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go ahead... mouseover the thumbs |
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It's been a long time since I've updated the Sunprinting portion of my site, but it's not because I haven't been sunprinting!
Visit my Etsy gallery to view my latest works and to purchase your very own boomslice original sunprint! Guaranteed to raise in value when I'm dead and gone!
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I first stumbled across the Super Sunprint Kit on ebay. I must have been looking for alternative photographic techniques, but I was instantly intrigued by the notion that the sun could create a photo.
Then again, I guess light in all forms is used to expose film, but you'll have to remember that I took an interest in photography when digicams hit, so I'm not accustomed to working in a darkroom exposing film. I plug my compact flash into my computer and I'm off to the races, so this is all pretty new to me.
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The Super Sunprint Kit includes everything that you need - 10 sheets of light sensitive paper and a sheet of plexiglass. I take my subject, place it between the plexiglass and the sunprint paper and lay it out in the sun for 2 to 5 minutes, depending upon the intensity of the light.
The paper is a light blue color to start, but when it's exposed to sunlight, it lightens significantly. Once I think it's properly exposed (no real science to this), I submerge the paper in water to remove all of the chemicals (or something) and the image starts to shows up as if by magic. (Pretty scientific explanation, huh? Yeah, I'm money.)
Once I've thoroughly rinsed the print, I dry it by letting it rest on some paper towels for an hour or two. As it dries, the image becomes more and more visible.
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So that's all there is to the process, but I've found some creative ways to use it. If you look at the examples above, you can pretty much see the way that my sunprinting has evolved.
1. Leaves were my first option because they were plentiful and some had interesting shapes to them. Unfortunately, I quickly grew tired of leaves because they weren't all that interesting to look at and they were a bit difficult to get perfectly flat. If the subject isn't perfectly flat, I found that shadows occur and can soften an image unnecessarily.
2. Next, I started ripping up pieces of wax paper and layering them over one another to create different levels of translucency. The idea here was that the different levels would create different tones and simulate a gradiated look. "Sky" (picture above) is definitely one of my favorite sunprints so far.
3. After trying for more detail with a fern, I realized that I could print my photographs onto overhead transparencies. I then sandwiched the transparency between the plexiglass sheet and the sunprint paper. This technique has worked out great and is a natural extension to my nature and infrared photography.
4. I've discovered that sunprinting with photographs works well, but only with black and white images where black and white are well represented. If an image has only grey tones, it won't be very dynamic. This is due to the fact that the black and white values show up as crisp lines and provide real detail in the finished product.
So those are my findings thus far. Do you have a question about sunprinting or want to know more about how I create my sunprints? Please feel free to drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you.
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