Light and Layers: Exploring Cyanotype Processes
This series focuses on cyanotype, one of the earliest photographic printing processes, and explores both traditional and contemporary techniques. Participants will learn to create digital negatives designed specifically for cyanotype printing and experiment with methods such as duotone layering, fabric printing, and toning. Each workshop builds on foundational skills while encouraging hands-on exploration, resulting in a deeper understanding of cyanotype’s creative possibilities and a unique collection of prints.
Individual Workshop: $130 (Members) / $150 (Non-Members)
Series (all 3 Light and Layers workshops): $310 (Members) / $350 (Non-Members)
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Digital negatives are black and white negatives on transparency films made with digital photographs or scans. Used in a wide range of alternative processes from cyanotype, gum bichromate to platinum, the digital negative is a meeting point of the digital and analog world. It gives artists the opportunity to incorporate their digital works into darkroom practices.
The workshop will cover the fundamental technical knowledge for making digital negatives. Participants will learn to use tools in Photoshop to control tonal values and contrast, and how to tailor them for a specific process. We will discuss the methodology in maintaining consistency and print quality, the challenge of replicating halftone, and touch on some more advanced ways to optimize the workflow and achieve desired aesthetic outcomes.
We will use cyanotype as an example; participants will leave the workshop with 3 print-ready negatives made with their own digital images for the introductory and duotone cyanotype workshop.
The material covered in this workshop will be relevant when using digital negatives for traditional gelatin silver print and other alternative processes.
Participants must have their own laptop with Photoshop for this workshop.
Zoe Teng is a visual artist born in Taipei, Taiwan, working primarily with photography and printmaking. Deeply informed by long periods of travel, her work explores interpretations of memory, place and the notion of nomadism. Her practice is a search for poetry, revolving around a space of nuanced contradictions - transience and timelessness, narration and abstraction. A former expat in Australia, she has worked for contemporary art galleries and art-based initiatives in Sydney and Northern Territory. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Australia, UK, and China.
