Design
Archiving Light
Cyanotype Explorations of Hull
I adopted experiments with cyanotype chemistry by combining organic botanical forms and synthetic meshes, testing how light-sensitive reactions translate physical texture into abstracted architectural silhouettes.
Observation: The Final Artifact
The resulting 'alt-photographic' imagery serves as a tactile record of the site. The grain of the paper and the unpredictability of the hand-coated borders emphasise the human element within the urban landscape.
Comparative Analysis (Successes vs. Failures):
Less Successful (Nov 21st, 12:00): Exposure for only 20 minutes resulted in the image washing off, leaving an unclear ghost of the architectural form.
Successful (Nov 21st, 13:05): Increasing exposure time to over one hour allowed the iron salts to fully react, securing a sharp, high-contrast blueprint of the site.
Comparing failures and successes clarified the relationship between time, chemistry, and image clarity, directly informing later decisions about contrast control and abstraction in site-based visual analysis.
Cyanotype exploration: the image of city
The final book functions as a process record rather than a finished artifact, aligning with my wider design approach of “living with water”—where landscapes are understood as evolving, layered, and collectively shaped systems.
