Anthotype questions

DrPablo · Sep 17, 2007

I have a few questions about anthotypes, for those who have experience with them.

1) Has anyone tried to use a heavy red wine to coat the paper? I've thought about putting a cheap cabernet into a pot, reducing it down, and using a few coats of it on the paper. I guess that would be a vinotype or something.

2) Has anyone used a dark green substrate for the coating? I'm thinking about something like spinach, or even just leaves and grass from the yard, blended up with a little bit of alcohol.

3) Can a little bit of dichromate be used to increase contrast?

4) Has anyone used transparency film? I have a lot of 4x5 transparencies and a few 8x10 transparencies -- they certainly have a higher density range than most B&W negatives, so I wonder how they would work

5) Is there a way to make them relatively archival after printing? Like spraying with a fixative and putting under museum glass?

Thanks.

Roger Hicks · Sep 17, 2007

I have long wondered about anthotypes but have never bothered because I have never encountered anyone yet -- including the one anthotype practitioner I have met in person -- who had any good ideas about increasing their keeping, beyond not taking 'em out too often. I shall therefore watch this thread with interest.

Akki14 · Sep 17, 2007

I wouldn't really bother with anthotypes if you want any sort of detail. I've not been very successful as far as good resolution of images. You can make out something's there and it vaguely resembles the negative but you don't get detail.
The first anthotype (portrait format) is done with purple iris petals, the second (landscape format) is done with raw red cabbage. I prefer my cyanotypes where I can see results a little faster and actually get quite fine detail.

removed account4 · Sep 17, 2007

i made ( errr, tried to make ) an anthotype,
but the plants i used, from our garden, didn't
do much of anything ...

i should have used poppies, i hear they work very well ...

john

DrPablo · Sep 17, 2007

I'm assuming that you need something extremely dark to get the best contrast and resolution. There are some wine reduction sauces that are a very dark purple, and that might be a good start (and probably not too hard to do).

walter23 · Sep 17, 2007

This is the first I've heard of this process, and I've got no idea how it works but I suspect it's a general mechanism involving breakdown of dye by sunlight - bleaching, in other words. Unfortunately you aren't chemically transforming the remaining pigment to make it stable, so I think it would still slowly degrade with exposure to light and air. I'm pretty sure spray lacquer or something like that wouldn't help in any case because it would still be exposed to light. Maybe if you lacquered it to prevent oxidation and displayed it under opaque black glass it'd be okay

DrPablo · Sep 17, 2007

Well, some of Sir William Herschel's anthotypes from the 1840s are still around, so they're not that ephemeral. If it's truly dessicated and protected from UV light (using glass that's near 100% UV proof) then any breakdown will be slow. And museum glass is easy to get -- any picture framing store will offer it, and it's not all that expensive.

Russ Young · Sep 17, 2007

You should go to Austin, the University of Texas, and see Herschel's albums of experiments. Alas, the keys to the images are in the UK and the heirs will not permit a xerox to be made, but at least you can immediately sort them out from the cyanotypes in the albums. Very, very few have been permanent and probably most weren't great shakes when new.
Russ

brucej · Oct 24, 2007

I am also interested in this process as an extention of my experiments with my Physautotype pictures, there are are number of plants you can use, blueberries are reported to work in a short time , hours not days under UV light.

AKKi14,
heather could you please give a few more details about the iris flowers process,
how many coates did you give the paper
and did you use water coulour paper
and did you use alcohol to get the pigment
did you use sunlight or UV.
how long did it take to get print
thanks
brucej

Akki14 · Oct 24, 2007

2 coats, watercolour paper (fabriano, dunno which kind, I got an unlabeled pack cheap from the art store which only said fabriano on it), no alcohol because iris petals release a LOT of juice on their own and I used sunlight and it took 3 days exposure time.

brucej · Oct 24, 2007

cool
thanks heather
off to raid the garden

xtype · Oct 26, 2007

Check out http://www.alternativephotography.com/gall_miscellaneous.html

Two photographers getting excellent results from anthotype -

It's a beautiful process, but I wouldn't advise keeping them anywhere but in an archival box away from light.

gandolfi · Oct 28, 2007

well - my girlfriend is foo shy to get in here...

but not to shy to show her image..

attached is a selfportrait done with "Arabian night" Dahlias - exposure time approx 5 weeks...

talk about photographic slow food...

don't use a negative - use a positive, and a "real" one, done on film. digi negs won't last that long in the sun..

she is currently trying other flowers. Let's see about christmas time

(I need to go buy some white flowers for my garden - then I might be able to enjoy them.....:rolleyes: )

brucej · Oct 29, 2007

gandolfi
please kept us informed on other flowers
thats a nice picture, 5 weeks is a long time

Akki14 · Oct 30, 2007

Why are you using a postive, by the way? Does your plant material get darker over longer exposures? I use all traditionally done negs even if I have to enlarge them onto 4x5, but the anthotypes I've done have just been 6x9cm medium format.

gandolfi · Oct 30, 2007

Akki14 said:
Why are you using a postive, by the way? Does your plant material get darker over longer exposures?

akki - you're making negative images..

the sun bleaches out the dye over time, so if you want a traditional image, a positive should be used.

Stine exposes for a loooong time, yes..

but I suspect it has to do with the time of year, and maybe condition of the ozone layer...

Denmark is quite dark this time of year.

we will let you know what happens with the other try's of flowers..

brucej · Oct 31, 2007

All
from the link above i worked my way to this page
http://www.alternativephotography.com/articles/art098.html

It has some very interesting information, I raided the neighbours garden and have tried the green Nasturtium leaves as mentioned on this page, and I am happy to report they work very well and fast only a few hours in a cloudy day,
and you can easily see the difference in shaded to exposed area.
Beware the leaves stink !!!!,
The leaves are not very juicy and needed some 95% alcohol to help release the pigment while grinding them in the motar, just brushed the juice on some water colour paper and let dry over night.
I am only trying a simple test, but it is working well.

At the same time i am also trying green leaves from a red plum tree, and they are working well to, i got a gut feeling that leaves from fruit trees will work, so far so good.

Akki14 · Oct 31, 2007

Aw I like nasturtium leaves, they're tasty. Probably most anything with chlorophyll will work but i don't know how lightfast chlorophyll is compared to the other natural dyes out there.

brucej · Nov 5, 2007

Here is an result for you all.

Today i tried the leaves from a plum tree in my yard.

The leaves are darkish brown on top, and greeny brown underneath, the plums are sweet and red, about 3/4 inch dia, no idea what type.

The juice is green , not much juice is in the leaves so added some 95% alcohol, i applied it to 80 gsm ink jet paper, i just let all the contents of the mortar go on to the paper, letting the juice soak through to other side so as to avoid having to strain it etc.

this produced a nice green pigment when dry,on other side of paper, not real dark.

I simply clamped a proper negative to the paper, and placed outside in very cloudy conditions.

I checked it after 3 hours and it was almost completely bleached, right though the negative, losing any image that may have been there.
Got to try again, but this sure worked FAST

Gary Holliday · Nov 26, 2007

Came across this process via a lith printing link on APUG. 2 hours later and four sites later, the links bring me back here!

So the real question, is the image permanent? How are the experiments coming along? Surely museum UV glass should do the trick??

removed account4 · Nov 26, 2007

on the alt photo website it makes no mention of using alcohol, and when i did this a while back
i just used plants ... whey are you using alcohol ?

thanks

john

brucej · Dec 1, 2007

I use alcohol because it helps to get the pigment out of a non juicy leaf, and helps to make the pigment into "paint".

I have had a bit of feedback it seems poppy's fade

photogirl28 · Apr 15, 2008

I have had a lot of success

Hello,

I am not sure if anyone is still following this forum but anyway...
I have used a variety of leaves and found that the ones that work best are the type that grow in shaded areas such as nasturtium, ayrum lily and spinach.

I have used the leaves whole and contact printed onto them using a positive inkjet transperancy (two layers of the same image), I use the sun to make my exposure which could be from 2 hours to 1 week depending on the weather. I was doing this is New Zealand but it was Wellington and during winter, I haven't tried it since moving to the Northern hemipshere.

You can see my images at http://photogirl.co.nz/chlorophyll.html

I also extracted the chlorophyll from silverbeet without using any chemicals and painted that onto paper and made a print in the same way as before. It works quite well but the range of tones is less than a leaf itself.

I exhibited my leaf prints inside behind UV glass and they did fade much to my horror. The ones that have been stored in an album have not faded at all.

I have tried asking a few scientists about how to "fix" them but no luck so far.

Jeff Bannow · Apr 23, 2008

photogirl28 said:
Hello,

I am not sure if anyone is still following this forum but anyway...
I have used a variety of leaves and found that the ones that work best are the type that grow in shaded areas such as nasturtium, ayrum lily and spinach.

I have used the leaves whole and contact printed onto them using a positive inkjet transperancy (two layers of the same image), I use the sun to make my exposure which could be from 2 hours to 1 week depending on the weather. I was doing this is New Zealand but it was Wellington and during winter, I haven't tried it since moving to the Northern hemipshere.

You can see my images at http://photogirl.co.nz/chlorophyll.html

I also extracted the chlorophyll from silverbeet without using any chemicals and painted that onto paper and made a print in the same way as before. It works quite well but the range of tones is less than a leaf itself.

I exhibited my leaf prints inside behind UV glass and they did fade much to my horror. The ones that have been stored in an album have not faded at all.

I have tried asking a few scientists about how to "fix" them but no luck so far.

Very nice images you produced there.

I am interested in trying this process. The suggestion of blueberries seems interesting, or maybe red wine. We'll see what comes out!

Clocker · May 17, 2008

The season for plant juice photography is upon us.

At least for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

It was probably a tough short spring for many, but I hope anyone interested in this subject got there plants clipped, petals cut, or roots mashed.

I will be doing more anthotypes very soon, because the sun will be shining at full speed ahead here in the California desert after June.

I have also used inkjet positives like photogirl28 but not on a transparency, but rather on inkjet paper itself and the image side facing the anthotype paper within the frame. This produces a mirror image of the original.

Here is one anthotype I did last year:

Musical Repose

Blended Beets, cheap vodka, and distilled water on watercolor paper. 3 weeks exposure facing the desert sun as much as possible.

I suppose doubling the positive will allow for a darker definition in the image, I think I will try that.

One of the other things I would like to try for this, is a motorized solar tracking frame. It gets very tedious moving a chair 3 to 6 times a day to track the sun, that is provided a person has time to do this. Afterall, who wants to spend their vacation time (about 3 weeks) moving a picture frame in a 180 degree or less arcing curve.

I would also like to thank Akki14 for providing the inspiration to do the anthotype process in the first place, her Purple Iris Southbank image was the first anthotype image I found that made me want to do one myself.

I find this subject fascinating, and a building experience in patience.

And for those who do not think they have the patience, I am not sure if it is true, but I have read that blueberry juice and 4 to 6 hours exposure from a UV lamp will bring up an image.

BTW does anyone know what plants will yield darker greens? Most greens I have seen are bit on the yellow end.

Anthotype questions

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