Cyanotype

Are you ready to create a real cyanotype?

There are a few things that you can buy online that will get you printing cyanotypes in no time. First is the Sun Art Paper Kit that provides you with what they call "sun paper." Its a pretty inexpensive way to get started. All you need is the paper, sunlight, and water. There are no messy chemicals.

I would definately recommend buying the Sun Art Paper Kit if this is your first time making a cyanotype. There are no dangerous chemicals involved.

Next, you are going to need either a negative or if you would rather, you can create the sunprint using nature. You can place any object (a fern, leaf, key etc.) on the SunArt paper and set it in the sun briefly to create a cyanotype.


The Complete SunArt KIT contains
15 - 8 x 10 inch SunArt UV Sensitive coated Paper Sheets
1 - 8 x 10 Transparent Acrylic Sheet (To hold lightweight objects in place during expusure to UV sunlight)
Complete instructions.

Now you are going to need a negative if you don't choose a leaf. Most people shoot digital now, but there are quite a few books teaching you how to create a negative in photoshop. Here is one book that you can find on amazon showing you how to create a negative: Digital Negatives: Using Photoshop to Create Digital Negatives for Silver and Alternative Process Printing. 
 

You Tube Sunday - The Orton Effect

Learn an awesome way to create an orton effect in Photoshop.



After that video, I am certainly ready to have some DIY fun. Check out this amazing awesome book if you haven't already heard of it Photojojo!: Insanely Great Photo Projects and DIY Ideas

Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity

Click to see more information

I just ordered this book from amazon, I am so excited that I'll be getting it by the end of the week.  

Product Description (from Amazon)

Take a tour of the burgeoning world of plastic cameras and low-tech photography in this fun and funky guide to creating the most artistic pictures of your life! Whether you're an experienced enthusiast or toy camera neophyte, you'll find this guide full of tantalizing tips, fun facts, and absolutely striking photographs taken with the lowest tech tools around.

You'll learn how to prep your plastic camera, their advantages and quirks, and what film to feed it. You'll also explore what makes a good subject, vignetting, multiple exposures, panoramas, close-ups, night photography, color, flash, problems and solutions, and so much more. Michelle Bates also takes you from a negative to either prints or pixels so that you can show off your photos and jump on the toy-camera revolution!

Contributors include:

Michael Ackerman, Thomas Michael Alleman, Erin Antognoli, Jonathan Bailey , James Balog, Michelle Bates, Phil Bebbington, Gyorgy Beck, Susan Bowen, Laura Corley Burlton, David Burnett, Susan Burnstine, Nancy Burson, Perry Dilbeck, Jill Enfield, fotovitamina, Annette Elizabeth Fournet, Brigitte Grignet, Eric Havelock-Bailie, Christopher James, Michael Kenna, Wesley Kennedy, Teru Kuwayama, Louviere & Vanessa, Mary Ann Lynch, Anne Arden McDonald, Ted Orland, Sylvia Plachy, Dan Price, Becky Ramotowski, Nancy Rexroth, Francisco Mata Rosas, Richard Ross, Franco Salmoiraghi, Rosanna Salonia, Jennifer Shaw, Nancy Siesel, Mark Sink, Kurt Smith, Sandy Sorlien, Pauline St. Denis, Harvey Stein, Gordon Stettinius, Ryan Synovec, Rebecca Tolk, Marydorsey Wanless, Shannon Welles, Matthew Yates, Dan Zamudio


* Now including the latest and greatest cameras, from the Pinhole Wide Holga, the Stereo Holga, and the all-new Blackbird, Fly
*This edition expands on its fabulous lineup of artists by including well-known Christopher James and Michael Kenna
*Still the most informative, colorful, and inspiring Plastic Camera guide in existence

You can buy the first edition also:

Plastic Cameras - click for more information

You Tube Sunday - Creating Light Leaks in Photoshop

Toy camera will often have light leaks in the photos. So, here is a nice tutorial in Photoshop.


Check out some tricks for using some toy cameras:Fantastic Plastic Cameras: Tips and Tricks for 40 Toy Cameras

Create a Lomography Photograph in Adobe Photoshop

Step 1:
Open the photo that you want to edit in Adobe Photoshop. Turning a digital photo into a “lomo” works really well with images that are slightly out of focus, which will help you give new life to your out of focus photos using Photoshop CS5.

YouTube Sunday

Sunday is officially YouTube day. Or at least it is my day of YouTubing. Get up late and stay in my pjs watching some YouTube videos. The following video is a quick and dirty Photoshop tutorial of creating a lomo photograph. Next week, there will be a full tutorial on creating your own lomography image(so stay tuned). There will be a few extra things that will be done than are covered in the video. But for now, enjoy this easy digital photo manipulation.

Saturday Night Searches

I was searching the internet and found lomography! Well. I actually already knew about lomo, but I found out that there are actually rules!! (That are completely meant to be broken.

The Lomographic Society International has lived by the following 10 golden rules in logography since the early 1990’s.

1) Take your camera everywhere you go.

2) Use it any time – day and night.

3) Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.

4) Try the shot from the hip.

5) Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible.

6) Don’t think.

7) Be fast.

8) You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.

9) Afterwards either.

10) Don’t worry about any rules.

So if you don't know about lomography, google it.

Learn how to Create a Cyanotype in Photoshop

cyanotype, by Photo Processes on Flickr.

Create your own Digital Cyanotype Photoshop Tutorial

This Photoshop tutorial assumes a basic understanding of Photoshop. When working with a different photo, the final result will be very different. So, use the steps below as a basic guide to learn how to create your own digital cyanotype. Changing the settings below will help you achieve the best outcome of your digital photo.

1. Open the photo you want to use in Photoshop

Pinhole Photography Day

Did you know that there is a Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day?

It is an international event that was created to celebrate and promote the wonderful art of pinhole photography.  Everyone is encouraged to:

• Take time out from this digital age and participate in the act of making a pinhole photograph.
• To share their photographs with the world to promote this day

The Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is held each year on the last Sunday in April. The next pinhole day is Sunday, April 24, 2011. 

Pinhole photography allows you to make a photograph that requires only a light-tight container (box, can, etc.) with a tiny hole in one side and any photo-sensitive surface in it. You can adapt an existing camera, or make the camera yourself . The experience of image-making becomes a little more special when created with your own hand-made camera because you are involved in every aspect of the picture making.

Pinhole photography has infinite depth-of-field, long shutter speeds and skewed perspectives which can lead to wonderfully surprising images.  

If you want to learn more about this fun process, go to http://www.pinholeday.org/