Cyanotypes
Who was Anna Atkins? Anna Atkins was a photographer and a scientist. She was known as the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images. Anna Atkins made Cyanotype photograms that were contact printed. Anna published her photograms in the stages where the first instalment of photographs of British Algae happened. The impressions of Cyanotypes was known as the first book illustrated with photographic images. She produced three volumes of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype impressions between 1843 and 1853. In the later 1850s Anna worked with Anne Dixon who was like a sister to Anna to produce three presentations albums of cyanotype photograms. |
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What are the advantages of Cyanotypes?
The advantages of Cyanotypes are that first of they can be printed on any surface that are capable of soaking up the iron solution. The process is very easy and cheap to use, all you need is the sunlight for the process to work. The process is used with a special paper and you put objects on it then you let it shine to the sunlight. Cyanotypes are useful to make large and unique photographs with no use of camera of paint. What are the disadvantages of Cyanotypes? The one that most people see right at the start is that the colour will always be Cyan (as it says in the start of the name). This means that people who don't like the colour Cyan will not like it as it's part of the design, the colour is mainly Cyan on the background but can also be in parts of the images. The light has to be used from the sun, because it's ultra violet light. This can cause a problem if you are usually making Cyanotypes at night and possibly when you live in an area where it's usually dull and dark. Some examples of Cyanotypes Here are some examples of Cyanotypes on the left. The last one has lots of objects used in it such as scissors. You can tell it's a cyanotype because the background of the colour is Cyan, it's a successful cyanotype as there are no yellow parts which is the chemical colour of the cyanotype when it's washed. |
My Cyanotypes
Here are the images I made in one of my GCSE photography lessons:
Here are the images I made in one of my GCSE photography lessons:
Image 1
I started with using lots of objects. There's more darkness in this picture, because I used more transparent objects which lets light through. It looks like that the Cyanotype has been smudged about, because someone could've stepped on it by accident or I washed it for too long which makes the some of the blue of the picture removed. If I was to make this again I would use less objects and wash it for a shorter time. |
Image 2 On this Cyanotype I used less objects, because I felt like the last Cyanotype was really squashy with the amount of objects. All the objects that I used this time was opaque, this means that the objects wouldn't let any light through which means there's white. The square and rectangle seems like it's been over washed, however the object on the top right is brilliant. I how it's been placed on the top right, around 3/4 of the shape is showing and it's been barely smudged. Next time I would use even larger objects and more objects to see how the Cyanotype would look like. |