Making the Old New

I recently worked on a project where I had to design a deck of cards where each suit was inspired by another artist. So I thought back to through the history of photography to do some research and was drawn to Anna Atkins. She was a photographer and a botanist who used the Cyanotype process to create a scientific documentation of plants. I wanted to take something that may not necessarily be considered "art" and make it such.

I'm not usually a fan of photographs of floras and plants but I wanted to take this opportunity to come up with a creative concept. So I walked along the street I went-a-pickin' out plants that looked interesting. I then contact exposed them to 4 x 5 film. In the dark, I arranged the plants on the sheet of film and flipped on the light switch for a few seconds...a (not so) highly scientific process.

Here are a few of my favorites:




I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. These are scans of the 4 x 5 film and I'd like to take them into the darkroom and see how some prints turn out.

Coming soon: Along the same thought of taking something not considered "art" and making it such, one suit of my cards was inspired by the Rorschach test.