The Connective Cyanotype

Alternative processes in photography have distinguished themselves in my mind as bold ways of letting out a message creatively while making the viewer's eyes intrigued and thirsty for more. However, I believe the purpose of art is for people to make their own connections whilst lost in the mystery of an artist's work. This is exactly what I wanted to accomplish while putting together a "triple" exposure and creating a cyanotype out of it. 

To put this image together, I took 3 photos using a Canon EOS Rebel XS with a 18-55mm lens, shutter speed of 1/100s and an aperture of f6.5. Firstly, I uploaded the 2 photos of the tree/sky and the photo of the grass. I made a double exposure of the two and  flattened the image. I then uploaded the 3rd photo of the girl with the dog and incorporated it into the photo with another double exposure. I think this is a very interesting and powerful image. While creating this image, I made some connections of my own. I thought about environmental issues. The little girl covering the dogs eyes  and the dog showing frustration, anger and most of all... vulnerability, to the human's actions. I made the background images of nature, specifically grass and trees. I exaggerated the size of the grass to imitate how small we actually are in comparison to the earth. I think the grass puts the entire thing into perspective... no matter what we do to nature, it will always loom over us with a colossal force. 

The second step to completing this process was inverting the image and printing it onto an acetate. 

I then painted the appropriate chemicals onto a sheet of paper and after it dried, I sandwiched the paper and the acetate in between two pieces of plexiglass. Since it was an extremely overcast day, I left the plexiglass sandwich outside for about 45 minutes. I brought it inside and put the paper into a container of 1000 mL of water and 50 mL of hydrogen peroxide (as photographed above). I rubbed off the yellow colour and then hung the cyanotype up to dry. This was my third attempt and it proved to be successful... third times a charm! 

I am very happy with the way my cyanotype turned out. I believe it contributes to my main "message" of keeping mystery in a photograph for the viewer to make connections for themselves to interpret what it means for them personally. I believe this cyanotype enhanced my image in the way I wanted to all along; the way it leaves out certain parts of the original photograph brings mystery and self discovery the main objective in the photo. I think that the eerie grass shapes around the child, and the outline of the one eye really creates mystery and starts to make connections/feelings within the viewers mind. 

‎"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." — Charles Bukowski

For this assignment, we needed to produce something marketable. Basically, I needed to be inspired by something I wanted the world to hear through my artwork, and make people listen. I figured it had to be something simple yet endlessly deep... like a short sentence written by Shakespeare. I was inspired after searching something on google and seeing the number of possibilities the search engine had to offer. I thought of everyone writing all this information on the internet and how misinformed/confused some people can be after reading through a few sites on the internet. In a way it's like the more I read on the internet, the less I know. Obviously the internet has opened up tons of great opportunities and has connected people globally, but there's another side to the internet that's not commonly expressed, thought about or "marketed". I choose to incorporate a few different alternative processes to explore the idea of "ignorance is bliss". Since my mindset was on the subject of the internet, I choose to make a silk screen and put it on a laptop case. I want to make people look at my computer and think of what the image might be about...I wanted to say a hard thing in a simple way.

Firstly, I took portrait photos of a girl and photos of a model of the human brain. I took these with a Canon Rebel T2i with a shutter speed of 1/60 and an aperture of f6. I uploaded the images onto photoshop and made a double exposure of the girl and the brain. I made the brain gradually smaller to portray my message. I printed these photos onto an acetate. The photo above is a drawing of my planning, painting in my sketchbook and the acetates (I did this to show my double exposure). 

After I made the silk screen, exposed it to light with the acetates, washed it off, and painted the silk screen image onto a cotton tee shirt... this is what it looked like. Since the brains didn't show up on the silk screen the way I wanted them too, I decided add a few "processes" of my own. I printed coloured photos of the brains onto t-shirt transfers and then ironed them onto a separate cotton shirt. I cut the ironed brains out and stitched them onto the girls face with red thread. I thought that this would add more of an impact to the piece... since you could see the brains (and therefore interpret the message) more clearly. I also thought the hand-done stitching would add to my message in respect to keeping things simple and genuine. I continued to stitch on the cotton cloth to the laptop case by hand. This assignment was extremely fun because I got to learn new, fascinating photography processes, add my own creativity to it and speak my mind to everyone around me without saying a word.