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Cyanotype Workshop

Silver Street Studios at Sawyer Yards

2000 Edwards Street, Houston, TX 77007

FotoFest invites you to learn how to create one-of-a-kind photographs at this free, artist-led cyanotype workshop in conjunction with the exhibition Contact: Making Images Using the Cyanotype Process. Our talented teaching artists will give you the tools, skills, and materials to master the 180-year-old cyanotype printing process. You will learn how to use basic chemistry, light, and time to produce brilliant blue images. 

The cyanotype process is one of the earliest forms of photography. The process involves using chemistry and water to create a light-sensitive emulsion that reacts to a UV light source such as the sun or UV lamps. After the emulsion is exposed to light, the print is dipped into a mix of water and hydrogen peroxide to develop the image, resulting in a blue-toned image. Various types of compositions can be created using the cyanotype process. During the Contact workshops, guests will learn two unique printing techniques: photogram printing, wherein objects are placed directly atop of the light-sensitive emulsion, and traditional negative printing, which uses photographic negatives to create a positive cyanotype print.

Materials for all workshops will be provided, but guests are encouraged to bring their own objects and photo negatives to create unique photograms and cyanotype positives.

If you are interested in creating a cyanotype image from an existing photograph, follow the Photoshop instructions in this video, and email your JPG file to info@fotofest.org with the subject line “Contact Negative.” FotoFest will print your negative on transparency paper at no charge.

All the images created in our workshop will be presented on the Silver Street Studios walls between March 30–May 20 as a part of our community-generated exhibition, Contact: Making Images Using the Cyanotype Process.

The exhibition will conclude with a closing celebration on May 20 from 11AM–5PM where guests who created works for the exhibition will be able to collect their images to take home.

For a complete schedule of workshops and events held in conjunction with Contact visit www.fotofest.org/programs.