April

25th April 20202

Throughout this month I have been finding and using something that catches my eye, during my daily (well almost) walk, to produce a series of mini Cyanotypes. The idea being that by the end of April I will have 30 images that will be grouped together as a record of the month. I’m not sure how I will then use these within my project but for now that is less important than the process of their collection and development.

When I first heard about Anna Atkins and her Cyanotype photography, aside from the beautiful imagery what fascinated me was the secondary nature of the aesthetics. In her quest as a botanist to catalogue plant specimens for scientific record she mastered the Cyanotype process going on to publish the first book using photographic illustrations.

From my perspective as a designer there is so much that appeals to me about this process and I have spent much of the last few months experimenting with both plant and photographic exposures, on a variety of different materials. This little side-line project has really helped hone my skills in Cyanotype photography, giving me a deeper understanding of how plants respond and revealing possibilities of what is achievable with the simplest of things.

Initially my daily findings were motivated by choosing something that I thought would produce a good ‘Anna Atkins style’ accurate botanical image. I thought this would be a nice way of documenting new spring growth. It was also the little bursts of colour that jumped out at me during my walks that I was most attracted to.

To try and keep the depth of blue achieved consistent, I decided upon a 15 minute exposure time, having found previously that this was a good average for developing the colour. As spring flowers are particularly delicate, this proved too long for some flowers washing out detail and producing block blue and white images. It was tempting to re-do these to create images that more accurately depicted details and I did experiment further with timings with some flowers. But for the purposes of this project I took the decision to include that days cyanotype mini regardless of the results.

I liked the combination of realistic, classic plant shapes alongside more abstract imagery produced by over exposure and in many cases the natural makeup of the plants themselves. It also occurred to me that some of these abstract shapes could be used to influence the design and silhouette of my garment/s. For example the Poppy pictured middle left in the image below could form the flounces and volume of a skirt, the structure of a collar or perhaps the detail of a cuff.

Quite early in the project once I had a few completed Cyanotypes, I realised I was starting to plan the emerging formation of the imagery. The layout was starting to influence my choice of plant, as I considered what might work best with what I already had. At this stage I made the conscious decision to put away the completed images and to concentrate on a daily choice based solely on its visual appeal to me at that moment. I felt this was more in keeping with my original intentions and perhaps a method of relinquishing control. I wanted this to be about discovery and engagement with my surroundings. That has been the loveliest thing about this project, just the simple act of observation.

From the moment I leave the house I look for something of interest, weeds in the cracks in the pavement, trees budding or the wildflowers and new growth along the old railway line that I head to every day. I spend my hours walk contemplating what I’d like to pick and why. Quite often it’ll be something new, like the first Bluebell of the season, other times It’ll be the shape or colour of something that interests me or just the curiosity of how a plant might translate into a Cyanotype image. Sometimes they work, sometimes they surprise me, sometimes I’m disappointed but again this is less important than the overall process and it is one that I look forward to every day. So much so that I’d like to do something similar another month.

Looking back there are things I wish I’d done differently from the offset, such as pressing and preserving each plant I’ve used maybe to create a herbarium, setting more stringent parameters for discovery, maybe making records of the exact location of finding, or photographing it, maybe documenting my thoughts and feelings or anything else that helps establish a sense of connection or helps me recall being in the moment.

To be honest I’m not entirely sure how I take this forward but it’s been such an enjoyable experience that has helped see me though a rather difficult time, and it seems daft not to continue in some way.