The History of Photosensitive Materials and their Potential for Artists Working with Glass
Through my investigations of the science and history of optics- glass and mirror, lenses, illusion, and photography- I am exploring the relationship between vision and knowledge. Our eyes are an interface to the world, mere mediators; we use them to see, but what are we really seeing? Every perspective is uniquely situated and completely individual. We construct our idea of self internally, aided by distorted external images. The way in which we construct our conception of the world, and in turn our unique notion of self, is an amazingly complex process influenced by history and bound by physiology.
Though the seeds were planted earlier, the invention of photography is dated to 1839. It is incredible how quickly images have come to saturate our contemporary world. I find interest in how photography informs and distorts our ideas of the world and our idea of self. Memories are recorded and from then on transformed and distorted. An image can record a moment so accurately yet it seems to lack just as much information as it reveals.
Glass and photography have a technological, historical, physical, and conceptual relationship. The development of each has radically influenced the way that we see the world. Photography, as well as glass, has given us the ability to see what our eyes cannot, by taking in vantage points that are not possible for the human eye to register without these technologies. The LecMo I presented in San Jose contained a brief history of the projected image and the development of chemical photography. If you are interested in obtaining this part of the LecMo feel free to contact me.
Within my own research and creative work I have been utilizing physical and chemical photographic principles, as well as, the history of the projected and captured image. In short, the history of the ways we see and record the world; the history of vision. In my creative practice I enjoy playing the role of avid researcher and experimenter, following through with the question, “I wonder what would happen if…..?”
Photography and glass are both processes of magic, there is always something new to see and play with; surprise and discovery are not uncommon. In my recent work I have been experimenting with ways of capturing images, and playing with the idea of the photograph being a construction. I have made my own cameras, experimented with a variety of chemicals, and continue to find numerous ways of achieving an image. Distortion and disruption of an image generally holds more interest to me than a straight photograph.
One ongoing project of mine is The Dinner Party Project. Prior to having a few friends and fellow glassmakers over for dinner I ask the attendees to provide me with a glass cup that they have made. The design and construction of each attendee’s cup happens independent from me. I hand blow a cup as well. Each cup is then coated with a liquid photographic emulsion and placed in a pinhole camera constructed with four equally spaced holes around the camera, giving the camera a 360-degree view. Each camera is placed within each makers/attendees place setting on the table. When we sit for our meal together all of the pinholes on the cup cameras are opened and are covered back up upon completion of the meal. The resulting “glass cup negatives” are used to make prints in the darkroom. The independent experience, the visual remnants, of the making of the cups is over laid with the situational, and relational, experience of the dinner.
In another example, in the installation Site Lines I explored the physical construction of an image as well as the history of image making. 4500’ of cotton line crisscross the space, over 850 images are hanging, each attached to the line with a clothespin. I collected images by sourcing them from history, and by capturing them myself in numerous ways. The strategies for this were numerous. I used as many techniques (ways of seeing) as I could come up with to capture the images. When looking into the mirror on the wall opposing the field of hanging photographs, the viewer sees himself or herself standing in front of a single image, which is composed through the alignment of every image in the space.
Cyanotypes on Glass
The Chemistry
The process is known as a non-silver process; traditional black and white photography is a silver process. The chemistry is reactive due to the iron salts in the solution. There are two chemicals needed; Ferric ammonium citrate, which is the light sensitive component containing the iron salts, and Potassium ferricyanide. The color created from the reaction between these chemicals produce what we know as Prussian blue. The process was invented by Sir John Herschel, who was looking for a way to efficiently make copies of his scientific notes.
The cyanotype chemistry is ultraviolet (UV) light sensitive. This means that you can coat your paper without finding or making a darkroom. You can mix the chemicals inside and away from windows and the chemistry will not expose too quickly. However once you get your solution mixed and coating complete it is still a good idea to expose as soon as possible, or to put your prepared work away from all light sources until you are ready to do your exposing.
The Process
Materials:
-Bostick and Sullivan Cyanotype Printing Kit
-Container for mixing solution
-Metal container for a hot water bath
-Hot water
-Glass rod for stirring
-Foam brush
-Knox unflavored Gelatin
-Newspaper or paper towels for covering your work surface
-Glass! You will definitely be able to get a nice print on sheet, but the process will work on shapes as well. To get a good result you want the image or negative you are printing with to be laid over the sensitized surface as closely as possible.
-Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
-Tray for rinsing
Directions:
1. Make sure to clean all of your glass well before coating.
2. As with the earlier process we want to follow the manufacturer’s directions and prepare a solution of equal parts A and B of the cyanotype chemistry.
3. Sprinkle gelatin onto the surface of your cyanotype solution. I have found that one teaspoon per 25ml of solution works well, but I try to get away with less.
4. Allow solution to “swell” (aka, sit there) for a minimum of 5 minutes.
5. Place the container you have mixed your chemicals in into a warm bath. Stir, dissolving the remaining crystals of gelatin into the solution.
6. Hold your glass flat like a waiter and pour a generous amount of solution into the center of the plate. Slightly tip plate towards one corner of your sheet to move the solution around the surface; try not to let it flow over the edge. Continue tilting the plate to each corner in succession until the plate is completely coated with the chemistry. Dump remaining chemistry back into the container of your prepared solution.
7. Allow plate to dry completely.
8. Place your negative (or whatever you have chosen to print from) onto the glass. Put another piece of glass on top, effectively creating a negative sandwich.
9. Expose.
10. Run plate through your tray filled with cold water. No more than 10 seconds. You will not wash away all the unexposed material in this step.
11. Dry completely leaning upright. This initial drying of your exposed image will help to harden the gelatin and keep it on the glass.
12. Rinse again, being sure to remove all of the unexposed solution (green).
13. Dry completely.
Notes:
-It is possible to tone cyanotype images. A few drops of hydrogen peroxide in water will make your blue more vibrant and saturated. Other possibilities include tea, coffee, and wine.
-You can place objects over your plates to make a photogram or you can create your own photographic negatives by printing on transparencies. Graphic black and white images work really well. Even better, if you have a color printer, is to create a CMYK color mask of 0% cyan, 55% magenta, 55% yellow, and 0% black.
-The glass has to be clean! I use Arm and Hammer Washing Soda and it seems to do a great job. My hands seem to be really sensitive to it so I wear nitrile gloves while cleaning.
Through my investigations of the science and history of optics- glass and mirror, lenses, illusion, and photography- I am exploring the relationship between vision and knowledge. Our eyes are an interface to the world, mere mediators; we use them to see, but what are we really seeing? Every perspective is uniquely situated and completely individual. We construct our idea of self internally, aided by distorted external images. The way in which we construct our conception of the world, and in turn our unique notion of self, is an amazingly complex process influenced by history and bound by physiology.
Though the seeds were planted earlier, the invention of photography is dated to 1839. It is incredible how quickly images have come to saturate our contemporary world. I find interest in how photography informs and distorts our ideas of the world and our idea of self. Memories are recorded and from then on transformed and distorted. An image can record a moment so accurately yet it seems to lack just as much information as it reveals.
Glass and photography have a technological, historical, physical, and conceptual relationship. The development of each has radically influenced the way that we see the world. Photography, as well as glass, has given us the ability to see what our eyes cannot, by taking in vantage points that are not possible for the human eye to register without these technologies. The LecMo I presented in San Jose contained a brief history of the projected image and the development of chemical photography. If you are interested in obtaining this part of the LecMo feel free to contact me.
Within my own research and creative work I have been utilizing physical and chemical photographic principles, as well as, the history of the projected and captured image. In short, the history of the ways we see and record the world; the history of vision. In my creative practice I enjoy playing the role of avid researcher and experimenter, following through with the question, “I wonder what would happen if…..?”
Photography and glass are both processes of magic, there is always something new to see and play with; surprise and discovery are not uncommon. In my recent work I have been experimenting with ways of capturing images, and playing with the idea of the photograph being a construction. I have made my own cameras, experimented with a variety of chemicals, and continue to find numerous ways of achieving an image. Distortion and disruption of an image generally holds more interest to me than a straight photograph.
One ongoing project of mine is The Dinner Party Project. Prior to having a few friends and fellow glassmakers over for dinner I ask the attendees to provide me with a glass cup that they have made. The design and construction of each attendee’s cup happens independent from me. I hand blow a cup as well. Each cup is then coated with a liquid photographic emulsion and placed in a pinhole camera constructed with four equally spaced holes around the camera, giving the camera a 360-degree view. Each camera is placed within each makers/attendees place setting on the table. When we sit for our meal together all of the pinholes on the cup cameras are opened and are covered back up upon completion of the meal. The resulting “glass cup negatives” are used to make prints in the darkroom. The independent experience, the visual remnants, of the making of the cups is over laid with the situational, and relational, experience of the dinner.
In another example, in the installation Site Lines I explored the physical construction of an image as well as the history of image making. 4500’ of cotton line crisscross the space, over 850 images are hanging, each attached to the line with a clothespin. I collected images by sourcing them from history, and by capturing them myself in numerous ways. The strategies for this were numerous. I used as many techniques (ways of seeing) as I could come up with to capture the images. When looking into the mirror on the wall opposing the field of hanging photographs, the viewer sees himself or herself standing in front of a single image, which is composed through the alignment of every image in the space.
Cyanotypes on Glass
The Chemistry
The process is known as a non-silver process; traditional black and white photography is a silver process. The chemistry is reactive due to the iron salts in the solution. There are two chemicals needed; Ferric ammonium citrate, which is the light sensitive component containing the iron salts, and Potassium ferricyanide. The color created from the reaction between these chemicals produce what we know as Prussian blue. The process was invented by Sir John Herschel, who was looking for a way to efficiently make copies of his scientific notes.
The cyanotype chemistry is ultraviolet (UV) light sensitive. This means that you can coat your paper without finding or making a darkroom. You can mix the chemicals inside and away from windows and the chemistry will not expose too quickly. However once you get your solution mixed and coating complete it is still a good idea to expose as soon as possible, or to put your prepared work away from all light sources until you are ready to do your exposing.
The Process
Materials:
-Bostick and Sullivan Cyanotype Printing Kit
-Container for mixing solution
-Metal container for a hot water bath
-Hot water
-Glass rod for stirring
-Foam brush
-Knox unflavored Gelatin
-Newspaper or paper towels for covering your work surface
-Glass! You will definitely be able to get a nice print on sheet, but the process will work on shapes as well. To get a good result you want the image or negative you are printing with to be laid over the sensitized surface as closely as possible.
-Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
-Tray for rinsing
Directions:
1. Make sure to clean all of your glass well before coating.
2. As with the earlier process we want to follow the manufacturer’s directions and prepare a solution of equal parts A and B of the cyanotype chemistry.
3. Sprinkle gelatin onto the surface of your cyanotype solution. I have found that one teaspoon per 25ml of solution works well, but I try to get away with less.
4. Allow solution to “swell” (aka, sit there) for a minimum of 5 minutes.
5. Place the container you have mixed your chemicals in into a warm bath. Stir, dissolving the remaining crystals of gelatin into the solution.
6. Hold your glass flat like a waiter and pour a generous amount of solution into the center of the plate. Slightly tip plate towards one corner of your sheet to move the solution around the surface; try not to let it flow over the edge. Continue tilting the plate to each corner in succession until the plate is completely coated with the chemistry. Dump remaining chemistry back into the container of your prepared solution.
7. Allow plate to dry completely.
8. Place your negative (or whatever you have chosen to print from) onto the glass. Put another piece of glass on top, effectively creating a negative sandwich.
9. Expose.
10. Run plate through your tray filled with cold water. No more than 10 seconds. You will not wash away all the unexposed material in this step.
11. Dry completely leaning upright. This initial drying of your exposed image will help to harden the gelatin and keep it on the glass.
12. Rinse again, being sure to remove all of the unexposed solution (green).
13. Dry completely.
Notes:
-It is possible to tone cyanotype images. A few drops of hydrogen peroxide in water will make your blue more vibrant and saturated. Other possibilities include tea, coffee, and wine.
-You can place objects over your plates to make a photogram or you can create your own photographic negatives by printing on transparencies. Graphic black and white images work really well. Even better, if you have a color printer, is to create a CMYK color mask of 0% cyan, 55% magenta, 55% yellow, and 0% black.
-The glass has to be clean! I use Arm and Hammer Washing Soda and it seems to do a great job. My hands seem to be really sensitive to it so I wear nitrile gloves while cleaning.