Obsessing Over Test Strips

Cyanotype Exposure Test Strips

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I don’t know. They’re just not as pretty as the one in the book, so I’ll have to get over it. I did two new test strips today in usual fashion: at the same time as I was making Ina Garten’s Provencial Potato Salad to take to John and Irene’s for their impromptu Memorial Day Party. Do not, I repeat, do not try this at home: fooling with cyanotypes at the same time as doing laundry or making food.

I thought I would add a variable today: two coats of chemicals as opposed to one. Here they are along with yesterday’s test strips (the top one is one coat from today, the middle one is two coats from today, and the bottom on is one coat from yesterday):

 

 

I’m becoming frustrated with my inability to coat the paper evenly, but the results seem to all be the same: the greatest exposure is achieved after 12 minutes. It doesn’t look much different after that.

But I DO like the color of the two coats better, much richer and more even.

Tomorrow, I’ll be on to greyscale tablets. (Did I say that yesterday?)

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Revisiting Cyanotypes

I have declared to myself that no matter what my children decide to do with their summer, I have my summer project all set to go: revisiting the photographic process of making cyanotypes. Why, in this age of digital photography, I would go back to such an archaic method of creating photographic prints, I really don’t know, but sometimes there’s no resisting it. I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats.

That said, talk to me tomorrow and I’ll be onto molecular biology, but I’m on a roll here armed with several new books one of which was one that my sister sent me (Thanks, Poupie!):

Cyanotype-Book

And I ordered another book awhile ago called Digital Negatives by Ron Reeder and Brad Hinkel. For awhile, I thought I was a goner, it looked way too technical, but Poupie’s book helped me fill in a few gaps.

I have actually spent a great deal of time already in the darkroom making all the t-shirts to fulfill my Kickstarter campaign rewards. They were all cyanotypes, and I thought I would die before I finished all of them. (I think I still owe Trevor Hartman one!) In fact, creating all of those shirts from the same artwork almost wrecked it for me, but now I’m back.

Two things have eluded me all this time: the ability to make a negative that will result in a great-looking print and the toning process. I mean, nothing against Prussian blue, but after awhile, you really just want something else.

Today is a big day since I finally dragged out all my chemicals and supplies from all those summers ago to see if I had everything I needed. Then, I dove in, mixed up some chemicals, and coated some paper. Note: I am very bad at putting my chemicals in the same area as my food and clothes. Do not do this at home. (Yes, those are S’more Mallows right there next to the ferric ammonium citrate and the potassium ferracyanid:

Cyanotype-Process-141358

The first item on the list is to know exactly how long it takes to get a good exposure. Up until, I’ve just been winging it. So I coated the above paper, dried it with the hair dryer cuz I’m impatient, cut a strip, and taped a piece of the transparency film I’m using to it:

Cyanotype-Process-144328

Then I went outside and exposed each section for the number of minutes marked. Fortunately, I had a bright, sunny day:

Cyanotype-Process-144906

 

I’m not as satisfied with my results as I had hoped. They’re not as tidy as the ones in the book:

Cyanotype-Process-Exposure-Test

Looks to me like, on a May day at 3:00 in the afternoon using that paper and one coat of chemicals, my exposure time should be 10 minutes.

I know you’re all relieved to know that.

Now I’m onto creating a custom tone curve in Photoshop for all these particulars.