Cyanotype Underwater

One of the more interesting plays with Cyanotype is to create images that actually work well with Cyanotype. It can be tough. Early morning before sunrise when the sky is dark blue and the scene before you is cast in cool monotone color for example. Being an avid SCUBA diver, the underwater world is pretty much blue when viewed under my preferred natural light. The rainbow of colors are quickly absorbed from the reds to oranges to yellows as you descend tens of feet. At 30+ feet all the the colors are removed except for the higher color frequencies of, well, blue. My underwater photography is generally best viewed as black & white, unless there are mitigating circumstances where some amount of color can play a role in forwarding the photographic vision. Cyanotype, however, can provide a level of nuance that B&W printed images simple can not. To celebrate the cyanotype process for underwater images, I’ve been woking to produce images that show what it feels like to see the wide underwater world at depth with the glistening play of light and its solarizing effects bouncing around the ocean floor  and the scene before you.

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