Mike Ware's "Strange Processes"

In Mike Ware's essay, Alternative Printing a Conspectus, he discusses obscure as well as traditional processes. His scholarship is apparent when he describes the most intriguing processes "recorded by C.M.Archer as an 'Anecdote History of Photography' in Recreative Science: a record and remembrancer of intellectual observation, Vols 1 and 2. (London: Groombridge and Sons, 1860/1)."
Many of these are natural and miraculous phenomena. For example, a Retinotype

It has been concluded by doctors in America, that the last image formed on the retina of the eye of a dying person remains impressed upon it like the image on a photograph, and that if the last object seen by a murdered person was his murderer, the portrait drawn upon the eye would remain a fearful witness in death to detect him and lead to his conviction. Dr. Sandford, of New York, reports that he examined the eye of a murdered man at Auburn by means of the microscope, and found impressed on the retina the rude, worn away figure of a man, supposed to be the assassin! 

Cyanotype - The Process

We have documented our cyanotype technique, but a more comprehensive discussion of the process should  be included in the blog. We go to the ultimate authority, Mike Ware, who includes history, chemistry, step-by-step and scholarly commentary on the process.



images from http://www.mikeware.co.uk/mikeware/galleries.html


Another excellent source of information on this and other Alternative Processes is The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by Christopher James. He stresses the accessibility of the process and the joy of teaching.  L has used this process in her summer classes at the Milwaukee Montessori School.

Christopher James and Students, Maine Photographic Workshop l999

We Honor Anna Atkins

Anna Atkins (1799-1871) was trained as a botanist, botanical illustrator and naturalist. She learned the cyanotype process from Sir John Hershel, a family friend, who invented it in 1842. Atkins printed and published Part I of the 12 part British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in 1843 which contains over 400 images. Her efforts established photography as a medium -- useful, accurate and beautiful -- for scientific documentation.

Atkin's subsequent presentation botanical albums include Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns (1853) and Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns (1854).

Cover - British Algae - 1843

Furcellaria fastigiata. Atkins, Anna -- Photographer. 1843-53.

Photographs of British algae: cyanotype impressions.

Part IV, version 2. The New York Public Library. Spencer Collection.

The process of cyanotype involves exposing paper coated with a light-sensitive iron salt solution to UV light. Any barrier to exposure will be recorded as a white shadow - (negative image) on the prussian blue surface.

For a more complete discussion of Atkins life and work:

http://venetianred.net/2010/05/08/anna-atkins-mistress-of-blueprint-manor/

For more on the cyanotype process and it's history:

http://www.mikeware.co.uk/mikeware/New_Cyanotype_Process.html

http://www.mikeware.co.uk/mikeware/John_Herschel.html

http://www.mikeware.co.uk/mikeware/Publications.html