A small shop on Rua de Cedofeita asked if I could supply twelve small cyanotypes for their Christmas table. Twelve is not many. I said I would think about it and then thought about it for three weeks, which is embarrassing to admit.

The money was fine. What I kept turning over was the word supply. If I make twelve in a batch, in one week, with the same mix and the same paper, they will be almost the same. Almost. Cyanotype does not really let you repeat. The sun here in November is weak and low, so a print that took twenty minutes in July takes an hour and a half now, and it shows, the blue goes softer. Seawater I collect at Foz, sometimes it is clear, sometimes full of sand after a storm. So twelve pieces that are meant to be identical will be twelve small arguments with the weather.

I do not want to be the person who makes the same print twelve times. I also do not want to be precious about it, because a shop shelf is a real place and real people, and I am not so busy that I can pretend otherwise.

In the end I said yes to six, different sizes, and told them plainly that no two will match. They seemed happy. I am still not sure if I was protecting the work or just stalling.

If you make things by hand, how do you decide when a batch is still yours and when it has become a product? I genuinely do not know where that line sits for me.