Cyanotype Printing with Waves and Rain

Art & Sculpture Craft & Design Photography & Video
Cyanotype Printing with Waves and Rain

Most photographs in galleries and museums involve a common sequence of events. See a desired object, landscape, or moment. View this moment or scene through the camera lens. Press the shutter button. Download or develop the images. Edit through a digital or darkroom process. And finally, print either digitally or via a photochemical process.

Photographer Meghann Riepenhoff leaves most of that process behind — including the camera — in her latest body of work Littoral Drift. Her solo show opened December 10th, 2015  at SF Camerawork gallery in San Francisco and runs thru February 3rd, 2016.

Littoral Drift #09 (Rodeo Beach, CA 11.07.13, Three Waves, Buried and Flooded); unique cyanotype, 24”x30”
Littoral Drift #09 (Rodeo Beach, CA 11.07.13, Three Waves, Buried and Flooded); unique cyanotype, 24”x30”

In her current body of work, Littoral Drift, she employs a camera-less cyanotype process. She uses the effects of waves, rain, wind, and sediment which leave physical marks in their direct contact with photographic material. She uses cyanotypes in an unconventional way and only partially processes the prints so they continue to change over time.

Rodeo Beach Print
Meghann in process of creating a print on Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands in California. Image courtesy of the artist.

Cyanotypes are created using a solution of iron compounds. The cyanotype is also known as “ferroprussiate” or “blueprint.” The process was invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842. He discovered that iron salts could be reduced to a ferrous state when exposed to light and then combined with other salts to create vivid blue and white image. Anna Atkins was one of the few women in photography at the time of his discovery and was the first photographer to use this process publicly to illustrate her book British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.

Anna_Atkins_Cystoseira_granulata
Cystoseira granulata. Cyanotype photogram. Source: Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843) Artist: Anna Atkins

Atkins made the plates for the cyanotype prints by placing wet algae directly on the light-sensitized paper and then exposing it to sunlight.

Print in the process of development by ocean tidal movement.
Print in the process of development by ocean tidal movement. Image courtesy of the artist.

Riepenhoff’s prints are formed by the action of water from the ocean or rain. She creates her prints by placing pre-treated paper directly in ocean waters, beneath rain, and along beaches in the surf.

20131024_MG_8080
Meghann at work creating prints. Image courtesy of the artist.

To create her ocean activated work she lays out both vertical and horizontal prints directly in the surf and on the shore nearby burying them partially in the sand. This process captures tidal movement as the water’s movement pulls the chemicals across the prints creating the residual imagery.

Littoral Drift Nearshore #209 (Springridge Road, Bainbridge Island, WA 02.12.2015, Fletcher Bay Water Poured and Fletcher Bay and Fay Bainbridge Silt Scattered), grid of unique cyanotypes, each 19 x 24 inches, totaling 114 x 216 inches Courtesy of the artist and EUQINOMprojects
Littoral Drift Nearshore #209 (Springridge Road, Bainbridge Island, WA 02.12.2015, Fletcher Bay Water Poured and Fletcher Bay and Fay Bainbridge Silt Scattered), grid of unique cyanotypes, each 19 x 24 inches, totaling 114 x 216 inches Courtesy of the artist and EUQINOMprojects

For her rain based works, Riepenhoff drapes treated papers over manmade objects such as ladders and fences, exposing them to different intensities of precipitation, for varying durations. 

Littoral Drift Nearshore #215
Littoral Drift Nearshore #215 (Springridge Road, Bainbridge Island, WA 03.19.2015, Rainstorm, One Hour and Forty-seven Minutes), unique cyanotype, 144 x 42 inches. Courtesy of the artist and EUQINOMprojects.

The exhibition will also include a Continuum book and a time-lapse video documenting it. The number of pages in the book will correspond to the time span of the exhibition: each day a new page will be opened and exposed under SF Camerawork’s skylight. A time-lapse camera mounted above the book will take a series of photographs each day. You can see the time-lapse in its entirety during a conversation between Meghann Riepenhoff and Emily Lambert, Associate Director of the Fraenkel Gallery January 19, 2016, 6 – 8pm at SF Cameraworks.

Make your own cyanotypes:

Do you want to try your hand at experimenting with cyanotypes like Meghann does? Try making prints with a Sunprint Kit. Or are you a make it from scratch kind of person? If so you can try this great Cyanotype Instructable.

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Idea Generator, Maker, Social Sculptor

Collaboration is Jess's magic ingredient for success in work, community, art and life. This can be seen through her founding and directing work with Flux Foundation, All Power Labs and Flaming Lotus Girls.

From a lofty dream to concrete reality; Jess is well known for taking that ethereal idea and manifesting that substantial something. Whether taking on the challenge of design, founding an alternative energy company, or creating awe-inspiring-interactive sculptural experiences, she uses collaborative structure to create the bigger picture.

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