We are delighted to welcome back Martyn Grimmer to teach the wonderful process of Gum Bichromate over Cyanotype after his wonderful workshop in March. This one day workshop in June will combine two alternative processes to create some extraordinary prints.

The workshop will start at 10am and run for 6 hours with a break for lunch, aiming to finish around 4 - 4.30pm.

Some words from Martyn:

“On this fast paced one-day course you will learn the historic processes of Cyanotype & Gum Bichromate printing. The aim is to beat the blues by combining both processes to create a duotone print with a gum layer over the cyanotype. Cyanotype is a photographic process that involves two chemicals to coat the paper to make it sensitive to UV light, resulting in a deep Prussian blue image. You will have the chance to tone the cyanotypes, with tea and coffee with remarkable effect. Cyanotype is one of the simpler alternative processes and is a great introduction to alternative photography.

With Gum Bichromate, a combination of Gum Arabic, pigment/watercolour, and sensitiser are used to coat the paper, upon which, a negative is placed during exposure to ultraviolet light. A cyanotype print can be transformed into something quite special by the simple overlay of one colour from the Gum Bichromate process.”

We will close bookings 7 days prior to the workshop date. 7 days prior to the workshop, all participants have to send in 3 or 4 scanned digital images that Martyn will make into acetate negatives for the day. Please send to darkroom@negative-thinking.co.uk. Please note a preference order, we will aim to make 2 prints on the day. Images need to show a decent amount of contrast, vivacity and beauty! Martyn will choose best images for the process.

Have a look at Martyn’s selected image on this page for an idea.