In the mid eighties I studied technical/scientific photography (fotonica) in The Hague. After that, a job. A few years later changed to another employer. Around that time, I decided to to something useful in the evening hours. So, back to school. Arts academia. November third 1999, I graduated.

On this site you can see some of the things I've done in the last year. It's all about photography and how to create images with non standard processes. I investigated some old alternative processes like gum print, cyanotype, etc. And I developed my own, the brown stuff.

Blue

The blue stuff is Cyanotype. It is a relative simple process. All you need is two solutions of chemicals (ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide), water, paper and big negatives.

For the actual process of making cyanotype have a look at the alternative processes FAQ or in the archives of the alternative processes mailing list or for a modern recipe look here (dead link). A good book on this is The Keepers of Light by William Crawford.

The prints presented here are 23 x 30 cm.

Brown

The brown stuff is the result of my own experiments. A short overview of the process:

• Enlarge you negatives to lithfilm
• Copy these positives to lithfilm again to get big negatives
• Get some steel plates, sand and degrease them well
• Cover the plates with a direct positive photo resist for the production of printed circuits
• Copy your negatives to the steel plates with use of an UV-light source
• Develop the plates in caustic soda (7 g/l) and wash them in water
• Now you can apply any non-caustic solution (salty water) that makes the plates corrode
• You can just poor the solution over the plates regularly
• To get a very even result apply a "porridge" of the solution with sawdust
• When you have the result you want, dry the plates and varnish them
• The same process goes well for copper plates
• A good solution to use on copper is CopperNitrate + SodiumChloride (table salt), it gives a green/blue image
• To get copper stains on steel I accidentally found this. Poor vinegar over the clean plates then on that apply a strong solution of CopperNitrate. A thin layer of copper will form on the plate.