Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Sun Prints


Hello, Becka here again! Thank you all for making me feel so welcome when I last posted, I'm sorry there has been a bit of a gap in the middle here, but the heat really only motivated me to sit in front of the fan with a popsicle or cold beer for the last week or so! I'm back now, I promise!

As a young photography student I had the pleasure of being introduced to the work of Anna Atkins, widely credited as the first female photographer. She was the first person to ever publish a book entirely made up of photographic images, and if I could ever get hold of that book I would be a very happy girl! For the book she worked entirely in the medium of cyanotype or sun print, where you place the objects on the paper and then leave them in the sun so that the ultra violet rays act as a photo enlarger would to expose the 'film'. I totally fell in love with this method, and made many of these over my high school and university photography career! But now, I'd like to share some of the pioneering Anna Atkins' work. She was also a botanist, and so beautiful English plant and sea plant life were often her photographic subjects.



I just love the eerie beauty of them! It is much cooler here today, but I am hoping we get some sun later in the day so that I can make some sun prints of my own!

Hope you're all having a lovely day!

xo

15 comments:

Brandi said...

Becka,
These are so pretty and look like they'd be a lot of fun to create, especially since it'd give me a chance to walk around outside and find some things I'd like to take prints of. I love the variations of blues and purples of the paper. I'm going to have to find some to work with. Brilliant thing to share!

sheheartsvintage said...

These are beautiful, whimsical and free! HEART!

Yelena R. said...

These are absolutely beautiful! I would love to try this, but I don't even have an idea where to start! Oh, well, I'll just enjoy looking at the prints :)

Simply Mel {Reverie} said...

This is the first I've heard of sun prints! Needless to say, I'm captivated by their beauty!

Anonymous said...

Those are beautiful! I had not know fully the definition of that until now. Thank!

Unknown said...

Wow! These really are delicate and almost eerie (as you said). How whimsical!

TERI REES WANG said...

Some how I do remember making 'Sun prints' but, I cannot remember exactly how...

might be the hole in the box trick?

..nope. I don't ever remember..

Brian Miller said...

very cool. great natural feel.

Hi Kooky said...

Thanks for this post - the artwork is beautiful. I have an old pack of 8x10 photo paper that I'll pull out and let my boys (and me!) make sunprints with. Thanks for the idea!

katrina and the king said...

i remember my first cyanotype! ...remember when cyan was one of the only color options on old computers?

Unknown said...

oh sun prints- just beautiful + so much fun to do it yourself. x mady

Unknown said...

what a beautiful post - so perfect for this blog!!
xox

Tina Tarnoff said...

how extraordinary! I've never heard of this technique before. the whole thing looks like a film negative. I love the blue and violet backgrnd color.

Amy said...

These are very pretty. I really like the graphic element. I've seen this process before but now I want to try it myself.

Anonymous said...

I love the blue! So pretty! First female photographer! That's so awesome! The cyanotype you explained is so cool and fascinating! :)