Lost the shadow detail on this print and I can't tell if it's ruined or just different
I made a cyanotype yesterday of a cuttlebone I found on the beach, one of those big ones, almost the length of my hand. Laid it directly on the paper with some torn fishing net over it. Exposure was good, the sun was strong, but when I washed it the shadows all went muddy. The cuttlebone reads as a dark blob instead of having that honeycomb texture it has on the surface.
I think I underwatered my chemistry. Or maybe the paper was too dry when I coated it. I've been using a cotton rag paper I'm not as familiar with and it seems to drink the emulsion differently.
I've been staring at it for an hour. Part of me wants to call it a bad print and toss it. Part of me thinks there's something in the flatness, like the sea at dusk, all that detail pulled under. But I don't know if I'm just making peace with a mistake.
How do you tell the difference between a flaw that works and one that's just a failure?
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I've done enough cyanotypes to know exactly the panic you're describing, that moment when you wash it and everything just goes flat. But honestly? Muddy shadows in cyanotype are almost always a paper issue, not a chemistry one. That cotton rag you mentioned, if it's not a paper you've used before, it probably absorbed the emulsion way faster than what you're used to and you ended up with a thinner coating than you thought.
Do one thing, try it again on the same paper but double-coat it, letting the first layer dry completely before the second. And keep the paper in the dark between coats. I've had papers that just refuse to hold detail unless I do two passes.
The cuttlebone sounds like it'd make a gorgeous print though. Hope you post the result if you try again 🙂
You're right about the paper, I'm almost sure of it now. This one is a Hahnemühle I haven't used for cyanotype before and it drank the emulsion like it was thirsty. I'll try the double-coat, do you find the second layer picks up evenly or does it get a little patchy? I had that happen once with a different paper and never went back to it.