Van Dyke Brown - next project

Hello all,

At the beginning of class on Wednesday the 13th, we will spend a few minutes looking at the Van Dyke Brown prints that you have thus far.  We will also look at any final Cyanotype prints.

On Wednesday February  20th, we will have a critique of your VDB prints. 2 prints of original, new imagery.

So, you will have to create at least two new negatives and print/reduce/tone them until you get them as desired. You will have to use class time effectively and possibly come in to the lab outside of class to pull this off.

SILVER NITRATE STAINS SKIN - BE CAREFUL WHEN MIXING THE SOLUTION.
ALS0- DONT USE ANY BRUSHES WITH METAL WHEN APPLYING THE SOLUTION AS A CHEMICAL REACTION MAY OCCUR.

Wikipedia summary of the process

Great write - up of the process

A great resource on the process including how to chemically reduce the prints after they dry.

Nice article on Van Dyke Brown including information on chemical reduction and toning.
There is also a really great step by step write up to make a negative for VDB prints. VDB prints are very flat by nature. I read somewhere that it is like printing onto Grade 1 photo paper. So, you have to make a very high contrast negative to account for this.If you use your negatives that you made for Cyanotypes, you can expect to get very flat prints. Given the color of VDB prints, they will really look like mud. Here is the article about how to make the curve for VDB.

Beyond the Blues - good overview of the process and ideas for combining the process with Cyanotypes

Orgins of the name

Another nice write up on the process with an emphasis on making archival VDB prints

More notes on the archival processing pertaining to VDB

Course Blogs

For each course that I teach, I create a blog to facilitate its instruction. It has proven to be invaluable to both the students and myself. One advantage is that it allows the students access to the information long after the class has concluded. Additionally, I have found that a large number of the general public visit the blogs.

FALL 2012

ART 1070 Fundamentals of Digital Media

ART 2030 Photography

SPRING 2012

ART 4000 Large Format Photography

SPRING 2011

Urban Landscape Photography

Using a Printer Evaluation Image

Outback Photo is a great resource on digital printing. They have developed an evaluation image for the sake of testing printers and profiles. They make is available as a free download. The also have a write up on how to evaluate the results. The article, Using the Printer Evaluation Image, also has a link to download the image.

Great Article on Color Management

Luminous Landscape, a really great photography website, has recently posted an article by Andrew Rodney titled Why Are My Prints Too Dark. It is very current and address some matters that have arisen since the 2005 publication of his excellent book on the subject; Color Management for Photographers. I encourage you to read it and the numerous articles that he links to.

Arduino

Arduino is a very popular processor that is allowing many otherwise normal folks to get into robotics and hardware programming. Here are some links to some stuff I found interesting.

Atlantic article which does a good job explaining what the Arduino is all about.

Blog article and video on making a programmable robot from a popular cheap kids toy.

Hacking a cheap digital camera for Arduino control.

Controlling a Roomba with an Arduino chip.

Make magazine's intro to robots.

MakerShed a source for Arduino processors and other related electronics.

Making metallic looking surfaces/textures

Create a Brushed Metal Texture

Nice video on making a chrome texture

Image from a new series I am working on

The only copy of this image to survive the theft of my laptop. It is from the series on foreclosure that I am working on. It is just a little baby image though; so good for FB, email, and web. Not enough info for a good print. Will just have to shoot it again. Next time, it will be even better. If you know of a home that is currently foreclosed or previously foreclosed and have a connection to get me access for a few hours, please let me know.