[the color is a little off in this, its not quite as purple]

I have been working on and off with digital negatives for quite some time now, making contact prints on enlarging paper and Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown prints on Arches paper.  However, I have not pursued this consistently enough to really get good at it.  When we moved up here, it seriously disrupted my working in the darkroom. Almost a year ago I did a couple of Cyanotype prints and wrote about it on this blog.

For a whole lot of reasons it wasn’t till today that I did another print.  Three days ago I coated some Arches Cover paper with Cyanotype and put it in a cardboard box to dry.  The next day, when I wanted to print there was no sun, and the day after, I could not find my contact printing frame.  So, finally today Alexandria found the printing frame for me, and the sun was out.  However, by now, the coating on the paper had deteriorated somewhat, plus I had not been precise enough in applying the emulsion, so the prints left a lot to be desired.

I did a test print, and a couple of full prints.  I know from experience that sun exposure for my prints is about 3 to 4 minutes in the full sun, and they came out ok, but since I keep insisting on using cold pressed paper, the surface is a bit rough.  Which I really like at times, but it does not work too well for this image.

[test print drying in the oven]

One novel idea I applied today was drying my prints in the kitchen oven.  That worked superbly, taking only about five minutes per print. Now, don’t try doing that with the paper you have just coated with the Cyanotype emulsion ’cause you will be ‘exposing’ it.

[exposing the image in the sun]

[washing in the kitchen sink]

[digital negatives and prints]

]]> http://chrislh.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/cyanotypes-digital-negatives/feed/ 0 christian Suwannee Dawn 20091104_1771 20091104_1767 20091104_1769 20091104_1773 http://chrislh.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/rodney-smith/ http://chrislh.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/rodney-smith/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:08:17 +0000 christian harkness http://chrislh.wordpress.com/?p=746 ]]>

If there is one photographer whom I have admired and tried to emulate over the years, it is Rodney Smith.  I never knew much about him except that when I ran across photos in magazines that really resonated with me, it more often then not turned out to be an image by Smith.  When I read about his working methods which apparently involved arriving on the set by himself with one camera, no lights and a bunch of film stuck in his pockets, I was totally smitten.

To my great delight I ran across his blog yesterday.  I had no idea that he was maintaining  one.  It is titled “The End Starts Here.” Like his photographs, it is extremely elegant, witty, honest, and to me totally fascinating.  It blows my mind that there are hardly any comments on his posts, indicating that the number of comments does not equate to anything, certainly does not reflect the quality of the work.

I just returned from an overnight trip to Cedar Key.  It was a great visit.  The weather was perfect, in the 60’s and sunny.  I really like the way my street now looks with the new sidewalks, downright ‘upscale.’  That together with the wonderful board walk going out to the little park behind the cemetery, has really improved the neighborhood.  Now there are also two coffee shops in town.  Unfortunately I have not had a chance to try them, but it is a delight to know they are there. One of them is in ‘The Barefoot Artist” gallery, right on the main street, with tables out front and in the side yard.  I will take some pictures next time I am there, and post them.

This morning, with Mike Leiner’s generous help I was able to hang prints of the below images in the Island Hotel. I am delighted to have them up there, and really appreciate that the owners, Stanley and Anyd Bair are so willing to let us exhibit in their great dining room.

“Suwannee Dawn & the Tarnished Mirror”

[Pigment ink print]

“Southern Cross”

[Pigment ink print on silver leaf]

“Oyster Planting”

[Pigment ink print on silver leaf]

Dining Room – Island Hotel

Creative spurts come in wondrous ways. This morning I stopped by the Leon County Library to pick up  David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries which I had requested.  I was totally intrigued by the book when I read that he had been riding his bicycle literally, all over the world.  In the acknowledgment to the book he mentions W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of  Saturn as an inspiration. And also that he had started to blog his travel and tour diary. Somehow this got me to thinking of my WaterWomen ‘book to be’ and that I simply must finish putting it together.

So, now I am going out on a limb once more by blogging about it, and posting screen shots from the layout.

Hmm, on my screen the image comes out a bit green, when I click on it to go to the silghtly bigger version, it looks better.

Here is a link to the new website I am developing.  I would appreciate it if you could take a look and give me feed-back.

Warning: It changes from day to day.

Another of my text/photo images – see post below.

1998project

This coming Thursday we will have our ‘volume 3′ Pecha Kucha Night at the 621 Gallery in Tallahassee.
I’ll be talking about my highway 19/98 project, and here is the slide show that will accompany the talk.

I have not worked with words on photographs in a long time.  Usually when I do it, I get a so/so feedback to the effect that the words in the image mess up the photo.  However, when I go back to them after they have been filed away for some time, I still like them.  Usually what I do, as I did in this case, is randomly open a book that is laying on my desk and scan the page to see if I can find a phrase that I think applies.

This morning I took down the work I had on display at the ‘Fire Ants Gallery”. The gallery is tucked away in the far corner of Tallahassee’s funky art quarter better known as ‘Railroad Square.’ Jonathan Markham runs the gallery and he invited me to show some of my work. The high point was the opening night which was on September’s ‘First Friday.’ There was a good crowd at the square and many of them came through Jonathan’s gallery, although it is so tucked away in a corner, that – with vans parked in front of it, it is hardly visible.

Taking down the work was actually pleasurable since the show had looked good. Alexandria had done a fantastic job of hanging it, and I had some of my favorite pieces up. In November I will probably be able to hang a few of my photos again. Looking forward to it. In the meantime, some of the work is going to go to Cedar Key, where a bunch of us have our work up in the dining room of the historic Island Hotel.

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