here's one I made earlier :: cyanotype

Inspired by a recent exhibition about camera-less photography at the V&A called Shadow Catchers, I thought I’d try my hand at cyanotype, a type of ‘sun printing’.

Cyanotype buttons

Cyanotype, originally used for reproducing notes and diagrams in engineering circles (blueprints) was discovered and developed by English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842.

Anna Atkins used the technique to document ferns and other plant life from her extensive seaweed collection. Atkins placed specimens directly onto coated paper, allowing the action of light to create a silhouette effect, and so became the world’s first female photographer.

Anna Atkins algae cyanotype

Using both sun-print paper and sunography fabric, this is the technique I used. Bright sunlight is required, so I kept my fingers crossed, and headed out into the back garden. Both the paper and the fabric come in a black, light-proof bag, so the trick is to keep them in there until you’re absolutely ready to expose them.

Sunography fabric in light-proof bag

For the image at the top of this post, I used a selection of buttons. I had to get the paper out quickly, without exposing any of the other sheets in there to the light (easier said than done!), place it down on a flat surface, arrange the buttons on top of it, and then place a sheet of glass over the top to hold everything in place while it’s being exposed.

A selection of buttons on sun print paper under sheet of glass

After exposing the paper to the sun for two minutes, I whipped it out from under the buttons and glass and popped it back into the black light-proof bag.

And then I tried a few different items…

Luggage tags

Paint brush

Birthday candles

Cassette tape

Slide film

Then I tried the same thing using the sunography fabric, but because this takes much longer to expose (up to twenty minutes) I only tried one item – the slide film.

Slide film on sunography fabric

With the paper and fabric safely tucked into their respective light-proof bags, I tidied up and came back inside. The paper had to be submerged in cold water for one minute, and the fabric washed under running water for two minutes.

The paper and fabric were coated with a photosensitive solution of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate. On exposure to sunlight, the iron (III) on the parts of the paper or fabric that weren’t hidden by the object placed on top are reduced to iron (II). The iron (II) then reacts with the ferricyanide to form an insoluble, blue dye (ferric ferrocyanide) known as Prussian blue.

Rinsing with water washes off the (yellow) unreacted iron solution, leaving the Prussian blue print on the areas where the objects weren’t. The areas where objects have protected the paper or fabric from the sun, are left the original colour. Like this…

Luggage tags cyanotype

Paintbrush cyanotype

Birthday candle cyanotype

Cassette tape cyanotype

Slide film cyanotype

Slide film fabric cyanotype

I suspect you’d have to spend a long time experimenting and learning to produce images of the quality of Anna Atkins‘ or of the artists featured in the V&A Shadow Catchers exhibition, but I did enjoy my first attempt and was quite pleased with the results. I learnt that the flatter the object, the cleaner the image, but some of the less flat objects created prints which almost looked three-dimensional. The fabric was more sensitive and captured the detail within the slide film, as well as some tonal variation.

7 comments

Kia Sunda says:

Apr 4, 2011

Hiya Katie! I love this it looks like so much fun – the fabric is especially wonderful. I wonder if you could do it on a big enough piece to cover a chair or make a curtain! It would be fantastic!

Kelly says:
Apr 4, 2011
Great, really informative and fun

design geek says:

Apr 7, 2011

Kia, Kelly,

Thank you for the lovely comments!

It was lots of fun and quite simple to do. Kia – I think you could use a larger piece of fabric – it would just be a bit trickier logistically.

Apparently, you can also use a similar technique to make screenprinting screens, but more on that later…!

K x

mpaulphotography says:

Apr 11, 2011

Nice first tries! I liked the buttons the best – try feathers sometime, it’s incredible how much detail you can get.

On a side note, I think your paper is compromised – I’ve never personally worked with pre-coated paper (I coat my own) but the color doesn’t look right. Paper straight out of the bag should be a light greenish color, never blue – blue means that it’s been exposed to moisture and partially developed. Because of that you won’t get very good exposures, if at all.

Of course, since I haven’t used pre-coated paper, feel free to totally ignore me

Apr 13, 2011

Thanks for the comment! I’ll have to try feathers – sounds lovely!

The paper was well past its expiry date, but I thought it was worth a try anyway, and was quite pleased with the results considering.

The fabric should have been okay though – did that look alright to you?

Thanks again for popping by and adding your thoughts!

The developed fabric looks much better than the paper – the blues are a nice dark color, and you have more midtones. But…unless you have a serious white balance issue on your camera (you don’t) the fabric still looks blue while you were exposing it.

I wouldn’t worry about the fabric unless you’re trying to get super detailed negatives to work – the results look pretty good despite the initial blue.

design geek says:
Apr 15, 2011
Entirely subjectively, I actually prefer the paper ones – although I understand what you’re saying re the quality of the prints. All good fun either way!