Blue Horizon (Number 193104) copyright 2024 Douglas Stockdale –
I was honored to have my seascape cyanotype Blue Horizon featured this past week on YourDailyPhotograph.com, which is a 11 x 14″ image I printed on a 16 x 20″ sheet of Bergger Cot 320. I have photographed this stretch of the San Clemente oceanscape on numerous occasions, while on this particular morning about a year ago, the soft clouds provided a moody and pensive appearance. Perhaps why we call this time of year May-gray. LoL
This is also a cyanotype print image that I have been considering including in my Last Iceberg series investigating climate change. Hmmmm. Encouraging and worthy of further consideration, eh?
Nevertheless, this seascape due to the contrast range occurring that day was not an easy cyanotype to print. My first contact negative results did not come even close to what I had pre-visualized as a final print; highlights at the horizon and the details within the cloud structure were blown out and the ‘white’ sea foam in the foreground lacked enough contrast.
Regretfully I do not agree with the folks who state that for cyanotype printing, you get what you get due to the inherent attributes of this printing. Just like when I was printing silver gelatin prints in my darkroom, I think the first print is just the starting point. Then it’s time to start dialing in the printing process to achieve something I wanted and could be excited about. In my darkroom it was about making the paper grade changes in conjunction with burning in troublesome sections of the negative in conjuction with paper development push/pull.
In order to control the cyanotype print contrast I started adding masking with curve layers to tweak each of the various parts of my contact negative. The print above is from my fourth contact negative version, which is exactly what I had pre-visualized.
Thus, that this print is being featured by YourDailyPhotograph.com is a really nice validation of my printing efforts.
In retrospect, I had not been making very many submissions to YourDailyPhotograph.com and this feature is the little bit of encouragement I probably needed to look at my recent cyanotype print inventory to submit another. Cool.
Make every day an Earth Day
Doug
Now on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/stockdale.bsky.social
Artist book available:
The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow, an artist book from Singular Images Press, copyright 2022, $60.00 (CA sales tax for those residing in the USA) plus shipping expenses. Message me douglas.stockdale.artist@gmail.com
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