Short cyanotype workshop run by Christine Thirkettle for the Cambridge U3A yesterday morning. Christine had prepared printing paper in advance using water colour paper, which takes the citrate/ferricyanide solution with little distortion.
We printed from found materials and negatives of existing images. The heavily overcast day was not helpful, but patience a virtue.
Interesting process producing prints with a minimum of fuss and no darkroom needed. But images need to be selected with care, it’s not suitable for everything and is unlikely to rescue a poor picture.
Chemicals required are available from Silverprint, either separately or as a complete cyanotype kit.
You can cheat, of course. Lightroom has a cyanotype preset. With a bit of tweaking you can get a decent match, by the results don’t really equal those available from the original process, especially in the feel of the print.
Photo: True cyanotype print
Photo: ‘Cyanotype’ via Lightroom