introduction to cyanotype

Instructor: Stephanie Slate

Saturday, June 1
12 pm - 4 pm

Discover the magic of cyanotype and create your own prints in this hands-on introductory workshop. Cyanotype is a non-toxic photographic process that produces a cyan-blue print using UV light. “Light resists” (negatives, stencils, or objects) are placed on top of a sheet of photo sensitive surface and exposed to UV light. Join us as we explore the history and learn how to create using this fascinating photographic printing process.

What you’ll do:
In this workshop, you'll learn how to mix the chemicals and coat your printing surface with the cyanotype solution. Using objects brought from home* you'll then expose your prints to sunlight or UV light to produce the iconic blue and white tones that cyanotype is known for. Our instructor will be there to guide you each step of the way and will encourage experimenting with different techniques.

*Please bring any special objects you’d like to print with (think: anything with levels of transparency, shape, or texture—leaves, plants, feathers, glass, quartz, etc). You can also bring negatives if you have them, but keep in mind this is a contact process, so your finished print will be the same size as your 'light resist', so if your negative is teeny tiny your print will be teeny tiny!

Workshop Withdrawal Policy

We recommend choosing workshops with care after reading our withdrawal policy. If you have questions about any of our workshops, please contact dale@thehalideproject.org

Instructor bio:
Stephanie Slate is an artist who primarily uses alternative and historic processes in photography and printmaking such as photogravure. Her work often explores darker themes such as loss, death, the afterlife and the Unknown.

In 2008 Slate received her BFA in photography from Pratt Institute in New York and in 2016 she earned her MFA in Studio Art from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Slate teaches Fine Art Photography to Summer Prep students at the University of Pennsylvania and has been teaching workshops in pin hole photography and cyanotype since 2008. Her work has been published in Seities magazine, the Hand magazine, SHOTS, Aeonian magazine and Nikon’s best of college photography book. Her work has been exhibited internationally and resides in permanent collections such as The University of Denver Special Collections, The University of Pennsylvania, Virginia Commonwealth University Special Collections and the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy. Notable awards include grand prize winner of Living Image exhibition at the Halide Project, UArts President’s fund for Excellence award and portfolio winner of Seities magazine cyanotype issue.Aaron M. Cohen is a photographer and educator based in Philadelphia. He began volunteering at The Halide Project in 2019. His photography has been featured online on sites such as CNN, Vice, and LaRepubblica. as well as in publications such as Time Out New York, The Sun Magazine, and GEO. Most recently, photos from his project “The Communitarians” were featured in the exhibition "A Section of Now" at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. In 2021, he founded The Parallax Review (@parallaxreview), an online site dedicated to critical writing on photography. 

This workshop has been generously sponsored The Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation.