Photogenic Drawing

history:

the idea of photogenic drawings originated with Thomas Wedgewood and his experiments done with images on paper and leather sensitized with silver nitrate in 1802.

Photogenic drawing was the name William Henry Fox Talbot gave to his initial photographic invention. As early as 1834, Talbot was making salt prints by placing lace, leaves and other objects on light-sensitive paper and exposing it to the sun. Although Talbot used photogenic drawing paper in the camera, exposures in the camera often took hours, so most photogenic drawings were made by the superposition of objects.

Talbot's success increased over years as he refined his process. He discovered that it worked best if repeated coats of salt and silver nitrate were given to the paper, and if the paper was exposed before the coating dried.Exposure times required were typically an hour or longer, so the process was not suitable for taking portraits.

Talbot made no formal announcement of his discoveries until he heard that on January 7 1839, that Daguerre had discovered a way of fixing a photographic image.Talbot reacted immediately and wrote a paper on his process that was presented to the Royal Institution, in London, on 31 January 1839.

Talbot later invented and patented his Tablotype or Calotype process. This negative/positive process, was the forerunner to today's conventional photography. Both the photogenic drawing process and the subsequent calotype process enabled multiple prints to be produced from a single negative.

the process. in a nutshell:

- Soak paper in a weak solution of sodium chloride (salt).

- When dry, sensitise the paper by brushing one side with a strong silver nitrate solution. This causes silver chloride to be formed on the surface of the paper.

- Take the photo while the paper is still wet. An exposure of at least an hour may be needed. This will imprint an image on the paper.

- Remove the paper from the camera and wash it.

- stabilise (or 'fix') the image on the paper by soaking the paper in a strong solution of sodium chloride.

- This produces a negative image on paper.

- Treat a second sheet of paper with salt + silver nitrate, as above.

- Lay the negative created above on top of the newly-coated sheet of paper + expose to light.

- Wait for a positive image to emerge then fix as above.

in class: for our own experiment, we each had one type of paper: 100% rag, bristol, watercolor, sketch, and canvas.

my canvas paper

each piece was cut into four pieces, and we decided to test a low silver, low salt, high silver high salt, low silver high salt, and high silver low salt concentration, on pair on each piece of four, repeating this on each of the five types. we started out with the low silver low salt concentration, 5% of each, and brushed on one layer of each solution after we had taped a piece of each type of paper onto a board.

we used the beading method to spread the solutions, by using the eyedropper to dispense a row of beads of liquid at the top of each piece and then quickly spreading it as evenly as possibly over the surface. Once the board dried, we placed keys and some other miscelaneous objects over the paper and placed it in the light box for seven minutes.

After taking it out we noticed some very slight results. The bristol and rag papers showed a faint outline of where the keys had been. we then soaked the images in the salt solution as a fixer.

Trial One: low silver low salt

This same process was repeated three more times with each of the different pairings of concentrations. The high silver was a 12% concentration while the high salt was 10%

results:

in the end we found that the low silver high salt papers produced no results, and the high silver low salt, high silver high salt papers both produced results with the sketch, rag, water color, and bristol papers. The most successful image was on the sketch paper that had been coated in high silver low salt. we came to the conclusion that the best images resulted from paper that had the lowest concentration of salt. Another thing we had discussed was the paper types and how not only their texture and thickness but also the chemicals in the paper may have played a strong role in the success of the image and the paper's photosensitivity.

Trial 2: low silver high salt (no results)

Trial 3: high silver, low salt (best results)

Trial 4: high silver, high salt (second best results, some clearer than others)

Anthotypes

to put it simply:

anthotypes are made by using the juice from crushed up flowers, fruits, or other plants as an emulsion on the paper, and then make a contact print in the sun.

history:

Invented by Sir William Herschel in 1842, his intention was to find some way to bring color into the photographic process. Scientists had known of the light sensitive properties of many fruits an vegetables for years, and "among many early observations the experiments of Henri August Vogel in Paris are of particular interest. He found in 1816 an alcoholic tincture of either red carnations, violets or corn poppy turned white behind blue glass in a few days, while it remained unchanged behind red glass after about the same time. Cotton and paper coloured with these tinctures showed the same differences."

Herschel eventually used this research along with that of others and much of his own in order to develop what eventually became known as the anthotype process. Unfortunately, the process never really gained much popularity, and to this day is still not very well known.

how it works:

The success of the final image, along with its permanency and the resulting color depends highly upon the juices that are used for the emulsion. Poppies and peonies have been recommended for good results, but there is a multitude of options and some that have not even been explored, so experimentation is best.

These are the results that one photographer recorded from his own experiences:

Yellow chrysanthemum flowers made a lovely paint, but they did not turn out to be very photosensitive.

Raspberries showed decent results.

Blueberries were all pulp and no pigment. Perhaps the skins on their own could produce better results.

Blackberries were fantastic. I got great results in exposures of about 3 days. The color and the texture are very nice with the blackberries. (image right)

Cineraria (Senecio x hybridus) was a disappointment. It did not produce much of an image despite its brightly colored flowers.

California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) are very photosensitive. The exposed portions of this emulsion faded out in 3-4 hours. I suspect that these images may not last. Time will tell. I also found that it is important to include the anthers with the poppies. The color is not strong enough without them.

My favorite emulsion might be from the leaves of the Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus). This is another fast 3-4 hour emulsion. The result is a brilliant green image with astounding contrast. (See large image to the right of this list)

Red wine is another fast and easy emulsion. Just paint it onto the paper straight out of the bottle.

Purple bearded Iris was very juicy and produced good results with just a few flowers.

I also had good luck with fruit from a Fuchsia, the anthers from a Stargazer Lily, and Colmonara orchid flowers. I didn’t even bother straining the orchid flowers: I just rubbed them directly onto the paper for Philoxanorchid.

(alternativephotography.com, Working with Anthotypes. Steven Pitsenbarger)

Here are some recent experiments that an artist has been doing with the process. I think they turned out beautifully.

the process:

the process is really quite simple, as we found in class. After choosing what material to make the emusion from, you must find a way to extract the juices, through crushing manually and pouring through a strainer or by using a food processor. Then with a brush simply coat the paper evenly with the juice, alternating the direction of your brush strokes with each coat. Generally 2-3 coats is fine. After allowing the paper to dry, simply lay the object that you wish to make the print of on top of the paper and expose it to sunlight. Depending on the light sensitivity of the chosen plant, and the amount of sunlight, the exposure time can vary from a few hours to several days or weeks.

Carol Golemboski is another artist who has done recent work with anthotypes, using blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries.

in class:

for our own experiment we decided to use raspberry juice that we obtained from crushing frozen berries with a mortar and pestle.

Between the five of us in the group we settled on all using the raspberry juice and testing the affects of juice to alcohol concentrations, because we had the option of mixing the juice with either water or alcohol. We ended up starting with a 20mL 100% raspberry mixture for the first paper (mine) and then added 10, 20, 30, and 40 mL, respectively, of alcohol to each 20mL of raspberry after that. We each coated our papers with between 2 and 3 coats of our solution and then cut out shapes to be taped on which would eventually end up being our final image.

The papers have now been exposed to light for about a week and a half, and so far my paper does not seem to have changed at all. We do have a lot of cloudy days though so hopefully I will eventually be able to get some results. I know some of the other groups got some results with the spinach, and I thought raspberries would work pretty well because they have such a strong color, I guess we will have to wait and see.

ART MATERIALS: PHOTOGRAPHY

Using this old blog to start a new one, describing historic photo processes and our experiences with them in class