Vanda 1 Photograph

The luscious Prussian blue of cyanotypes is what first captured me. In twenty years of working almost exclusively with them, I've come to appreciate the process in all of its stages and permutations. I make cyanotypes on watercolor paper, fabric, concrete, tiles, plaster, printed paper, maps and handmade mulberry paper. I print directly from various plants, objects, 35 mm negatives, medium format negatives, digital negatives and large sized negatives I make in my darkroom. This portfolio of open edition prints is made from my original cyanotypes and are part of a continuing project using tropical plants from Jamaica, West Indies. Although I was born in Brooklyn, it is the endless summer of the tropics which motivates my art. Cyanotypes were one of photography’s earliest processes. In the simplest case, a piece of paper is coated in a dimly lit room with a combination of light sensitive chemicals. A negative, plant or object is placed on top of the dried sheet of paper and then together they are exposed to sunlight. The "negative" is removed, the sheet of paper washed and when dry it is finished. The process was once commonly used to make architectural blueprints and was famously used by Anna Atkins to create the first photographically illustrated book.