Femme : Double Exposure Multicolour Cyanotype Concepts
Rule of thumb (2023) was produced last year using a double exposure cyanotype technique to create a photogram image.
The Femme collection, to which this print belongs, explores notions of woman as aligned to the anthropological concept of ‘mother nature’, narratives around maid, mother and crone, awareness of complex, interconnected, homeostatic social and biological systems, and how power is contained, used and expressed.
The process
I would like to explore this technique further, introducing more colour by using new UV reactive dyes,
I am currently producing photography focusing on the female form using a basic DSLR Camera.
Orange Heels (2024)
The first part of the process requires the images to be edited as black and white reproductions with colour highlights. This helps to explore different compositions and colour concepts.
The second part of the process removes parts of the image so that these areas can be filled with botanical artefacts, salt and other solutions and then exposed to sunlight.
Inverted Image
The image is inverted and then desaturated again adding warmth and contrast to optimise the OHP .
This image can then be printed onto OHP film ready for the first exposure in the cyanotype process.
The third stage requires the details of the image to be painted using UV Dye in various colours. These include Red, Magenta, Orange and Yellow. In this instance, the shoes will be highlighted in colour.
This final process will be exposed to an extended time in full sunlight with various flora and fauna layered to filter the light on to the reactive paper.
The new dyes have a special wash which is unpredictable but it is hoped that with some experimentation, the final work will be close to the original concepts but with an element of chaos courtesy of nature.
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