Blue Rebirth: Floppy to Cyanotype

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My idea for my final project in my photo class seemed a bit far fetched at first.

I called it Rebirth due to the fact that I was using two processes that were rendered obsolete in our time.

After getting rather impressive results from my sony mavica fd88 I decided to take those digital files a step farther.

My teacher had shown us how to make cyanotype contact prints from digital negatives. I decided to use that method to make cyanotype contact prints from the mavica.

I had read on decade old forums that the mavica only offered about 4x6 quality prints. I overestimated the size of the cyanotype paper and my negative.

The first result was astounding. The quality of the print was satisfying. I later perfected the sizing issue by making the digital negative 4x6 instead of my intial 5x7 file.

Creating the digital negative was the easy part. I took one of my images, opened it in photoshop, inverted the image, then converted it to grayscale.

I then resized the image, then printed it with a laser printer onto overhead transparency paper meant for a laser printer. I aquired the cyanotype paper from the Cyanotype Store online.

This project took place around the time winter was starting, so all of my exposures were in cloud covered sunlight, which means they sat outside for about 30-40 minutes.

If you have any questions feel free to email me at austin@athess.com, I look forward to this summer when I can make more prints.

Below are links to the various stages of my project