I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I was very pleased to have had 2 images selected for the RPS Annual Members Exhibition, which is currently on in Bristol. Myself and 2 guests were invited to the private view a week ago and although a little nervous, I traipsed along with my daughter and one of my granddaughters. Nervous because although I exhibited work along with peers on a degree course we all took part in a few years ago but I have never exhibited work on a national stage before and I wasn’t sure how my images would stand up against all the other, much more accomplished photographers there.
Well I needn’t have worried, my 2 cyanotypes certainly held their own. There was only one other cyanotype on display and I would say that mine was far superior, not that I am biased at all! I really liked the way they were curated. printed at A3 with white borders in simple black frames and alongside other works of complementary colours.
I am glad of one thing and that is that I had submitted my work for this exhibition before the camera club competition mentioned in my previous post. If it had been the other way around and I had listened to the ramblings of the camera club judge, I would never have submitted them.
Hydrangea Seedhead and Allium seedhead wet cyanotypes with added vinegar, turmeric and soap bubbles on display at the RPS Summer Exhibition in Bristol from 1st July to 28th August 2023.
Yet another experiment resulted in a disappointing outcome, although there was a hint of possibility in my last but one experiment because I seem to have a better consistency of cyanotype chemicals and gelatine. There is still a problem coating the paper, partly I think because the cyanotype emulsion is diluted too far with the gelatine so is too weak but also, its still does not adhere well to the shiny surface. As a result I doubled up the exposure time and still felt it could have done with longer.
But, after following my bullet points from the last post, leaving the print overnight before washing, soaking for 5 minutes in iced water, then washing, I have a print with some evidence of cyanotype as well as ink.
It is a pretty rubbish image but the purpose was to experiment getting the emulsion to stick to the shiny paper without using more resources rather than creating a work of art, so I will persevere and see what materialises.
I have however had a little bit of a breakthrough in that someone on the Facebook Cyanotype page posted some images she created using cyanotype and alcohol ink. Her process is different but I think very successful.
Cyanotype tinted with alcohol ink by Leigh Wallace
Leigh mixes her own chemicals, exposes, adds vinegar to the rinse then hand tints with alcohol ink diluted with a little water. The gold border is also added this way. I think this is stunning and would certainly hang it on my wall!
As I am still very much in the experimental stage and as previously mentioned, keen not to use too many expensive resources in the process, I have gone back to an existing print to try this out. My first question was why dilute in water rather than more alcohol, so I have tried both. This is a cyanolumen from a couple of weeks ago on the left and the tinted version on the right.
In the tinted version, the pink, or ‘plum purple’ as it says on the bottle, is diluted in water, whereas the yellow is diluted in isopropyl alcohol. I actually found the ink diluted with alcohol easier to work with. It dries more quickly and it seems to have a more translucent quality. I also painted some of the yellow on the blobs and quite liked the effect that gave. There are so many variables though and each impacts differently on the outcome.
For example, this print was made on expired dark room paper, Kentmare Bromide Stipple, and that may have an impact, so next experiment with be on the watercolour paper I usually use for cyanotypes. For the first time in a couple of weeks though, I am starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
Over the last week or so I have continued to experiment with alcohol ink and cyanotype mixed with gelatine. I’ve not yet learned what I can do but I have learned quite a lot about what doesn’t work!
I found another of Jo Howell’s blogs in which she talks about working with cyanotype on glass and thought this principle might work on the Yupo paper I have been using. In this blog, Jo discusses how she dilutes the gelatine and how much cyanotype chemical she adds, so that was my starting point. Jo said she followed the guidance for dissolving the gelatine but used less water than the suggested pint, so that it fitted into her lightproof bottle – not sure how big that was though! I diluted my gelatine up to about 1/2 pint, added the cyanotype chemicals, 25 ml of each, then the solution was allowed to cool overnight by which time it had turned into a fairly loose jelly.
My first mistake was to use this to coat the paper but when I re-read Jo’s blog, she warmed the solution up slightly so that it was in liquid form.
As you can see, the paper isn’t very well covered and once exposed, you can clearly see areas not coated at all.
I did have hope of another happy accident but that was not to be because when I washed the paper, all of the cyanotype washed off, leaving the paper as it was before any cyanotype had been applied. When I went back to Jo’s blog again, she talked about soaking the exposed paper in very cold water to set the cyanotype before washing whereas I had just ran it under the tap.
So, the next stage will be:
Warm cyanotype/gelatine mix before coating
Make sure paper is super clean – Jo makes the point that if it isn’t the solution will pool around the dust.
Expose – not sure for how long. the last print was exposed for 10 minutes so I will try 20 next time.
Maybe leave overnight to harden? I will try one with and one without
Soak in ice cold water for 5 minutes to set gelatine
Following on from my last post, I decided to take my experiments with cyanotype and alcohol ink a little further because in neither case I had got exactly what I was looking for.
In the second print in my last post, which was on watercolour paper, whilst I quite liked the painterly effect, the whole thing was under exposed, either that or the PVA size, which I had added to allow me to manipulate the ink, had stopped the cyanotype chemicals from being absorbed into the paper. Either way, I needed to work out what was happening. So, I coated the paper and exposed it again, carefully placing the same seedhead onto the wet paper.
I didn’t add any of the additional extras that I would normally add to wet cyanotypes, such as vinegar, turmeric or soap suds, one thing at a time!
The resulting print is certainly more like a cyanotype than the previous attempt. I do need to think more carefully about what effect I want from the ink, so more practice needed there. I also need to take my time and do some test prints to get the exposure right. This one, being wet , was exposed for several hours, then left overnight before I removed the plant material and washed the print. In the end, it was washed for quite a long time to get as much chemical out as possible as the print was quite dark.
I mentioned in my last post that Yupo paper is quite expensive. Too expensive to experiment with really, but there doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong side and as the chemicals don’t soak into the paper, I decided to try my second experiment with this, on the reverse of the first print.
First time round, I felt that the consistency of the gelatine was too thick, so after a few more YouTube searches, I diluted it further. I’m still not sure I have the ratio of gelatine to cyanotype chemicals correct, if anything, I may have diluted the gelatine too far this time, as the solution did not adhere to the paper was well as I’d hoped. Again, this was exposed whilst the paper was still wet and again, whilst not what I had expected, it does have potential and I do quite like the painterly effect.
My final print from this session was a wet cyanolumen on expired Kentmere Bromide Stipple darkroom paper. Again I added a little of the gelatine mix to the coating solution as last time I used this paper, I found that the cyanotype chemicals did not adhere to the paper very well. The only problem I had this time was that the plant material stuck to the paper so I had to soak it the whole thing in order to remove it. The plant material here is bluebells and ferns pressed last year and then forgotten about. This print was fixed in Ilford Rapid Fixer. Do I need to do that with a cyanolumen? I know I need to fix lumen prints but not sure if I need to fix cyanolumens too, need to check that one out!
I was inspired by an artist on our local ‘Open Studio’ circuit last year who creates wonderful work using acrylic paint and alcohol ink and as there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube, thought I’d have a go.
You just need a couple of inks to start with, some smooth non-porous paper, some 95% isopropyl alcohol, a straw or hair dryer and off you go. Drop some alcohol onto the paper add some ink on top and push it around with the straw or hairdryer. I used the little puffer I have for cleaning dust off my lenses.
One of the reasons I wanted to try this process out though was because I had also seen someone on Instagram, I can’t remember who now, put cyanotype on top of alcohol ink with some interesting effects. It sounds simple enough, but the type of paper needed for cyanotype is absorbent and for alcohol ink, non-absorbent so how to get round that? I couldn’t find anything on YouTube about making cyanotype on yupo paper or layered with alcohol ink but there are several tutorials showing how to make cyanotypes on glass using gelatine mixed with the cyanotype chemicals. I had also done some experiments with gum bichromate where I needed to size the watercolour paper before use with PVA size so that the gum adhered to the paper so that was another options. In the event I tried both so save time, covering one half of the paper with a cyanotype/pva size mix and the other with cyanotype/gelatine mix, let it dry and went through the normal process for exposing cyanotype.
The PVA/cyanotype mix didn’t work at all as the mix just ran straight off the paper. I had more, albeit limited, success with the gelatine mix in so far as I got an image but still lots of lessons to be learnt.
Although I had followed the guidance on one of the tutorials about the proportions of cyanotype to gelatine, the gelatine was not diluted enough and the mix was too thick. As can be seen from the image above, I used this as a test print for exposure and did get an image but the ink design dominates and drowns out the fern, so the main learning point from this is that I need to which is the more important, cyanotype or ink and it is definitely cyanotype.
My second attempt faired better, though there are lessons to be learnt there too.
One of the methods of sizing watercolour paper for gum bichromate is to use a well diluted gelatine mix and I had some already prepared for the next gum bichromate session. This was enough for me to add a little ink where I wanted it to be, let it dry and coat with cyanotype chemicals. This time I used a dried head of cow parsley and exposed under a UV lamp, no test strip this time. What I had hoped was that the ink would appear in the white areas blocking the lamp and the rest would take on the normal cobalt blue of the cyanotype but it didn’t.
The size has prevented the paper absorbing the cyanotype chemicals, the print is under-exposed so I’m not getting the outline of the seedhead coming through, have I over washed the print? Maybe.
I do quite like the painterly effect though so all is not lost so where to next? The ink has got to be the accent rather than dominate, so maybe I just size a small area where I will apply the ink. I will try again with gelatine but in a more diluted form and I will definitely use watercolour paper which is much cheaper than Yupo.
Having been a member of the RPS for some years, I always get the annual email through inviting me to submit for the annual members’ exhibition and each year I ignore it. No reason other than I never think I have anything worth submitting and never really get round to doing anything about it. Over the last few years however I have really enjoyed experimenting with cyanotypes, particularly the wet process as you never quite know what you’re going to get and this time, when the email came in, I thought, why not? I submitted 5 cyanotype images, all of which camera club judges had been scathing about, but the RPS really does seem to be embracing alternative processes. I mentioned in an earlier post the exhibition I visited back in November and I also know that last year, a panel of cyanotypes was awarded an ARPS distinction, so I uploaded the images and then forgot about it.
Then, surprise, surprise, in April, I had an email advising me the that some of my images had been selected for the exhibition. I wasn’t told at this point which ones. I was asked not to announce my success on social media yet, and then nothing for another month or so. Then, towards the end of May, I had confirmation about which images had been selected along with a request for high resolution images and more information and here they are.
To say I was delighted is an understatement. 3500 entries and I have two of the 80 selected.
The RPS Summer Exhibition opens on 1st July and runs to 31st August 2023 at:
RPS House 337-340 Paintworks Arnos Vale Bristol BS4 3AR
A few weeks ago I attended a workshop at the Photographic Academy at the Imaging Warehouse in Stratford on Avon, on Infrared Photography. I’d been toying with this for a while and was inspired by a couple of people I follow on twitter, so when I found this workshop an hour from home, I thought I’d give it a go. The workshop was run by Simon Weir, https://www.simonweir.com/, whose main specialism is producing and photographing classical music performances but his infrared photography is stunning. There were 6 of us, all mail apart from me and all complete novices when it comes to IR. I had previously run an infra red film through an old Canon A1 with an R72 filter but but was such hard work trying to compose and focus, then add the filter and try to figure out how much to adjust the exposure by, it ended up being quite an expensive experiment.
Simon took us through the basic or equipment and process then off we went to a lovely little churchyard not far from the workshop venue at Hampton Lucy, where we were able to put our new found skills into practice, either using our cameras with one of Simon’s filters, or one of Simon’s adapted cameras. I opted for my camera and an R72 and R85 filters as I would be using my camera in the future. Apparently some lenses result in hot spots when filming infrared, including my Fuji 16-55 2.8, however I had no such problem with mine, either then or since.
Back in the workshop venue, Simon took us through post processing both in Lightroom and Silver Efex pro for black and white and Photoshop for colour. The latter was new to me as well as I had never encountered ‘colour swapping’ before and that is another whole new ball game to get to grips with.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and we have been fortunate enough to have had the sunshine since for me to be able to practice now that I’ve got my own R72 filter for my Fuji lens. watch this space
A couple of months ago I visited an exhibition for the first time in many months. ‘Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st Century’ at RPS House in Bristol, caught my attention initially because the advertisement I saw featured cyanotype prints, something I have been dabbling in for a little while. The work that really pulled me in was not Joy Gregory’s cyanotypes though but a gum bichromate work by Ian Phillips-McLaren entitled ‘Gwen, Did I want to be here’. I haven’t asked permission to show Ian’s work but it is available on his website, here
The back story to this work was really moving. Gwen, McLaren’s mother in law suffered from dementia. He had done a huge amount of research into the disease, and this work, a five foot high, multi layered gum bichromate print was a tribute to her. I was so taken it I decided to explore the process further.
There is a section on gum bichromate in ‘Experimental Photography: A Handbook of Techniques’ (Thames and Hudson, 2015), numerous YouTube videos of varying levels of usefulness and I discovered a ‘Domestika’ course, which was my real starting point.
To start with I have made do with materials I had; watercolour paper and tubes of pigment, Gum Arabic is readily available and I managed to source potassium dichromate which is very toxic and needs careful handling. The results weren’t wonderful but enough to get me hooked.
This is a very long and time consuming process. I used the method identified in the Domestika course which involved splitting the colour channels of an image into RGB (magenta, yellow and cyan), printing a separate negative for each channel then coating, exposing and drying each in turn. It is crucial that all exposures are registered absolutely accurately and you can see the pin marks where I have attempted to do that.
I found a ‘gum bichromate’ group on Facebook where the members are very generous with their feedback and guidance and through this group I was introduced to an absolute bible for gum printing. Anderson, Christina Z. Gum Printing. Routledge, 2017. it covers everything you could possible need to get started, from the history, to Anderson’s favourite pigments, to photoshop curves for printing the digital negatives, to a section on artists who use gum bichromate and other less toxic alternatives. As a result of this find I bought some new pigments and in my next experiment, used CMYK as opposed to RGB channels. The added K, (black) pigment makes a huge difference to the tones so I think this is probably the method I will use in future. The other thing I have learned from the FB group is that it is usually not enough to print each negative/pigment once. There are 9 layers in the attached images and it’s still by no means perfect!
According to Ian Phillips McLaren’s website it took him seven months to make ‘Gwen’ with only 1 two week break during the process, so I have a long way to go yet!
It is now nearly 6 month since my last post, so much for new year resolutions! I had resolved to document my work too, another good intention down the drain but to be fair it has been a strange time and I don’t suppose I’m along in lacking motivation and discipline.
I have continued to experiment with cyanotypes, particularly the wet process, loving the randomness of the outcomes, never quite knowing what the result would be and I started really well, recording the exposure times, type of paper Io had used, any additives, etc. on the back of the print but that soon fell by the wayside and I now have a pile of prints and have to try to remember how I made them. Having spent the best part of 10 years working through OCA photography courses and wondering what the point was of keeping a blog and a sketchbook because they do the same thing don’t they? I now appreciate the difference.
So here we are 6 months on. I had intended this blog to be a fairly comprehensive record of my work as it was for my OCA courses but whilst I want to get to my current position, it would take to long to backtrack and put it all in. So, I will spend the next few posts sampling and recording highlights and take it from there. In the meantime to go back to January, this is a favourite clump of trees at the bottom of our lane, photographed in the snow in January, converted to a black and white negative and printed onto transparency film.
Exposed for 14 minutes on St Cuthberts Mill Saunders Waterford 100% cotton 300gm Acid Free
This is one where I did write the details on the back of the print, it makes such a difference!
Over the last few months I have been experimenting with cyanotypes with varying degrees of success. I started with a kit which included the ready prepared chemicals as well as paper and instructions and from there have progressed to the ‘wet’ process which I find fascinating, though unpredictable. Initially my images were quite dark until it was pointed out to me that I was probably over exposing the prints, however a test strip at the start of each session has rectified that – at least with the traditional ‘dry’ process. This isn’t quite so easy with the wet process though as the required exposure time is longer.
Recently, I have experimented adding different mediums to the treated paper, vinegar, turmeric, soap suds etc., and the results have been quite pleasing, though still unpredictable and I have to say I have been a bit tardy when it comes to keeping an accurate record of my experiments. My intention is that this blog will provide the vehicle for proper record keeping as well as displaying my work
Anne Bryson Photography 