Toned Cyanotype - Tulips

[NannyFerret]

Some people are now decorating and furnishing their houses in antique style. A modern bright picture would look so  out of place, where-as this would look just right.

[GreenKing]

Thanks for the link, Jim.

Not my cup of tea, but you never know it could grow on me.

 

John

[JMRead]

Hello all

For anyone interested in having a go at Cyanotypes I did a how to here on YT

 

 

Cheers - Jim

[cuilin]

lovely toning, i like how delicate the petals look.

[Graham]

Odd to read the mixed reactions to these amazing pictures. I wonder if it is a product of the digital age that people don't like them? I appreciate that there is individual taste and that should be respected. However, this picture of Jims is showing what beauty there is in the heritage of photography. I only ever did standard darkroom work back in the day of film both in black and white and colour but mono was king and, for me, probably always will be.

By keeping the heritage methods alive, people remind us that photography is not all about how many megapixels we have or how much our camera cost. Photography is about art more than just recording images. All of the visual arts come under this umbrella of creating images not just recording scenes.

To lose our heritage and go mega realistic is akin to pulling down stone churches and building slab concrete ones. They would be more efficient, cost less for their upkeep but they would not have soul.

Working like this is not everyone's idea of fun but it is hard NOT to see the value and beauty in it.

[JMRead]

Hello Graham and Hello Judy,

At the time I found the B&W P&D caper to be very good indeed I've always liked the DIY aspect of anything. Later the Blue Printing was quite good but now I think of it as as a blind alley.

In 1998 I came across the montages of Catherine McIntyre made in PS Ver.4 spent the next 14 years prevaricating and the last three after being so angry with my failure, teaching myself how to do them.

This for me is the new magic;

Many layers,

Click image to view large

Fewer layers but getting nearer to what I really wanted to do, though I didn't realise it at the time,

Click image to view large

Finally realising that I could make an image with the figure in my imagination,

Click image to view large

So here I am now freed from the constraints of making figure in the landscape images on site. I think back to the likes of Anne Brigman (my mentor) 100 years ago who would have loved Photoshop, to Ansel Adams who would have written his own version and to Minor White who would have intellectualised the whole process :-)

Cheers - Jim
 

 

[Graham]

Oh my! I have so much to learn. I saw somewhere that you should study early photographers and photography if you want to move forward. I couldn't see it then but I can now. Many thanks for opening my eyes.

[ChrisLumix]

Odd to read the mixed reactions to these amazing pictures. I wonder if it is a product of the digital age that people don't like them? I appreciate that there is individual taste and that should be respected. However, this picture of Jims is showing what beauty there is in the heritage of photography. I only ever did standard darkroom work back in the day of film both in black and white and colour but mono was king and, for me, probably always will be.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. But don't forget that probably a lot of home enthusiasts were in my position - B&W D&P was relatively easy to do, so we concentrated on that. Colour, on the other hand, required a whole new discipline plus quite a lot of extra equipment. I never did get around to it, and preferred to shoot transparency film, e.g. Kodachrome, and let the labs get on with it. The nearest I got to it was processing colour negs onto special B&W paper, which gave a rather interesting grainy monochrome print.

[JMRead]

Hello Graham,

 

A good place to start is the Photo Secession and a Magazine called Camera Work started by Alfred Steiglitz in the early 1900's, various publishers have made books about the movement it being a pivotal point in photography that can be seen in the images we produce today.

 

It's such great fun finding out about all this :-)

 

Cheers - Jim

[Korky]

Over a year on from your original post and I still think the tulips are beautiful.

 

Korky