Cyanotypes

Last week I submitted the Alternative Processes project I've been working on. I realised that Friday that I hadn't scanned 90% of the prints I had done. So here are a couple of the the Cyanotypes I made - my scanner is horrendous. It left streaks all over the pages. Anyway, here we go! 

The images above are the three final images I submitted. Originally, they were all shot on Illford 400 XP(5?) in black and white (they're actually part of my Luas series). For these images, I wanted to recreate the idea of wiping away a patch of the window to be able to look out onto the outside world. 

The above a a couple of my work prints and how I progressed to my "wiped glass" effect. 

Working with Negatives

So much to post and so little time. 
I've spent a week in Berlin, photographed the Irish Youth Lead Climbing Championship - and on the same weekend, gone through 48hrs with only 3 and a half hours sleep. I've been accepted by the Estonian Art Academy (YAY!) to go study there from this coming January until the end of May, and I have a project due in a week with no final images. 

So this is just a catch-up, and a post to show some negatives I've made of some of my Luas photos to use in Alternative Processes (I actually printed them today, but the prints were too wet to bring home). 

Blue Hands

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Today was my first ever attempt at what I have decided to (possibly) be the most fun part of photography - or at least the most "creative" in the sense of getting your hands dirty and having freedom to experiment with chemicals and dyes. I'm doing alternative processes. 

Starting with what's generally said to be the easiest, I played around with Cyanotypes. My hands are a patchy blue after flicking paintbrushes, and look quite corpse-like.  I love it. 

So here are all my test prints from today! 

Even though the masking tape didn't work quite as well as I intended, I almost like the streaks. Almost. 

The above (I know roses are cliche, but I had the negative from shooting 5x4 last year) were all printed using old negatives. After (below), I just grabbed some leaves from outside and tried to print them.  

Below is a video I found for printing cyanotypes on glass, hopefully will be able to do this next week! Just need to do some shopping. 

For standard cyanotype printing use;

• 25g of Ammonium Ferric Citrate dissolved in 100ml of water
• 10g of Potassium Ferricyanide dissolved in 100ml of water
• Mix the two in a 1:1 ratio
• Enjoy!