Cyanotype
Original Photo
Digital Negative
Cyanotype
For my cyanotype, I chose a rare picture of me and my best friend, which was taken nearly a year ago at a fair. Firstly, we had to make a digital negative. Therefore, I used Photoshop. I made the image 5 by 7 inches as that was the size of the paper our teacher would give us. Then, I inserted the picture and sized it accordingly. Next, I added the gradient map, to make it black and white and made the black and white more contrasting. After that, I inverted the black and white so the black became white and the white became black. Next, I chose solid colour and put in the number f36351. Finally, I changed the normal blending to colour so the image became orange, creating my digital negative, and saved it as a JPEG. In the next lesson, we headed outside. We had to find direct sunlight. Once we found a spot, it was time to make the cyanotype. I made a sandwich, with cardboard at the bottom, the light sensitive paper on top, the digital negative - which was printed out on to transparency paper, making the white areas completely transparent - on top of that and a megapixel on top of the whole thing so it doesn't blow away. I left it on the sunlight for 2-3 minutes as the sun was really strong that day. The sun shines through the negative, so on the blackest part, not that much sun will shine through so it will stay dark blue however the lighter parts, a lot of sun will shine through, making the parts are whiter. Consequently, this was the greater chemical reaction between the sun and the paper in the white parts. After two minutes, I took the paper and submerged it in water. The water reacts with the paper, making the blacks turn into white and making the white turn to black. Then, I left it overnight so it could sharpen and darken and the cyanotype was finished.
History of the Camera
It is safe to say there have been many turning points in the history of the camera, such as the first permanent photograph, Cinematographe, Daguerreotype cameras. However, the one which I think has influenced us the most was the invention of the first digital camera by Steven Sasson, in 1975. It used a cassette tape to record the image and the process only took 23 seconds. Before this invention, rolls of films were popular. However, they were inconvenient as you could not see the photo after you took the picture. So, in many of the cases, out of the ten photo they took, only four were good after you developed them. It was very expensive as well as the films cost a lot, therefore they would not take many photos, to save money or they were sure that the photo would work out and look good. However, when the digital camera was invented, it fixed all of those problems. You could take many photo as you liked in an erasable memory and delete any of the photos that you did not like. It cost no money to get extra film as well. People back in the days never thought that photography would have been free. There is no consequence as well, apart from charging the camera. This event then paved the way for Sony co-operations to introduce a film less camera that used magnetic discs to record images.
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