Solarization: Partial Image Reversal in Photography

Something crawled across Lee Miller's foot in the darkroom. She yelled, switched on the light, and then realized what she had done. A dozen negatives were in the development tanks, nearly fully developed. The light had exposed the unexposed portions of the film, the areas that had been the black background of a nude study. Those areas developed and came right up to the edge of the white body. Man Ray saw what had happened, grabbed the negatives, and put them in the fixer. The resulting images had a strange, reversed quality: partial negatives with thin white lines at the boundaries between light and dark areas. Man Ray spent the next weeks figuring out how to control the effect. He called it solarization.

Solarization, more precisely known as the Sabattier effect, is a phenomenon in photography where an image that has been partially developed is briefly exposed to light and then developed again, producing a partial reversal of tones. Dark areas become light, light areas become dark, and thin boundary lines called Mackie lines appear at the edges between light and dark regions. The effect was first described in print by H. de la Blanchere in 1859 and by the French scientist Armand Sabatier in 1862, which is why it bears his name. Man Ray rediscovered and popularized the technique in 1929, calling it "solarization" and making it one of the signature visual effects of Surrealist photography.

This entry covers how the Sabattier effect works, its history, the artists who used it, and the confusion between true solarization and the Sabattier effect.

What Is the Sabattier Effect and How Does It Work?

The Sabattier effect occurs when a photographic emulsion that has been exposed and partially developed is given a second, uniform exposure to white light before development is complete. The second exposure affects the remaining undeveloped silver halide grains differently depending on how much initial exposure they received. Grains that received a large initial exposure are already fully developed and are unaffected by the second exposure. Grains that received a moderate initial exposure may form an internal latent image that interacts with the second exposure. Grains that received little or no initial exposure are freshly exposed by the second light and develop fully.

The result is a partial tone reversal. Areas that were dark in the original image become lighter, because the second exposure creates new development in the previously unexposed areas. The boundary between the originally exposed and originally unexposed areas produces a thin white line, known as the Mackie line, which is the most visually distinctive feature of the Sabattier effect.

The effect can be produced on either negatives or prints. On a negative, the re-exposure happens during film development. On a print, the paper is partially developed, briefly re-exposed to light, and then developed again. The print version gives the photographer more control because the effect can be observed and adjusted in real time.

A research thesis from the Rochester Institute of Technology established the conditions for producing the Sabattier effect in Eastman fine grain release positive film and tested various modifications to the second developer, finding that the effect is an exposure effect related to the internal latent image structure of the silver halide grains. Read the thesis at RIT Scholar Works.

The Confusion Between Solarization and the Sabattier Effect

There are two distinct phenomena that have been called "solarization." True solarization, in the original sense, refers to the reversal of image tones caused by extreme overexposure of the photographic film or plate in the camera. If a photographic emulsion is exposed to an enormous amount of light, the darkest areas of the image can begin to reverse, producing a positive image in what should be a negative area. This is a sensitometric phenomenon observed in the characteristic curve of photographic emulsions at very high exposure levels.

The Sabattier effect is different. It is not caused by overexposure in the camera. It is caused by re-exposure during development. The two phenomena share a superficial similarity, tone reversal, but they operate through different mechanisms. Over time, the word "solarization" came to be used for the Sabattier effect in darkroom practice, and the "pseudo" was dropped. Man Ray adopted the term "solarization" for his Sabattier effect prints, and the name stuck in popular usage.

The Wikipedia article on the Sabattier effect provides a useful summary of the distinction, noting that the effect was described in print as early as 1859 and that Sabatier described it correctly in 1862, though he could not explain the mechanism. Read the article at Wikipedia.

Key Artists

Armand Sabatier (1834-1910)

Sabatier was the French scientist who first correctly described the effect in 1862. He found that if a collodion plate was exposed, partially developed, and then exposed to light again before fixing, the image could be partially or completely reversed. Sabatier could not explain why this happened, and the mechanism was not fully understood until the 20th century when photographic scientists like Stevens and Norrish studied it in the 1930s.

Man Ray (1890-1976)

Man Ray is the artist who made solarization famous. After Lee Miller's accidental discovery in 1929, Man Ray spent weeks experimenting to control the effect. He learned to time the second exposure precisely, to control the intensity of the light, and to predict which areas of the image would reverse. His solarized portraits, including his 1933 portrait of Lee Miller and his solarized nudes, became some of the most recognizable images of Surrealist photography. The partial reversal of tones gave the figures an otherworldly quality, as if they existed in a space where the rules of light and shadow had been inverted. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has conducted a multi-collection assessment of Man Ray's photograms and prints, analyzing his materials and methods. Read about the project at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lee Miller (1907-1977)

Miller was Man Ray's assistant and lover in Paris from 1929 to 1932. The story of the accidental discovery of solarization in Man Ray's darkroom comes from Miller herself, in a 1975 interview with Mario Amaya in Art in America. Whether the discovery was truly accidental or whether Miller was already familiar with the Sabattier effect from her training is a matter of debate. What is clear is that Man Ray developed the technique for controlled, repeatable use, and Miller's role was the initial exposure of the film to light. A research guide from the Lee Miller Archives addresses the history of the discovery and the relationship between Miller's accident and Man Ray's technique. Read the analysis at Lee Miller Research Guide.

Edmund Kesting (1892-1970)

Kesting was a German photographer who experimented with solarization independently of Man Ray. His solarized portraits from the 1930s and 1940s use the effect to create abstract, graphic images that push the boundaries between photography and painting. Kesting's work demonstrates that the Sabattier effect was being explored by multiple photographers in the same period, not only by Man Ray.

How to Produce Solarization

To solarize a print, you need a darkroom and a standard black-and-white printing setup. Make a print on silver gelatin paper in the normal way, but interrupt development halfway through. After about 30 seconds of development, remove the print from the developer, briefly rinse it, and expose it to a uniform flash of light. A photographic flash unit or a brief switch-on of the room light will work. Return the print to the developer and complete development. The second exposure will partially reverse the tones and produce the characteristic Mackie lines at the boundaries between light and dark areas.

The key variables are the timing of the second exposure, the intensity of the light, and the length of the first development. Too much second exposure will completely fog the print. Too little will produce no visible effect. The effect is most visible in the midtone areas of the print, where the reversal is most pronounced.

Related Terms

Solarization is a darkroom technique used with silver gelatin printing and film photography. It is associated with Surrealist photography and relates to other experimental darkroom techniques like photograms and the Sabattier effect. For more on the history of photography, read our post on photography as fine art, or explore our guide to portrait photography as art.

See Solarized Prints in Person

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Musee National d'Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in Paris hold extensive collections of Man Ray's solarized prints. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London also has Man Ray solarizations in its photography collection. When you look at a solarized print, notice the thin white lines at the boundaries between light and dark areas. Those are the Mackie lines, the signature of the Sabattier effect.

If you want to try solarization yourself, you need a darkroom, silver gelatin paper, and developer. The technique is unpredictable, which is part of its appeal. Each solarized print is unique, and the exact pattern of reversal and line formation cannot be fully controlled. For more on the broader context of photography, read our entries on silver gelatin printing and long exposure, or explore our post on Cartier-Bresson and the decisive moment.