A moving grating technique is used to monitor the kinetics of the amplitudes and phases of the modulations of refractive index and absorption coefficients induced in a photosensitive material by exposure to a system of interference fringes. The analysis is performed here, in the case of thick materials including the slanted geometry, useful for polymeric photorefractive materials. It is illustrated in the case of a photochromic photorefractive crystal. A detailed error analysis is presented for a photochromic DR1 film and a SBN photorefractive crystal. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.