World cyanotype day contribution

Geek alert! Artificial intelligence Midjourney flirts with Sir John William Herschel, in my contribution to World Cyanotype day.

Over the last month or so I have played around with an Artificial Intelligence called “Midjourney”. It can make images from keywords, seed images- or a combination thereof. The AI will produce four example sample images and you can select which one to base your next images on. Midjourney will then make four version of that, and so on, until something that resonates with you pops up. At every step, the images become more abstract, and more “dream like”

Hang on, not your photos? This is clearly not art!

There are a lot of controversy surrounding images created by artificial intelligence. Photographers are protesting and have banned AI generated images from photo contests - the AI Dall-E won an art contest causing a stir.

This controversy is the driver behind this series of prints, and I want to contribute to the discussion on what is real, what is fake and does it matter? In my photography, I visit abandoned places and I arrange a scene to tell a story with objects right there and available to me - which also in a sense is cheating.

Exploring the keywords “melted Clock in dark abandoned room” in a number of iterations,

In this image, I am exploring keywords like time, decay and abandoned places and have guided the AI through five or six iterations, picking one out of four images in every step.

World cyanotype day - cyanotype you say?

On the 24th of September, world cyanotype day- artists around the world celebrate a print technique from the previous century, invented by the famous mathematician, printer, scientist and photographer; Sir John Willian Herschel.
A Cyanotype is a print of an image produced by coating a paper with photo sensitive chemistry based on Iron compounds, placing a negative on top and exposing the sandwich to UV light. This is often called “contact printing”, and the size of the final print depends on the size of the negative.

The sandwich of negative and coated paper is exposed to UV light. When the chemistry is exposed to UV light it forms the pigment Prussian Blue in the paper.

This process for the name “blueprint- the technique was used to copy architectural and technical drawings well into the 1940s. I make a modern version of this chemistry, called “New Cyanotype”, invented in the mid 1990s by Mike Ware.

My contribution to World Cyanotype day 2022 is three series of three cyanotype prints, each limited to 10 copies with cyanotypes based on images from the Artificial intelligences Midjourney. The prints are made on heavy, 320gsm, textured Arches Platine paper, and come signed, numbered and carefully packaged.

The prints will only be available from the 24th of september to 1st of October.

Pinhole photo by Anders Blomqvist printed as Kallitypes

Anders Blomqvist is a Swedish photographer. He is also a maker, and founder & admin of a narrow, but very popular and thriving facebook group that brings 3D printing and analog photography together.

I have been. following his work on Instagram and other social media for a while and I am truly fascinated by his pinhole photos taken with different home made contraptions. .

When I saw this specific photo, it immediately resonated with my obsession for abandoned places, the URBEX sense was triggered. That context, paired with a very moody picture, taken on analog film with a home made camera... It ticked all the boxes for me and I reached out to Anders and asked for permission to make alternative photography prints from the photo.

What better to do with this picture, than to print it using techniques and chemistry from the previous century?

(See links to his social media at the end of the article!)

Abandoned building - digital scan of analog negative- Photo by Anders Blomqvist.

My Kallitype process

My immediate thought was to print this as a Kallitype, a silver and Iron based process invented in 1860s. It makes black/white prints, but the choice of a developer can change the color temperature quite dramatically. Kallitype prints can also be toned with a range of chemicals to alter the print, and some toners also make the print more durable.

Making a digital negative

Blasphemy! - Digital negative, enlarged and printed on transparent plastic material

A digital step in the analog process? Purists might frown at this, and would prefer to contact print real analog negatives onto the paper. In the not so distant future I will probably fall into the deep rabbit hole of wet plate collodion photography, from where I will never return.

However, until then - making a digital negative and to print that onto a transparency has so many advantages it’s very hard to forego this opportunity for creativity. When I make the negative, I can use darkroom techniques like dodge & burn, I can add contrast - exactly like I would with filters using a darkroom enlarger.

Making a digital negative for contact printing is a science of it is own, and there are countless semi-scientific ways to go about it, that all seem to aim at making the final print exactly as close as possible to the negative.

My approach is more organic and iterative, as I am not aiming to get a 1:1 representation of the photo but to rather convey a mood or express my interpretation of a subject. I will make two to four test prints iteratively, adjusting the negative as I go making sure it comes out to my liking.

For this specific print, I wanted to preserve the depth in the foggy trees, but also make the interesting foreground pop a bit. I wanted the house to stand out a bit against the background so I selectively added more brightness to the sky around the building.

Selecting the paper

For this print, I chose the Bergger Cot 320. It is a very robust and thick paper, with a smooth surface that I know works well with this process.

Coating the paper

I coat the paper with Kallitype sensitizer using a glass rod. I actually make these rods myself from chemistry lab equipment and a special cutter. I can get any length I need. I made a 20cm rod for this print that matches the exact height. I will of course re-use this rod for other prints of the same hight.

Exposure

Kallitypes do not need a lot of light compared to other processes like salt print or cyanotypes. With my exposure unit - a body tanner from the 90s - I time my exposure at 25-15 seconds after the bulb has reached full power.

Development, fixing and wash

The Development of a Kallitype is a spectacular phenomenon. After exposure, you can see a faint trace of the image on the paper, often called a “whisper”. When the developer is poured over, the image appears instantly almost like magic. I develop and agitate the print for 8 minutes.

I currently use 3 developers

• Sodium Acetate, prints a neutral black print

• Ammonium Citrate, prints a warm red

• A 50/50 mix of these two developers. A very interesting combination that almost split tones the print by leaving some warmth in the highlights but makes the dark parts cold black

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Four variants from the same negative developed with different developing chemicals.

The print is cleared in a bath of distilled water with a pinch of citric acid for 4-5 minutes. It is then made insensitive to further exposure by light by a 5% sodium thiosulphate solution. This fixer can damage the print if not completely rinsed out, so I use a hypo clearing bath that helps reduce wash time for the final print. This process should be fairly well known for anyone who have spent some time in a dark room

After that, all the chemicals needs to be rinsed out of the paper, so the print is given a 30-40 minute wash.

The results

Final kallitype print

Anders Blomqvist

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/exposed_material/

• 3D Models for Analog photography; https://www.printables.com/social/10782-spotmatic/models

How to make "New Cyanotype" chemistry

In 1995 Mike Ware came up with a new formula for the Cyanotype process that addressed a lot of its shortcomings. The process of mixing the chemicals is a little bit more involved than the classic cyanotype process but in my opinion, the results are absolutely worth it. On Arches Platine paper the darks almost go black and it prints in less than half the time.
I made this short video outlining in broad strokes how to make the formula. If you don’t have a magnetic stirrer, you can make a 70c water bath and heat both chemicals to that temperature. But, I suspect that, if you are the kind of person that goes to the lengths of buying potassium ferricyanide - you might have a magnetic stirrer.

The following section is shamelessly ripped from the inventor himself Mike Ware’s article on the new cyanotype process

Please note that all the chemicals are poisonous - tho' not dangerously so!

1. Measure 20 cc of distilled water from a measuring cylinder into a small pyrex glass beaker, heat it to ca. 70 °C (160 °F), and completely dissolve 10 g of potassium ferricyanide in it, with stirring. Keep this solution hot.

2. Measure 30 cc of distilled water likewise into another beaker, heat it to ca. 50 °C (120 °F) and dissolve in it 30 g Ammonium Iron(III) Oxalate.

3. Add 0.1 g of solid Ammonium Dichromate to the Ammonium Iron(III) Oxalate solution and dissolve it. (Alternatively, if you can't weigh out such a small amount, add 0.5 cc of 20% w/v Ammonium Dichromate solution, previously prepared by dissolving 2 g of the solid in distilled water and making up to a final volume of 10 cc). Mix thoroughly.

4. Now add the hot Potassium Ferricyanide solution to the Ammonium Iron(III) Oxalate solution, and stir well. Set the solution aside in a dark place to cool to room temperature and crystallise - it will take about one to two hours.

5. Separate most of the liquid from the green crystals by filtration (Whatman no. 1 paper, or even coffee filter paper is ok). The green solid (Potassium Iron(III) Oxalate - about 15 g of it) is disposed of safely (somewhat poisonous - but not dangerously!). The volume of solution should be ca. 62 cc.

6. Make up the yellow-green coloured solution with distilled water to a final volume of 100 cc. The sensitizer can be made more dilute (e.g. up to 200 cc): it will be faster to print, but yield a less intense blue.

7. Filter the sensitizer solution and store it in a brown bottle kept in the dark; its shelf life should be at least 4-5 years.

#Failcorner - Saltprint lack of agitation and pizza marks

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Simple, they said! One of the most straightforward alternative processes to get started. Well, I can tell you otherwise. Salt prints might be an easy way into alternative photographic methods, but to tame the process and get consistent results, that is a different matter altogether.

I have made many mistakes over the last couple of weeks, and instead of showing only my successful prints, I will try to share some fails and how they look. Hopefully, somebody can learn something, and my waster of paper and chemistry can come to some benefit.

So let’s look at the two prints above.

So, who ordered those black vertical dots I have circled out on the left print? These are called “pizza wheel marks” and result from the Epson P800 printer’s paper advance mechanism. People all over the internet complain about this. Just google “Epson pizza wheel,” and you can read for hours.

The printer has wheels with tiny spikes that grab the paper to move it forward. For robust paper and matte surfaces, this is not a problem. But, with glossy paper and transparencies, it’s a different story. The internet has told me to try different settings on the printer, load the transparency differently. I’m still working on this and have not reached a conclusion or solution yet. I certainly hope to get this fixed since the only alternative is to swap the printer for a canon that uses a vacuum to hold the paper - or go forward with analog negatives.

The next fail in these prints is the brown marks in the highlights of the left photo. If you leave the paper in the first salt wash without agitation, the Silver nitrate that accumulates in the water will stain the print this way. This issue is fixed if you babysit it for the 4-minute wash with constant and gentle agitation. It’s also a good idea to swap the water frequently, and since saltwater is cheap, I decided to remove the variable from the equation altogether and now use fresh 5% saltwater for each print.

Getting things done. 5am photography and hacking life.

“A life hack (or life hacking) is any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life. The term was primarily used by computer experts who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow in ways other than programming.!”

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Taken with my Hasselblad 500cm on Kodak Gold. Scanned. Converted to Black and white. Printed as digital negative

It’s actually not very difficult to get up at 5 am. The difficult part of the habit to make hitting the sheets at 10 pm. Luckily the process is self-enforcing. After a couple of days, you are so tired at 10 am that it is autopilot from thereon. What helped me become a morning person is to see this as a trade. I can trade 3 hours of time of mindless social media and Netflix evening time, for 3 hours of productive - actually getting something done time in the morning.

This Wednesday I got this cyanotype done, I also got time to make a pot of my favorite caffeinated brew and put together a video for my youtube channel describing the process. All before 8am and just in time for my real job.

Going nuts with Cyanotypes #1 Chestnuts

The playfulness, more kitchen sink and less “scientific” approach to printing is probably why I make cyanotypes even as I explore more and more alternative photographic processes. My recent experiments are toning prints in extracts from acorn and horse chestnut.

Most practitioners of this craft are known to submerge their hard work into bleach, watch the print almost fade and then pray to an appropriate deity for the tones to re-appear in a different hue.

I have found that a reverse toning process - soaking in toner first, and then in the bleach works well for chestnut and acorn. See my other post for an example and time-lapse.

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For this print I have used chestnut husks only and it gently alters the highlights towards red/pink and changes the blue just slightly away from the well know Prussian and leaves a sligh pink stain on the paper.

Toner

• Roughly chop or blend about 30 grams of chestnut husks, watch out for spikes!

• Add 300 ml / 1 cup of boiling water

• Let steep and cool for 24 hours

Process

This is my “reverse” toner process where I soak first and bleach second

• Soak the print in water so that the paper is wet before you start toning

• Soak the print in the toner for 60 minutes, you can dilute the toner slightly to get more liquid

• Make a bleach solution of sodium carbonate - a bit weaker than you would use to bleach a cyanotype before toning

• Let the print soak in the bleach and watch it not fade but change tone directly.

• Pull it out and wash it when you are happy with the result

Reverse toning cyanotypes

The usual way to tone cyanotypes involves a bleach, watching the print like a hawk while it slowly disappears into magenta then yellow, pull it out of the bleach, wash it, and then cross your fingers that you did not take it too far. The print is then put into whatever a tannin-rich liquid. A goat is then sacrificed to make sure that the tonal range returns from its pale state.

(Artwork in video by https://www.instagram.com/yvonnewartiainen/)

By accident, I found a much safer way to tone prints that seem to work with some toners. I have tried this for chestnut and acorn. The process is easy. Simply soak the print in the tannin-rich liquid first, and then put it in bleach second.

The print does not fade when it goes into the bleach. Instead, it slowly changes to the desired tone, and you can pull it out when you are happy with the result.

Toning Cyanotypes with nickel (ii) sulphate

Nickel as a toning option for Cyanotype is not often mentioned. I first noticed it when reading Mike Ware - the “Cyanotype II” inventor’s extensive book on Cyanotypes.

The source for Mike Ware’s book is research done by Holtzman H, and his article “Alkali resistance of the Iron blues” published in Industrial Engineering Chemistry 37, 9 (1945).

As many of you probably have noticed, alkali buffered papers work really bad for cyanotypes - and exposing the print to an alkaline solution like bleach or sodium carbonate is a part of the process for “bleach first” toners. Nickel toning was/is used to enable Prussian blue to be used in alkaline environments. For cyanotype printers - another interesting side effect of Nickel, is the green/turquoise tone it makes on the print

The results are striking, even with weak solutions. After about 15 minutes of toning in a 1% bath a split-tone happens where highlights are drawn against a green/turquoise that works really well with the dark Prussian blue.

Mike Ware suggests Toning with a 10% solution and after one hour of toning the entire image should be shifted towards green - I will absolutely try that in a later experiment.

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Artwork by Flugswamp. X marks the s pot. Print on the right toned with Nickel (II) Sulphate 1% ~ 15 minutes