Cyanotypes are a photographic process that produces a blue print by exposing a light-sensitive solution on paper or cloth to ultraviolet light. This can be both an artificial light or a natural light, such as the sun. The process follows a path similar to using a darkroom, but instead of using light-sensitive paper, you create a light-sensitive solution to put onto the paper or cloth. This is applied first to create the canvas and is then exposed to either sunlight or an artificial UV light to expose it. It has the same versatility as the darkroom, most commonly using a form of acetate to produce an image, but you can also use objects to create images, such as the artist I will be researching for this concept.
Joy Gregory
Joy Gregory is a UK based photographer and graduate of both Manchester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. She mainly focuses her effort on creating artwork with more political or social messages and meanings “with particular reference to history and cultural differences in contemporary society”.
The collection I would like to focus on that she produced was titled “Girl Thing” and was produced from 2002-2005. This exhibition looked into gender construction through pieces of clothing, jewellery and other objects typically associated with being “feminine”, such as female underwear, bangles, a doll and even a hand fan. This was done to show that people recognised the objects almost instantly as being associated with femininity and questioned why gender expectation had still stayed relatively the same compared to the claims of radical social change that had occurred in the last 40 years. This point is that people had not changed their opinions on social issues at all, it was simply that they thought they did because they thought that the overwhelming population had.
Possible Applications
- Her idea of using these cyanotypes to portray political and social issues interested me because I could possibly use that in a way to present propaganda because it is used to promote a certain political message. This could be done in a very obvious way by using a technique where the cyanotype is the full image.
- I could use the cyanotype for a certain part of an image, such as using it for a background of my propaganda or for one element of the propaganda.
- For my drinks idea, I could use it for the blue variant of the drink as a background and use some physical props instead of editing them in.
- I could experiment with changing the hue of the cyanotype digitally to allow more applications in work, such as changing the colour to match one of the other drinks.
Editing The Image
This is the image I chose to use for the cyanotype. I did this because the trees against the background would create some very nice contrast with the blue.
To make sure it would print correctly on acetate, I converted the image to be in black and white and inverted it, making sure that the houses and trees would be more exposed than the sky. I then printed this final part on acetate.
This was then used in the cyanotype process. I painted some fabric with the UV-sensitive solution and exposed it to an exposure unit for about 5 minutes. The fabric was then washed in cold water to remove the excess chemicals and was dried overnight. The process created the image below on the fabric.
Conclusion
I am happy with the image created. The detail in the branches contrasting with the background looks very nice. However, I do not think it would have much application in my project, so I will not be continuing to do cyanotypes. However, this may be useful for a future project so I will be keeping it in mind for the future.