CYANOTYPE
Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints.
The process uses two chemicals: ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide. We have both of solutions available at our darkroom K-119.
Ask Jeff or myself to help you with the process.
Objects or negatives are placed on the material to make a print. The cyanotype is printed using UV light, such as the sun, a light box or a UV lamp (available in our darkroom). After exposure the material is processed by simply rinsing it in water. A white print emerges on a blue background.
Robert Rauschenberg working in his studio in 1951
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LUMEN
Lumen prints are made by placing objects directly onto black and white photo paper and exposing them to UV light. Moisture, temperature, time, type of paper, and amount of UV have an effect on the color mood of the images. There is an immediacy and magic to this very simple process, and it mirrors some of the first photographic images that were ever produced. Many of these images were scanned before the print was fixed, a process which makes the image light-fast but bleaches some of the vibrant colors. They capture a specific, transient subject and are themselves objects in constant change.
Take a black/white photo paper, put a piece of plant, flower or something else organic on top and finish off with a piece of glass. Leave in the sun for half an hour or why not when you go to work and you’ve got something to look forward to when you come home.
Bring your photo-sandwich inside and rinse of any organic bits, put in fixer. You will find the image changing rapidly in the fixer and usually get a pleasant surprise when you look at it in normal light. Rinse and you should have an archival image as long as you’ve taken care to not leave any organic residue that would make the image deteriorate eventually. Sounds simple, and it is, but there’s a lot more you can do with it.
Composition is important. You will benefit from trimming your plants to make out more detail.
You can also experiment with putting stuff on the glass, partially coat it with paint, foodstuffs or place items on top, like a shadow-gram. Use tape at the edges to create a border.
Wet the paper before you put the plant on and you will get a darker image with more detail in the subject.
Or just spray the plant with water before you put it on the paper but make sure you get it in the right position straight away because the damp areas will show in the final picture, unless that’s what you are after.
It is a technique that puts you in the hands of chance and the fact that every image will be unique. So many factors affect the final image like air humidity, uv-factor, the subject’
s humidity, temperature etc. But you can alter the exposure in some ways dodging or burning in parts of the image with a magnifying glass, although it will take a bit longer than with your usual darkroom print.
It works well with most papers, especially old brands. Different papers give various colors.
Jerry Burchfield working with his assistant in Amazon, Brazil (c. 1998)
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  PHOTOGRAM A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image that shows variations in tone that depends upon the transparency of the objects used. Areas of the paper that have received no light appear white; those exposed through transparent or semi-transparent objects appear grey. The technique is sometimes called cameraless photography. It was used by artists Man Ray, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Christian Schad, Imogen Cunningham, and Pablo Picasso. |
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