What is reticulation?
Reticulation, in photography, is the process of fracturing the film for creative effect. The effect itself is akin to the fractures in shatterproof glass: cracks that form after it shatters but before it actually falls apart. The word reticulation outside of photography means, as Webster so deftly put it, netlike. If you can imagine the broken shatterproof glass again, it does look vaguely netlike and interconnected. How is reticulation created? Reticulation is created by heating film negatives in water to a high temperature, then plunging them into an ice bath to fracture the emulsion by way of differential expansion. I’ve also heard the word reticulation used to describe less dramatic warping of the negative by the same technique, not just the cracking. In any case, the ideal photographic subjects for reticulation are bold and not too dependant on detail, since tearing apart the emulsion isn’t kind to delicate, detailed images. The effect is akin to what happens when a piece of glass
