Cyanotype Prints During Lockdown

Since the first lockdown in London, nearly a year ago, I have been making cyanotype prints. I bought a large batch of supplies from Silverprint in March, and have been working steadily ever since.

I had some specific photographs that I wanted to work from, mainly portraits of dancers and swimmers that I had made in the preceding couple of years.

Later I also began shooting still lifes and flower studies. I began to understand how light and shadow would be represented in the cyanotype prints, and used daylight and studio lighting to give form and texture to the plants and flowers.

One of the most attractive features of cyanotype and other alternative photographic processes is the painterly quality of the emulsion. Brushstrokes and splashes can be seen at the edges of the print. When I first started selling these prints via the Artist Support Pledge I tried to make prints with neater edges, but I found that doing so completely shut down any creativity and flow that I had while making them. I also got very strong feedback that for most people the ‘imperfections’ were a valued part of the artwork.

I had made these portraits of swimmers late in 2019, and I hadn’t been able to find a way to print them digitally to my satisfaction. The cyanotype prints, while in some ways they had lost quite a lot of detail, had somehow been stripped to the essentials, and for me they finally worked.