CYANOTYPE
Finally, I got to write something about my first cyanotype attempt.
For the first time I met this technology via Instagram at one of my favorite artists, and I was absolutely fascinated by the color and the possibility of a fairly simple production if I could call it that.
I started to be more interested in searching for Czech sources of information and I was surprised at how many of them are.
What’s more, I found a company that sells already mixed chemicals, so it was enough to order and I could go to create.
NO, it was not that easy …
At the beginning of all the new attempts there is a lot of destroyed material. As the classic of Czech photography said: “…the photographer’s best friend is a wastebasket”. I think, earlier it was so. Today, at the time of increasing memory card capacity, you can cut images “as Baťa shoes”. It doesn’t matter whether you use for the seating with the model, literally and in writing, 40 or two giga data. When I was still shotting a roll film that has twelve pictures and we did not have the money for more than two films at the time, I had to think about each one separately.
But I’m going back to the blue light 🙂 I found some of the negatives I shot from the archive in the 1990s on Compura, Fomapan 100, Negative size 10×15 cm, or 4×5 inches.
Because these copies can only be made in the summer, in the sun, there was not much time to test.
In the evening before, I applied the chemistry on papers to dry overnight, and in the morning it was enough to put negatives on the paper, put under the glass, and tested the times. It was so badly, the intensity of the sun was uneven, the results were uncertain and occasionally futile. Some have succeeded, but it’s not yet. I used plain hard paper, just piece of paper to draw, and that’s not good either. It wants cotton paper and more tests.
I am giving a nice reader a couple of results and some can not publish because I still do not have the approval of one of these models and I must say that the portraits are more than successful 🙂
In time I’ll add more detailed experience with this amazing medium. The plan is to sell limited edition of these beautifully bluish contacts.
… more in cyanotype gallery
