This ongoing research practice explores the merger of historical photographic processes and new technologies in printing and image production. It started during the pandemic as a way to combine my research into ink-making with hands-on photographic techniques using the sun to expose the prints.
Forms created by sunlight are ephemeral and always changing, yet I am paradoxically drawn to collecting them—almost freezing them in time.
Forms created by sunlight are ephemeral and always changing, yet I am paradoxically drawn to collecting them—almost freezing them in time.
Anthotypes, invented by Mary Somerville in 1842, are created by coating a substrate with fugitive plant dye. The coated paper is covered with an object or image printed on transparency and left in the sun. The intentional fading creates an image. These studies have exposure times varying from one day to three weeks and use botanical materials including blackberries, turmeric, chard, and cabbage.