I'm seeing blue

This semester I am taking Alternative Photo at SJSU. If working in the darkroom wasn't obscure enough these days, this class takes it a step further, by finding- you guessed it, alternative ways to print photos.

No need for any fiber based paper or lines of trays under the amber light (although may choose to create their negatives in the traditional darkroom, but is that so traditional?). Print on what you want: watercolor paper, wood, wool, cotton. Anything that'll let you really.

So for I first assignment, we did Cyanotypes. These print pretty well on watercolor paper, which is what I chose to use. One gal tried wood, but couldn't get it to work.

Since this is a sort of vintage process, I decided to go with some vintage cars as my subject. I had some pretty good shots from the Monterey Historics and wanted to pump those pics up a little more.

A quick rundown of the process is: you coat your paper (or whatever you want) with the solution that contains potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate. Then after it dries, you put an inverted transperancy on top and expouse in the sun for a few minutes. Next you rinse for about ten minutes, drop in a little hydrogen peroxide. All of a sudden you get this gorgeous blue print.

I made things hard on myself, trying to print large. I wanted 16x20s and the biggest I found to print transparencies was 8.5x11. So I put four of them together on one. I later found that I can buy rolls of Pictorico that are much larger (but also more expensive.)

The image on this post, doesn't do the process justice. But it gives you an idea.

Next is Van Dykes. Can someone say Cowboy Up?