Natural Photography

Spring has arrived! I can’t wait to share the beauty of printing with the sun with you. During this workshop, I’ll teach you how to make negatives, before printing in the sun.

f you've met me while attending one of my classes, workshops or one of the two Fiber Arts Festivals we've held, you might know I have many interests and love processes.

And love to talk...once I'm comfortable with you.

So...this is a long one.

I'll try just about anything and one of the reasons I love fiber arts is that there are so many genres to keep you busy.

Since our last fiber arts festival I've become increasingly obsessed with paper.

Yep.

Paper.

It's a fiber art. Especially using rice and other similar type papers. This weekend, I'm planning on teaching a youth class where we're doing paper batik. It should be alot of fun. Look for photos.

But, I digress. I want to talk about "film" paper. I've read TONS of information on old-school photography practices. Who would have thought photography would be making such a comeback as it has? Why? Because we're so use to taking photos with our digital camera--old practices are coming back as an art form.

I have a beautiful old film camera with plenty of lenses and I've learned how to make two types of cameras....primitive as they are...that actually work--where the main developing components are the sun and the film paper I make. Oh yeah, if there's no sun....UV lights work nicely.

Cyanotypes have been around at least since 1847. Most books credit a man by the name of John Frederick William Herschel, but there are accounts that the process was actually discovered by Anna Atkins much earlier.

No matter on that controversy, it's still a beautiful art.

Throughout the winter I've been skimming old photography books....sorting through the VERY formal "scientific" writing that fills the books. It will cross your eyes.

Yes, I could have purchased one of those corny cyanotype kits. But, what's the fun in that?

I learned how to create my own negatives, the not so old way, but by using my Mac and Adobe's photoshop, but that's a process in itself. Not too difficult, but a process. Then I mix up my formulas, used my handmade mixes to make "film" paper and then printed the photos (found in a very old book that's in the public domain) on the paper under glass using good old sun shine.

The blues that can be acquired with cyanotype are as wonderful as the blues acquired using the natural dye, indigo.

What I like about these is that the blues show up great, but I managed to get almost black & white photos as well-without using a wash to acquire the colors.