Stormy cyanotype seas

Posted on April 22, 2021August 25, 2021 by carlotta

Stormy cyanotype seas

As the days brighten and lengthen, I have had renewed energy to focus on new projects, so I am pushing ahead with my book of sea and shore cyanotypes. My ideas are finally crystallising around how the book will work. I will keep you posted on how it goes and when it will become available.

Making cyanotypes is a rather lengthy process. Printing out my negatives onto acetate film takes about half an hour each. I make a contact print by placing the acetate over paper that I have coated with cyanotype solution which is then exposed to ultraviolet light for around 40 minutes. After the print has been washed in water, I leave it to dry in sunlight, which helps to deepen and enrich the tones.

This print is one of my favourites. It feels to me like it comes from another era, although it was taken 18 months ago just down the road in the industrial setting of Newhaven harbour. The ominous force of that wave against the pier brings to my mind seafaring exploits of past centuries, and the terrible storms and deadly shipwrecks associated with them.

All my hand-printed cyanotypes are available to buy. Get in touch for more information. You can find more of my cyanotypes here, and my book of Lewes Bonfire cyanotypes here.

Please get in touch if you have a workplace, an event, a celebration, a portrait or a building project you would like to have photographed.

Dazzled at Hope Gap

Posted on August 7, 2020August 28, 2020 by carlotta

Dazzled by Hope Gap

So, let us continue together on our cyanotype journey. After weeks and weeks stuck at home during lockdown, my family’s first joyous outing to a beach was to the aptly named Hope Gap near Seaford. It is along this Sussex coastline that the chalk hills of the South Downs hit the sea in steep dramatic cliffs.

The day was bright and still. An hour’s walk brought us to a gap in the rolling green scrubland. Opened out before us was a vista of sparkling sea, with the undulating Seven Sisters to the left and a headland rising straight out of the water to the right.

Down on the beach the tide was out and the cliffs loomed sharp and jagged, their white edges standing out against sky. I felt moved nearly to tears at the startling beauty of it all.

I had been working doggedly on my storm cyanotypes over many lockdown hours when I began to think about using the technique for other types of landscape photographs. The process is tricky and it is difficult to predict how a photograph will translate from computer screen to hand-made print.

For many photos, it doesn’t really work, but for some, the tonal qualities of cyanotype heighten the feelings I want to convey in a photograph. This mightiest of the Sisters is called Haven Brow and towers 77 meters (253 ft) above Cuckmere Haven. The cyanotype process helps to convey what I wanted here – a sense of the majesty of this cliff face.

You can find a selection of my cyanotypes here and learn how I create them here.This new work will be exhibited in September in a joint exhibit with artist Kelly Hall as part of the Lewes District Artwave Festival.

It’s a whole new ballgame

Posted on July 30, 2020August 28, 2020 by carlotta

It’s a whole new ballgame

Lockdown has been many things for many people. Although obviously a very upsetting time, for me it also proved to be productive and I am excited to share with you what I have been working on. Back in January, my daughter came home from college with some cyanotypes she had made and I was immediately taken with the potential of the technique. Thus began months of experimentation.

Cyanotype is a traditional darkroom method dating back to the 1840s. I use acetate to create a negative from a digital file and use this to make a contact print onto paper that I have painted with cyanotype solution.

It is a deceptively simple process. It is fickle and inconsistent and can drive me crazy, but when it works, it is joyous. There is variation in each print so, unlike a digital photograph, every image is unique.

Because I was unable to leave the house I had many hours to play with the process, seeing what types of images worked best and how far I could push the technique. I began with photos I took during the winter storms that pounded our coastline, perhaps because I was missing the sea so much during lockdown.

You can find a selection of my cyanotypes here. This new work will be exhibited in September as part of the Lewes District Artwave Festival. A book of my Bonfire cyanotypes is available as well, more information on that here.

With photography, it’s always about the light

Posted on June 25, 2020June 25, 2020 by carlotta

With photography, it’s always about the light

I have been feeling very lucky to live near a beach during our current heatwave. Not surprisingly, the hotter the weather gets, the busier the seaside gets.

A few days ago I set out very early with my camera to both beat the crowds and catch the early morning light. The sunrise is currently just before 5am here, so by the time I got to the beach at 6.15, it had already been daylight for a couple of hours. That was ok, though, because the sun was still low enough in the sky for my needs.

Photography is always, always about light: the quality, amount and size of the light source, the direction of it and its colour. This would have been a completely different sort photograph if I had shot it in bright, harsh midday light. Instead, the soft early morning sun raked across the beach, throwing every stone and water rivulet into relief. It was well worth getting up for. You can see more of my landscape photography here.

Please get in touch if you have a workplace, an event, a celebration, a portrait or a building project you would like to have photographed.

Summer solstice sunrise sea row

Posted on July 4, 2019March 4, 2021 by carlotta

Summer solstice sunrise sea row

Welcome to Photo of the Week, here to brighten up your inbox.

I hope every one of you had a good Summer solstice. In my last blog post I was heading out bright and early the following day for a sunrise row on the sea. It is pitch dark at 3.30am in June, but there was a faint glow towards the east by the time I had driven the short distance to Newhaven, where we were launching the boat.

We set out shortly after the huge Dieppe ferry arrived at 4am. It towered above us as we headed for the harbour mouth. After rowing for months on a lake (it’s just a large pond, really) and a couple of times on the river, I was shocked by how different if felt to row at sea.

The large swells lifted and moved the boat in unexpected ways, at times making the oars sink too deeply into the water, and at others, push nothing but air. Outside the harbour our gig boat felt small and insignificant in the open water.

That’s the moon hanging above the harbour breakwater in the rosey dawn glow before the 4.15 sunrise. In case you are wondering, it was completely worth the lack of sleep to be out there on the water to experience this. And yes, I did follow up the row with a swim, two swims actually, one after the row and one as the sun set at 9.15pm. You can see more photos of my landscape photographs here.

Please get in touch if you have an event, a celebration or a portrait you would like to have photographed.

The ferry on film

Posted on May 11, 2017June 1, 2018 by photograph

The ferry on film

I was asked to shoot some 35mm black and white film recently. It was a real treat using my trusty old camera and nowadays, you can get a roll developed and scanned and the files sent directly to a drop box or email account. I had forgotten that satisfying clunk of the shutter release and the anticipation of having to wait to see how the images

turn out. I shot the roll on a ferry crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe, a four hour trip that seems interminable until it is suddenly all over. Watching how people spend this time is interesting: out on the decks being blasted by the wind; cocooned inside the lounge; availing themselves of the cafeteria. Public spaces but inhabited in a private way, just getting through time.

Tag: Seascapes