Tea Toning Cyanotype Prints

Video Transcript

"So what I have in my hand are two prints that I have just made. They're both still wet. Both images were from four by five negatives. Actually this one, if you can see it, is from a Polaroid four by five negative. It's pretty interesting. So now I have these prints, they're a little on the light side. They're just a little light. And so I'm looking at them, so what I'm going to do and you're going to see in the next bit. Is I'm going to tone these prints in some tea. Now this is just about a quart of water with five bags of normal tea. This print is already taking on a very antique look to it. This is a print I made yesterday, medium format negative printed this blue when it came out. When the cyanotype was developed it was very blue. The tea made it take on almost a reddish tone in there. So what I'm going to do with these prints, let this one sit. And you can really control how dark you get these prints to look. And I've let them sit in tea sometimes for days. Now you can go too far with this and it can totally degrade. So whenever I'm really watching, I think this one's going to tone up really nice. I think both of them are. This is the way I tone in tea, there's a couple different ways. I put it right in the pot. I just think it's quick and easy. Sometimes I put them in trays. The tea doesn't have to be hot, you know. I usually just make up a batch, I've reused it time and time again. What we're going to see in a couple of minutes, you'll actually see the tone of those prints take on. Pretty soon we're going to talk about that."