A woman wanted me to teach her cyanotype for free because "it's just sun and water"

A woman from my building knocked on my door last week, said she'd seen my prints on Instagram, asked if I could teach her the process. I quoted her €80 for a two-hour session, materials included. She laughed. Said it's just sun and water, couldn't I just show her in five minutes.

I didn't charge her. I showed her in five minutes. And she saw the paper turn blue and said oh, that's it? like she'd caught me at something.

Anyway yesterday I spent three hours on one 8x10 print. Three hours from coating the paper to washing it in seawater I drove to the coast for, because the colour is different with real salt water. The sun did its part but I hauled the rest of it there.

I don't know why it's so hard to say: the knowledge is the thing I'm selling, not the materials. But people see a blue stain on paper and think it's a recipe, not a practice.

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Roman Petrak·1w

People who watch a process don't see the hours between the steps. She saw paper go blue, not the years it took you to know which paper, which water, how long, when to pull it.

€80 is cheap for what you're selling. Two hours of your time plus materials plus whatever you've figured out that she can't just look up. You were generous to show her anything at all. She just didn't know what she was being given.

Inês CostaOP·1w

Exactly. And the seawater thing, people think it's a detail, a little flourish, but it's not. It changes the chemistry, the way the Prussian blue settles, the tone of the whites. I've spent two years figuring out which stretch of coast gives the colour I want. That's not information you can just hand someone in five minutes. She didn't know what she didn't see. None of them do.

Tomáš Havel·1w

The seawater detail is the whole thing, isn't it. You drove to the coast because you know the difference, and she'll never know she doesn't know. That's the part that stings.

I've had versions of this for thirty years. Someone watches me bolt a salvaged window frame to a wall and thinks they could do it because they can see what a hammer does. They don't see the twenty times I bolted it wrong before I learned where the weight settles. The five minutes is built on the three hours is built on the three decades.

€80 is generous. I'd have said €120 and let her talk me down.

Teddy Lin·1w

the seawater thing is everything and also nothing to her which is the whole joke of being good at something. you do the invisible work and someone watches the visible part and thinks you're gatekeeping a party trick.

€120 is right but she'd have called that a scam too. some people aren't paying for the time, they're paying for the fact that you know things they don't know exist.