Cyanotypes Iron and Light

this is an exposed but not processed cyanotype photogram I made with that soda bottle I found on the ground the day i was collecting soil samples. 

Edinburgh has an average range of UV 

from 0-1 in the Winter

to 3-6 in the Summer 

Different parts of the world get more or less light 

than us throughout the year. 

depending on the time of year we get more or less sunlight which helps for :

• growing
• making us happy
• printing photographs

what else?

picked up some seaglass from the beach and left it on top of the cyanotype coated paper
the different colours of glass have different materials in them, some block light more than others
in old beer and wine bottles the glass is usually green or brown which blocks more light.
The light is blocked not just because it's darker- it has to do with how colour filters light and how the light spectrum is devided into different wavelengths and those in the visible spectrum have different colours. UV light goes from 350 nanometers to around 400nm and is higher energy waves lengths
at the other end of the spectrum is red.

why might we want to block more UV light in some beverages? 
What else can you tell me about the light spectrum? 

 this cyanotype exposed on my windowsill for about an 20 min and when i pulled the seaglass off it looked like this. 

How do the different colours and tones in the exposed but unprocessed print above relate to those of the washed finished print below?

this is what the cyanotype looks like after I've washed and dried it. because of the directional lighting from the sun, the sun moving a little and the objects being semi-transparent these pieces of seaglass print in a way that makes them look three dimensional and like they're touching (even though they weren't)

This also shows elements of how different objects have different kinds of 'light transmission' which you all had a chance to experience and experiment with when we did cyanotypes last thursday (june 10)

The two parts of cyanotype chemistry include the word "ferric" which means iron based. 

this analogue photography process is one of the earliest and is a non silver based process. 

Fun facts we discussed about cyanotype:

the process was invented by british scientist Sir John Herschel who then passed the process on to his friend botanist Anna Atkins who made the worlds first ever photography book "British Algy" of her specimins 

the term 'blue print' for archetecture comes from this process and it was origionally created so Herschell didn't have to hand copy out all his science notes- like a proto-photocopier (proto being early or pre dating)

Printing with Silver! (and SO MUCH MUCH MORE)

2 Thursdays ago (June 3rd) we got to actually make things together and managed to somehow magically be gifted a sunny day from the photo gods. 

We discussed word suffixes like phobic and philic in relationship to words they were already familiar with and how that related in a science context with chemistry. 

We talked more about silver nitrate and silver crystals, how there is a latent image in the darkroom which developer helps grow the crystals big enough so we can see them. We talked about how the visible light spectrum is different wave lengths and how we can see some of them as different colours - we talked about rainbows, prisms and how black and white photo paper makes colours with chemigrams and lumes- not with pigments or dyes but by reflecting back only those wavelengths of colour. 

we made our own photography developer using lemon juice and washing soda- then we talked about super addatives (multiplication of effect in phtoochemistry terms) by adding instant coffee.

we made our own fixer using what the origional photographers used- a basic salt that is commonly found for treating water to make it softer for fishtanks and pools. 

we talked about fabric dying and using resists referencing Batik and then applied that idea to photo paper and made chemigrams exploring 2 different resists(being liquid-phobic). 

we talked about Cliche Verrres and how they are the cross between printmaking, drawing and photography and then made our own which were printed using a solarising technique. 

We also found plants and made accelerated lumen prints / or chemi-lumens with the plants the sun and the photochemistry we made. 

We talked about the difference between photograms and contact prints

We also finally had you all make your chromas from your soil samples! (i'm really looking forward to seeing some of the photos your teachers took documenting- and yours too if you did take some please make a new blog post and add them). 

I've got some snaps of you making things on my instagram here