Cyanotype Printing Experiment (somewhat successful)

Last week I went to a program for teens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art about photography. At first I was a little nervous about this workshop. Photography is not really my thing, and the only photos I take are for this blog. But then, I found out that part of the workshop was on the science of photo preservation. Once I found that out, I started to get excited. "Science," I thought "Yes, I can do this!"

My original cyanotype

In the photo preservation class, we made cyanotype prints. This printing process was invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842 when he realized that ferric (iron) salts, in combination with some other salts, could be reduced to a ferric state by exposing them to ultraviolet light. In this state, the salts could be used to create a blue and white image. In that same century, Anna Atkins published the first ever book with photographs, instead of drawn illustrations, using cyanotype prints of algae.

Cyanotype in sodium bicarbonate

I used lace, a feather, printed napkins, ribbons, and a leaf to make a design for my print. Cyanotypes can be exposed using sunlight, but in my class we used a UV ray machine since we were in a photography lab, and it happened to be late afternoon on a winter day when UV rays would be insufficient.

The bleached cyanotype

Cyanotypes have a blue background and white images. However I did not want my print to be just plain blue and white. Luckily one of the cool things about cyanotypes is that they can be bleached using sodium carbonate, or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and then dyed a new color with tea or coffee. The sodium carbonate or bicarbonate breaks down the iron so that the tannin in the dye can latch on more easily.

Cyanotype in the tea

I used sodium bicarbonate to bleach my print. The fact that sodium carbonate and bicarbonate bleach cyanotypes shows that base environments are not good for storing photographs, as they might fade the photos.

The dyed cyanotype.
Not exactly what I envisioned.

After bleaching my cyanotype, I soaked it in black tea for about 24 hours. The dying process did not go as well as I planned as the whole paper turned brown, not just the background.

Well, I guess I'll just have to try again to see if I can get a nice brown and white print!