Cyanotypes

Cyanotypes are an interesting, very very old photographic process. They’re super accessible for people who don’t have a darkroom. All you need is a UV light source (PS, the sun counts), a negative and water.

Step one, take a nifty looking photo with fairly high contrast and convert it to black and white in a photo editing program. Then invert the image to create a negative. Or you could use a real negative. Or you could do a Rayogram, which I’ll save for another time.

Print it out. Normal printer paper works fine. Printable overhead transparency paper works better. Cut out your negative.

Obtain a light source. The sun is a great one, but when it’s cloudy (or night) or rainy, sometimes it’s nice to move the process inside. I found out that CFL light bulbs leak UV light (in safe amounts, according to various websites). The less coated or covered the bulb, the better. I went with the raw spiral kind (packaging shown below).

Finally, obtain some cyanotype sensitized material. You can go the easy route and by a Sunprint Kit like I did. They come in 4” and 12” size squares and include a piece of plexiglass.

While you are not under a UV light source, take a piece of paper out and layer as follows:

Flat surface, cyanotype paper (blue side up), negative, plexiglass.

Expose to your light source. With the CFL bulb, it was between 15-30 min. The nice thing about these is as they expose, the white parts of the negative turn white on the paper. When your exposure is done, you will have a negative image on your paper.

Wash it under normal tap water, and a positive print will magically appear. Lay it flat to dry.

As each print dries, the blue color will darken.

All done. Now I’ve converted an Instragram style cell phone pic to an age old analog print. Plus, it’s a picture of film which just sweetens the whole thing for me.

That was simple, and addictive. I’m out of transparency paper or I’d still be making prints.

Kelly

Instant Analog

There are some tough techniques to pull of well in analog photography. Long exposures, double exposures, double flashes with gels. You can sometimes test these with a digital camera, but to be 100% honest, your Holga or Diana will never act like your DSLR. They are super unpredictable and weird. My trick for taking less shots and getting the outcome I want? I test with my Diana’s instant film back.

Long exposure:

Double exposure:

Instant results. So, each pack has 10 frames of instant film. Sometimes I just like to take neat little photos. But sometimes, I use it to test an idea before I put in 120 film. For example:

Instant film test image:

Film printed image from negative:

It’s my analog answer to instant gratification.

For more info on the Diana Instant Back, check out an older post here.

Kelly

Choosing Film

Buying film can be intimidating if you’re not familiar with the process.  C-41, black and white, C-41 black and white, infrared, 35mm or 120…

Whatever your film needs, the first step is to buy from Freestyle Photo.  They are trying to support analog photography and will continue to make film products until they go broke!  Support Freestyle who supports keeping film alive!

Whether you buy 120 or 35 will depend on your camera - that should be pretty straight forward.  Picking a film processing type will be a different thing.

Black and white professional films (I heart Kodak Tri-X, which isn’t shown here because I shot all of it) need to either be processed by hand using black and white developing chemicals or taken to/sent to a lab that has the chemicals.  In Siskiyou County, you have a couple places in Medford, Crown Camera in Redding or you can send away to Photoworks in SF, who doesn’t charge very much to process film.

Black and white film also varies in price, just like black and white darkroom paper.  It has to do with the amount of silver in it.  Images are created using silver halide, and since silver is spendy, more silver = better film = more money.

On a totally unrelated note, this is why I love Ilford Warmtone paper even though it’s more than a dollar a sheet.

Next, we have C41 process film.  This is basic color film processing.  They happen to make black and white film that can be processed in C41 chemicals, but most of the prints will have a tint and you can’t hand print from them in a black and white darkroom.  C41 processing is simple.  Drop it off at Rite Aid, Crown Camera or (if you have time) send it away to Photoworks.  Rite Aid sometimes abuses my film, so a professional lab is preferable.

Infrared film works just like black and white film, only you pre-soak it in water.  Oh, and it records a totally different spectrum of light, has to be loaded and unloaded in total darkness and requires an R72 filter to get those neat IR effects.

Weird film is weird.  So weird, I couldn’t get a clear shot of it.  Rollei, Holga and Lomography make some great stuff.  Just follow the directions.

Finally, if you’re not cross processing, slide film is processed in E6 chemicals and gives you a positive slide (instead of a negative).  This is one to send to Photoworks as well.

That’s about it.  Finding a film you love has a lot to do with personal taste.  I like Tri-X because I like grain, but it’s not for everyone.  The reason I have all these film types is because I intend to shoot all of them and compare and understand them all.  Look for more on that in… a long time… there’s a lot of film there!

Why Printing is Greater Than Scanning

I have a film scanner.  It’s high tech and fancy.  It digitizes my film, but we’re still at a point in technology where I don’t think anything replicates film the way I’d like it to… yet.

Just for comparison, here is the same photo,

Scanned as film:

Printed by Hand and Photographed:

The saturation, details and vignetting I could pull out in the print lab, my lovely scanner knows not these things.  If you ignore the artifacts from the picture of the print (foggy in the black area up top), it’s just a better rendering of a picture.  Nailed the contrast, added the tone I wanted to the greens.

Yay for hand printing.

Kelly

Cross Processing

Everyone with an iphone or a Droid with a funky camera phone app has probably heard of Cross Processing (aka X-Pro) and knows the photos come out greenish/yellowish/bluish depending on the app.  But did you know there is a whole film developing process behind cross processing that created the inspiration behind the apps?

Cross Processing is when you take color slide film (usually a positive film that is developed in E6 chemicals) and develop it in color negative developers (your normal negative film is developed in C41 chemicals) or visa versa.  I recently bought slide film with this specific intention.

First, I want to point out that whatever chemicals you use to develop will dictate whether the film comes back as negatives or positives.

Second, the X-pro slide film comes back a weird color.  I knew even before I got this in the darkroom that things were going to be interesting…  Left, normal negative.  Right, X-pro slide film.

 

I processed these by adding a lot of yellow to the color filter pack (which removes yellow from the print), but you can see how green these are.

Just for comparison, I took a “cross processed” photo with the Vignette app on my phone.

Hmmm… well, that’s neat.  It’s missing the grain and texture of the film.  But I still don’t think digital is anywhere close to being on the same level as film as far as printing and effects.  I love the cell phone apps, and they’re plenty cute, but if you like the look I highly suggest shooting a roll of film and having it cross processed at your local photo lab.  There is nothing like it.

Kelly

Something to play with

So, this is entirely random and experimental, but I think there is somewhere interesting to go with this.  I like to play with slow sync flash, it has interesting results - especially with motion or crazy background lights.  I’m still planning on writing a whole tutorial about this, first curtain, second curtain, etc.  For now, here’s an odd result I found and wasn’t expecting from slow sync flash…

I really want to write about exactly why I think this happened, but this isn’t that kind of post.  This is about asking YOU to help me figure out the effect and use some of the theories to play with this effect.  I think what makes an effect efficient is when you can replicate it, so it’s time to figure out the mechanism behind this happy accident!

Note:  All of these are SOOC, straight out of camera, no editing, nothing.

Okay, manual settings… all of these shots are f14, 1/2, ISO 800, on camera flash, tungsten lighting, auto WB (which I’m now wishing I had been specific about).

Shot 1.  I held really still.  This is a fairly typical slow sync flash shot.  Just putting it up for comparison.

Shot 2 and 3, after the flash fired, I violently shook and swirled the camera all over the place for the remainder of the exposure.  The backdrops for both shots were mostly blank walls, minimal tungsten lighting from behind me.

So, everything came out a little vintage looking.  Faded colors, yellowish tone.

Theories:

- The faded colors are because of the transparency of having the extra exposure.
- The clearness of the effect was because the background was fairly blank (white walls).
- The yellow tone is because of the blending light temperatures in the Auto WB (it could have been reading for only the flash)
- The short exposure only allowed in a small amount of weirdness…
- My camera was jealous of my using the Retro Camera app for most of my 365 project lately and decided it could be vintage too.

Well, maybe not that last one.

Alright, photography community, please weigh in with your thoughts or expertise!  I plan on playing with this in more scenarios and with different subjects to see how it plays out.  Happy shooting!

Kelly

Side lighting

I wrote a post about this about a year ago, but I decided to take down the original post so I could go back and tackle this subject again.

I really love side lighting.  It’s really wonderful for shooting indoors in black and white and creating a wonderful, moody photo.

So much of how your photo’s mood is seen has to do with lighting.  I think side lighting can be somber, pensive, quiet and deeply emotional.

This shot takes an interesting turn on child portraiture.  She’s cute as a doll, but it’s a sweet, quiet, pensive shot - which I feel comes from the shadows and contrast.

Same idea, different day.  I shot with the light of a glass door between her and I, then bumped the contrast even more in post processing.

The moodiness the light lends puts her deep in thought.

This also reads as a somber mood to me, even though the light is more behind him than to the side.

So, what do we take out of all this?  First, use natural light.  Second, break all the rules for using light!  Put the light behind your subject, next to it.  Experiment.  Photography isn’t a science, it’s an art and you will need to break rules and experiment to find your personal style.

Kelly