Agenda UV

Under the word ‘cyanotype’ we find a photographic technique with which we obtain images of a beautiful and characteristic blue tonality. A photographic process, invented in the mid-nineteenth century, closely related to botany, since the first book in history published entirely with photographic images is an herbal seaweed made by the British Anna Atkins with this technique. In this initiation workshop, we will learn all the secrets of cyanotype, a simple and economical technique with which we do not need a light-tight laboratory and in which the development takes place with the exposure of the photosensitive surface of the images to the Sun rays. Thus, after a theoretical presentation to contextualise cyanotype in the history of photography, we will describe the entire process step by step, emphasizing formulas and media preparation. Next, we will take advantage of a space like the Botanical Garden to collect plant elements that can be used to create frames and we will know how to carry out solarization, development and subsequent tinting. Depending on the interests and knowledge of the students, it is planned to guide them in a personalized way to be able to explore the maximum of solutions and creative possibilities that the technique of cyanotype offers us. The teachers of the workshop of cyanotype are Rosa Campos and Pilar Beltrán, who develop their creative work in the field of photography and who, since 2011, form the collective Gelatinobromuro Study.