Anthotypes

Introduction

Anthotypes come from the word anthos, meaning flower, and type, which I'm not entirely sure what that means. It may refer to flower pressing, since you use flowers; it may mean symbol or figure. What ever the origin of the name, it now primarily means using flowers to create an exposed image.

Anthotypes use the juices of vegetables and fruit as well as the color essence of flowers. You then take these liquids, apply them to a surface, place something on top to block some light and expose it to the sun. When you take the object off, after some time in the sun, you will notice a dark spot, the difference in the light and dark areas are what give you an image. They are rather nice to look at but you will have to do so in a dark area, as there is no way to fix the image, that is to stop the reaction of the paper to the sun.

The invention of anthotypes are credited to Sir John Herschel, who came up with the process in 1842.

Process and History, with pictures!

According to Martin Helmut Reis over at alternativephotography.com, people have that plants and vegetables have photo-sensitive properties for centuries.Henri August Vogel in Paris was one of the first who actually did experiments about those properties. In 1816 he discovered that "An alcoholic tincture of either red carnations, violets or corn poppy turned white behind blue glass in a few days, while it remained unchanged behind red glass after about the same time. Cotton and paper coloured with these tinctures showed the same differences."

In an attempt to make color photographer, John Herschel tried flower and plant emulsions. Because he published his findings, many credit him for the invention. He discovered, however, that this process was very limited and would later abandon it since he could find no way to permanently fix the image and since it took days for the image to be produced, it could not be marketed on a commercial level. It was listed and basically forgotten.

Some images you may like.

Above: Sir John Herschel, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron (1867)

Web pages, Articles and videos so you can learn more.

To learn more about the process and history you can go to the alternativephotography website.

Here's another place you can go to, should you want to see how people make anthotypes today, Vedos Anthotype page.

And here's a neat video that you might find helpful. I found it over here, in case you want to explore it.

And if you're the type to spend your days on Facebook, they even have an alternative photgraphy group you can join.


How to do it yourself.

This is how the internet (aka alternative photography site) makes anthotypes:

1. Start with any flower you like although the following seem to work well: Poppies (images below were made with the red poppies above) or Peonies (Clive Heritage-Tilley). According to Henry S. Snelling the leaves of the laurel, common cabbage, and the grasses, are found sufficiently sensitive. I have also tried Goldenseal and Echinacea but results were not encouraging.
   
   The most important thing to remember is that many, many species of flowers have never been explored. Crush the petals in a pestle and mortar to a fine pulp and add a little distilled water as you go. The purest water you can find is recommended since any impurities will interfere with the delicate light sensitive properties of the emulsion. Filter the juices through a cheese cloth or clean linen to remove small plant bits and some impurities.
   
   
2.  Using a clean simple brush coat any paper you like (hand-made Paper being an extra nice touch) in nice even strokes vertically and horizontally leaving no pools of emulsion on the surface.
   
   
3. Dry the paper in the dark over-night or with a hand dryer on low heat.
   
   
4. Contact print any media or plant in a printing frame or clip frame. Expose in full sunlight over 1-3 days or more depending on your aesthetic. Done. The print can be kept in subdued or artificial light although exposure to direct sunlight is discouraged.
   
   A method of fixing Anthotypes is not known and perhaps not necessary despite obvious limitations.
   
   
5. And you're done.
   

And this is what we did in class:

1. Find a fruit you like and take its juice. Some people used tomato juice, spinach, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. If it gives off some type of tint, you should be able to use it. Since our project was mainly one that would last all quarter, we avoided using flowers.
   
   
2. Once you've got your fruit/vegetable of choice, get its juice. You can use a mortal, a food processor, your hands, whatever.
   
   
3. Now you mix it with some distilled water or alcohol to make it lest solid. You don't have to do this if your solution is liquidy enough. You may also want to record how much of what you use for future reference.
   
   
4. Once you've got that, you have to decide if you solution needs to be filtered. If there are pieces of what used to be fruit in there, chances are you don't want to skip on this step. We used coffee filters and a metal mesh, the kind with small holes. We wet the filter, and placed it into the mesh, filled it with the solution and let it drip. You can stir the solution but be careful, as the coffee filter might break.
   
   
5. Once you've done that it's time to coat your paper. To do this first you want to select your paper, we used 100% rag, and tape it to a flat surface. It's best to take it completely on all four sides, so no solution gets underneath. I, in all my wisdom, only taped the corners and had purple stuff on the underside as well as on top.
   
   
6. Now you take your brush, we used sponge brushes, and dip it into the solution. You may want to drain some out before applying the bush to the paper.
   
   
7. When applying the solution to the paper, remember to apply only in one direction, and try to keep everything even, otherwise you'll end up with splotches and what now.
   
   
8. If you decide to apply multiple coats, remember to apply in a perpendicular fashion to how you did the first time. It's also best if you let it dry a little.
   
   
9. Now you take your hairdryer, on low heat so as to not cause a shortage, you dry the paper. When it's nice and dry, you put some shape or object on top that's thick enough to block out sunlight, and you tape it to a window or your car, whatever you wish, as long as it gets enough sunlight.
   
   
10. You wait a couple of months or so and the sun will have worked it's magic and bleached enough of the color out that you get a distinction.
    
    
11. Show it off, 'cause you're done.
    
12. Repeat if desired.

What I did
I basically followed those instructions I wrote, except for the whole showing off thing, since I'm not quite done and the image isn't fully exposed yet.

For my solution I used 40ml of blackberry and blueberry (skins) juice with 10ml of water. Using a spongy brush, I applied nine layers to get this pretty purple almost pink color.

I placed it on my window on March 11th, 2011 at 3:36PM, and have left it there since. I have checked it once in a while, but it still isn't at the stage where you can distinguish different colors. It's still a work in process.

Below is a picture of my in-progress anthotype. It's still rather dark, even 

though it's been exposed for two weeks already.

But the light in Rochester, NY isn't all that strong,

especially in the Winter/Spring transitional

time. It says Natasha and Christina because

I'm a sap. Natasha is my sister's name, just so you know.

Misc. section.
 Well, you should definitely check out those videos and sites I posted previously, and here's some more stuff you should look at if your interested in anthotypes.

These photos by Jalo Porkkala over at Vedos.

And if I can think of any more, I'll update them. Till then.