Well, inspired by the Eddie Ephraum's book I thought I would give producing cyanotypes a whirl. I think the easiest way to get started is with a ready made kit - I opted for the Fotospeed kit and it arrived last week (just haven't had time to use it yet). I am working on the principal that if I can produce some half decent images with a kit, I will give mixing up by own chemicals a go. But first things first, let's see what happens.I used one of the glass rods to coat the paper (it is possible to use a brush, but rods should produce more even coverage). The first attempt was a bit hit and miss - the sensitizer produced puddles on the paper (mainly because the syringe was difficult to control), but a couple of wipes with the glass rod sorted this out. But coating the paper in safelight conditions is far from easy.
I used a couple of test 5x4 negatives to produce the images. I exposed the negatives by contact printing under a sheet of glass. The first sheet was exposed to the sun for 8 minutes (above). It is hard to make out the image. The second attempt was exposed for 20 minutes. I also used a more contrasty neg - opting for a Polaroid type 55, hence the interesting edging. The image is stronger, but still underexposed. I used the sun as the UV source and placed the paper out on the garden table. The print visibly changed from a grey/green to a navy blue.
According to the instructions supplied with the kit, the prints are meant to darken down when the paper dries. I didn't find this to be the case and, if anything, the midtones seemed to get a little lighter when the print was washed.Checking my dMax against the examples in the book, it becomes obvious that the prints are under-exposed. This is no doubt due to exposing the prints in the cold winter (and very overcast) sun in London. Now I know that the colour of the print doesn't darken down very much once exposed, I will use this as guidance when exposing the next prints.
