Today, we’re featuring a stunning series from New Zealand based film photographer Sophia Jenny. Sophia used 35mm film negatives to create beautiful cyanotype prints of her images.
Scroll down to read more from Jenny about her process and her experiments with cyanotypes. You can also read more about creating your own cyanotypes here.
Analog camera used: Canon AE-1 (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay)
Connect with Sophia: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Cyanotypes
A Photo Series by Sophia Jenny
Cyanotype is a photographic process that has been around for over 150 years. It uses a light-sensitive solution and ultra violet light to create vibrant blue prints.
With New Zealand in various levels of lockdown, 2021 was the perfect opportunity to experiment with this alternative process. Now, I am completely in love with the medium and its possibilities.
My background and university studies are in photography, and I am an artist who has always practiced using 35mm film. I decided to repurpose my extensive library of New Zealand imagery – the country is intensely, exquisitely photographic – and experiment with how Cyanotype might transpose their look and feel, converting my achieved negatives to Cyanotype ones.
Cyanotype as a form is romantically unpredictable. Using the sun as my UV source means that each printing session is different. Each negative has its own character, and this allows for their individual idiosyncrasies to be revealed.
They were a delight to make, especially on the cool, yet sunny, winter days.
I find it hard to pinpoint what the precise change is in the look of the images. One metaphor might be transposing a song from a minor to a major key. The idea remains the same, but its execution and the emotion it creates are very different.
To me, each image is beautiful in its own way, and there is a kind of wonder and harmony in using the sun as my manifesting medium.
Cyanotype feels like a living and connecting process that brings me closer to both my subject, and my audience.
Thank you so much, Sophia! You can find more of Sophia’s work on her website, Instagram, and Facebook.
Check out all of our film photography features here, and if you want to have your own film work featured on the site, view our submissions process!
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Blog Comments
Keith
May 11, 2022 at 7:47 am
This looks really interesting! Does this process do anything to the negative itself? Or in other words, does the process damage the original negative?
Sophia
May 14, 2022 at 8:02 pm
Hi Keith,
Great question! The short answer is no.
With cyanotype, the size of the negative you use dictates the size of the final printed image. For these works I went through a process of enlarging the original negative.
I scanned the original film strip and then reprinted the scanned negative onto OHP transparency sheets – thus creating a large format negative. I found that I was able to get up to A3 in size before losing picture quality.
Brian Moore
May 13, 2022 at 11:58 am
Pretty pictures. An explanation of the process used to transfer the negative image to the cyanotype paper would have been welcome. Thanks.
Sophia
May 14, 2022 at 8:02 pm
Hi Keith,
Great question! The short answer is no.
With cyanotype, the size of the negative you use dictates the size of the final printed image. For these works I went through a process of enlarging the original negative.
I scanned the original film strip and then reprinted the scanned negative onto OHP transparency sheets – thus creating a large format negative. I found that I was able to get up to A3 in size before losing picture quality.