracker-like image shown at left. (left: n. 53; right: n. 54)