Showcase for Your HCWP's

[KYsailor]

A recent coffee toned cyanoptype

Andrew - as usual really nice work, love the toning. I did a couple of cyano's yesterday and will try to tone one or two and see how they come out. Never tried toning with the Hahnemuhle Sumi-e, it is a cellulose paper ( not cotton) will just have to give it a try .

 

[AndrewBurns]

Andrew - as usual really nice work, love the toning. I did a couple of cyano's yesterday and will try to tone one or two and see how they come out. Never tried toning with the Hahnemuhle Sumi-e, it is a cellulose paper ( not cotton) will just have to give it a try .

Cheers. I tend to use cheap (or cheap-er) watercolour paper for my prints which are definitely not 100% cotton. I'm not sure what (if any) effect this has on the cyanotype print or subsequent toning, but I'm happy with the results so don't really see a reason to change at this point.

 

[AndrewBurns]

Two more, working my way through the back catalogue to see what would work with alt process.

 

[koraks]

Both lovely images; I particularly like the first though. I imagine the print in reality has a lot more 'snap' to it.

 

[AndrewBurns]

Both lovely images; I particularly like the first though. I imagine the print in reality has a lot more 'snap' to it.

Cheers. Yeah I've come to realise that taking a good/accurate photograph of a print is probably harder than making the print itself! It also depends pretty significantly on the quality of light you view it under.

 

[koraks]

Yeah, that's right. I also feel it's a dilemma how to present the digital image - do you show the digital capture as-is, without any further adjustment besides perhaps fixing the white balance? This generally shows a relatively flat and low-contrast result - after all, a print is a low-contrast object in relation to what the average digital camera is optimized for. Or do you adjust the tonal scale of the digital file so that paper white is close to absolute white in the digital domain, and dmax on the print is close to absolute black? This gives a far more punchy result, but it also tends to bring out all manner of problems due to slight waviness and surface texture of the paper - plus, it never looks really natural. With silver gelatin prints, it's not so bad because the contrast-boosted result often ends up having sort of a similar feel to it as the real print. But with alt. process prints on fine art papers, there just doesn't seem to be a very good compromise much of the time.

 

[AndrewBurns]

Yeah I've played around with it and I've settled on my current approach at trying to capture a more 'natural' scene with the print sitting in it, rather than trying to isolate just the print area itself. I think it gives some context, like you can see that the paper is slightly warmer than the plain white background and you can compare the density of the print to the shadows left by the waviness of the paper. I've also used a combination of cooler daylight and a warm LED panel to bring out the slightly warm colour the staining leave behind in the highlights.

I've gone through and re-photographed all of my most recent prints in this way:

 

[fgorga]

Andrew,

A very nice set of prints!

As for getting close to accurate digital copies of artwork this is, as you suspect, a non-trivial endeavor.

I have a friend who recently retired from a long career as a commercial photographer. A significant fraction of his practice in recent years was photographing art work (both 2-D and 3-D) for the makers. Even in the recent past, he would occasionally grumble over some new problem that needed solving. I guess that is why he made the proverbial 'big bucks'... NOT!

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Nice prints Andrew.

 

[AndrewBurns]

Cheers. Still churning through my back catalogue and printing.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

More nice prints Andrew!

I wouldn't mix the lights. It creates issues you can't fix later. Stick with one. You really need a color target then it is easy peasy. Few clicks and you are done and the image looks exactly right. I might have an extra one I've made around here somewhere if you are interested and I can find I I'll send it to you.

This is a good example. It would take forever to get the color right on this without a target. With a target it takes a few seconds. Gumover.

 

[AndrewBurns]

Thanks for the advice, I guess it's not so much intentional mixing of colour temperature, more that I'm using one LED panel but there's also a significant amount of natural light coming in too. I suppose ideally I'd have the blinds closed and use at least two lights to get everything even and consistent.

 

[kiwichris]

Experiment with Malva silvestris toned cyanotype. I was actually doing some research on edible flowers, and found that Common mallow is both edible and can be used as a dye, but requires a mordant, and iron was mentioned, so I figured the iron in cyanotypes might work. Malva silvestris is a really common turf weed here in NZ, so it was easy to collect a good number of flowers walking the dog. I soaked them in isopropyl alcohol diluted with water, but I've since read that people usually boil them for dye. (and dried flowers can be purchased online if you can't find them locally).
I did a carbonate bleach before toning. (I make my own carbonate from bicarbonate which is cheaper. It's available in bulk as a pH buffer for pools, but the reason it's used as baking soda is on heating, it releases carbon dioxide and becomes sodium carbonate, so all you've got to do is boil it for a bit to increase the pH.)
The blue-grey tone is interesting, and different from anything I've ever achieved with tannins.
Apparently the seeds can also be used as a dye, and produce a different colour, so my next experiment will be to collect a decent number of them and see what result they produce.

 

[loccdor]

@kiwichris Very interesting Chris, I've been growing this plant for years in my backyard because it's a very common weed in Greece (even mentioned in ancient texts there) where I met my wife. I didn't know you could make a dye from it, though I knew it could be eaten.

@Patrick Robert James I love the images you've shared on your website! Really brilliant work.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

@Patrick Robert James I love the images you've shared on your website! Really brilliant work.

Thanks loccdor. I haven't updated the website in 20 years though....

 

[AndrewBurns]

Got real sloppy with toning some of these, will have to re-print sometime in the future.

 

[MattKing]

First ever gum print - one of the members at our Darkroom Group meeting today provided a demonstration, and we all had a chance to try.
Scan of a print made using two 6x9 TMY-2 negatives exposed in my ~ 85 year old Ikonta 521/2 and developed for standard "silver gelatin" printing.

Fun - but definitely a work in progress

 

[koraks]

First ever gum print

Welcome to the dark side! (We've got cookies - and stained fingers)

 

[AndrewBurns]

I ran out of the paper I have been using (Fluid 300 gsm HP watercolour) and so tried some Hahnemuhle Harmony 300 gsm HP paper instead. Not entirely happy with the results, contrast seems to be lower than the Fluid paper. I want these prints to be dark and brooding but they're probably a bit too dark and muddy. I've ordered more of the Fluid paper and will re-print these when it turns up to see what the difference is. All are coffee toned cyanotype.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Nice Andrew. You can bleach cyanotypes with sulfite if you want to make them lighter.

You guys have me jonesing to make some alt prints but sadly my printer took a bow last year. I really need to fix it or replace it. Just have to get around to it.

 

[grain elevator]

Andrew, these are all absolute beautiful.

 

[KYsailor]

Really nice work - I was so inspired, yesterday I took a few of my (less than perfect) cyano's and decided to do some toning - had some tannic acid powder - made up a 10% solution and tried brush toning..... direct toning did not seem to much of anything, so I bleached (washing soda) them a bit and retoned and got some results ( see below ) I have come to the conclusion it's all about the paper. The Arches Aquarelle WC stained pretty badly - won't eve show the results. The flowers are on Canson Bristol XL - I think I left them in the bleach too long - the print looks grainy now. The balcony image was on Sumi-e and really stained badly as you can see. While I did get some backs the midtones have that purplish cast, which I do not care for... will have to give that Fluid 300 HP a try....but thanks for getting me started on toning cyano's again - with the right paper and toning agent the results can be really wonderful as you have shown.

Dave

 

[koraks]

with the right paper and toning agent the results can be really wonderful

Your prints prove the point for sure!

 

[CreationBear]

+1… The balcony print is revelatory for me…I”ve always associated cyanotypes with Pictorialism, but this one almost feels like a photogravure.

Otherwise, much appreciation for Andrew’s work as well—very curious how he will frame these…I’m assuming a float mount on a mat board that is “colder” than the image/paper?

 

[NedL]

Nice Andrew. You can bleach cyanotypes with sulfite if you want to make them lighter.
....

Learn something new every day! I knew about potassium oxalate but I didn't know about this. Thanks, something new to try sometime!