Forest Light (9x 12" Original Hand-Stained Cyanotype Photograph)

UNFRAMED.

This is a handmade contact photo using the antique cyanotype process from the 1800s. The edges are quite unique. The way I brushed on the photo chemicals in a partial, loose manner gives a sense of mystery and intimacy, like a glimpse of a private memory that fades around the edges.

These iconic Monterey pines can be found all up and down the California coast from San Francisco to Carmel and beyond. These pines here are in the woods near my house across the bay from San Francisco. They are especially magical emerging from the fog on mornings like this one, which are quite frequent regardless of the season.

This is one of several smaller studies for a much larger larger print of the same photograph I'm going to make. I test the ideal exposure time and range of values (contrast) before I waste larger more expensive paper. In a few days I'll have larger sizes available. 

All of my hand-printed cyanotype photographs are “contact photos”, which means that the large negative is exactly the same size as the paper that the photo is printed on because the negative is laid directly on top of the paper while it is being exposed.

The paper is a heavy 100% cotton watercolor paper. Slight variations of shades of blue exist from print to print as each sheet of paper was hand-painted with photo chemicals in the dark and printed in natural sunlight with variations in the weather and intensity of light causing some prints to be darker than others.