Printing onto acetate and practice cyanotypes:

To move forwards with my project I needed to choose the right selection of images from my Calk Abbey trip and from around the college. I wanted to have a mixture of images that had the right atmosphere of a surreal and liminal space, a balance between vacant and lived in. After looking at each one carefully I chose eight images that I felt portrayed this atmosphere the best. I also think that the black and white tones emphasise this surreal aspect. The monotone colours create character within each photograph, invoking a vintage atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the printing facilities that I would usually use are not available so I had to go back to using the old printer that we have in the studio. I was quite concerned about this because my previous experience with making my own acetates hasn't been good. They always seemed to come out patchy or the ink wouldn't dry properly and run, sometimes they would get caught in the printer and come out bent. So I wasn't feeling too optimistic about this. I decided to print each image one at a time and not consecutively because this usually clogs up the printer and I found that by doing this I was able to get about eight relatively good acetate images to use. The only thing I would say about these is that they don't look as professional as when I get them done by the print shop. The ink is slightly more thin which lets a bit more light through so I will have to do some test pieces to make sure that they work properly. 

Looking at these test Cyanotypes I can see that the acetates were far too transparent and let too much light through. The images are too dark and the majority of the photograph and details have been lost. I think that moving forwards I will need to readjust the contrast and shadows of all of these images in photoshop and make them darker. This should fix the issue and block out any excess light making my cyanotypes.