Sunography and Cyanotypes

  It was my first wedding anniversary last week and my wife and i got each other a few presents in celebration.  Hidden amongst the graphic novels, jeans and camera-related treats was an A4 sized envelope of something i hadn't seen before.  It was a package of Sunography cyanotype paper.  A quick read of the instructions revealed that all i had to do was expose the provided paper in sunlight for a period of time, wash it and voila-a cyanotype!

  Well we had our first sunny day yesterday so i set to work.  I put a sheet on top of a hardback book, put some negatives on top and placed a sheet of glass over them.  I sat them in sunlight for 15 minutes and then rinsed in cold water for a few minutes.  For some reason some of the images rinsed off in the water (hmmm...) but one of them stayed and looked great.  Im really looking forward to exposing the rest of the sheets.

  I noticed this morning that on the Silverprint website they sell a kit that contains chemicals etc to make your own cyanotype.  It costs a little more than the Sunography paper but it seems you can get more mileage out of it and you get the fun of mixing your own chemicals and exposing them onto whatever material you want.  Ill probably be giving that a try at some point in the future.

  Im hoping to print one of my photos onto a large sheet of acetate and try and expose that onto the paper-hopefully it will turn out well.  You can place pretty much anything you like over it and expose which i think is pretty cool.  Purist cyanotypers may turn their noses up at this as i suppose its not really a true cyanotype but its quick and fun so i dont really care!

Return to Parklife

  TO THE PARK was the cry one lovely sunny evening a few weeks ago when my wife and i had finished all of the days chores with some time to spare.  Jess was in a rare film shooting mood and i wasn’t about to complain so we packed up our kit and headed to our favourite park – Worden.  It is a lovely large park and if you have read previous blog posts of mine you have probably seen shots from it.  

  The park is divided into several sections – football pitches, a wood, a miniature train area, a play area and the gardens area.  We only had an hour or so to play with before the light would be gone so we did some rapid-fire shooting, sometimes not even pausing to meter properly.  The flowers were just starting to bloom which made a lovely carpet for the trees to sprout out of.

  After developing the film i was very pleased with the results – the light is great on some of the shots.  Lets hope that when Jess finishes her roll her shots will have come out well too.

The Sun on the Beach

  After a grim day at work i decided to cheer my wife up by taking an impromptu trip to St Anne's Beach near Blackpool.  Quite conveniently i had just been delivered a box of film a few days earlier and decided to make the most of this opportunity to shoot a roll.  We loaded up the car and half an hour laer we were stood on the shore.

  Those who have been to this part of the coast will understand that sometimes its quite a walk before you actually get to the sea.  Off we set anyway and in twenty minutes or so we were within spitting distance of the waves.  We found a spot we liked and dropped our gear.  With forty-five minutes or so to kill before the sun truly set we spent some time spying out some angles to shoot from and playing 2-person tig.  Its amazing how entertaining jumping over puddles and running on the beach can be!

  Unfortunately the sunset wasnt as epic as we had hoped as some clouds set in, blocking a lot of the light.  Still, we shot what we could and then called it a night.  But thats the good thing about sunsets, each one is different; i anticipate a return soon to capture the next one.