Cyanotypes= Nature + Photography
Cyanotype is a 170 year old photographic printing process that produces prints in a distinctive dark greenish-blue. The word cyan comes from the Greek, meaning “dark blue substance.” (Everything goes back to the Greek, nuh duh).
The process was invented by Sir John Herschel, a brilliant astronomer and scientist, in 1842. (His father was the astronomer Sir William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus. Interestingly, Uranus, due to mostly methane gas in its atmosphere, appears cyan blue.)
However, Herschel did not use cyanotype for photography, but for reproducing notes. It was a family friend, the botanist Anna Atkins, who used the cyanotype printing process in 1843 to create an album of algae specimens. She created the images by placing objects directly on photosensitive paper; this process is called a photogram (unless you are Man Ray, in which case you call it a rayograph). She is regarded as the first female photographer. (https://blog.phillipscollection.org/2012/05/04/what-is-a-cyanotype/) To this day thanks to Anna Atkins, cyanotypes are associated with botany and making natural specimens. You can see her collection in the British Museum.
As a nature lover, I love to forage in the wild places. When I go on a nature walk, I bring back random natural elements and compose them for my cyanotypes. I am an ecotherapist/expressive arts facilitator and artist. We do this on my art and nature retreats in the Cyclades every summer (and the rest of the year in the urban wild places of NYC). Check out https://eirenearcholekas.com/workshop/nature-walks/
