Wollemi Giants
2021/2022
Wollemi Giants depicts charred tree stumps photographed in and around the Wollemi Natonal Park in the Blue Mountains, remnants of the devastating bushfires wreaking havoc in Australia in 2019.
The series is the latest instalment of a hybrid practice which combines historic techniques with current digital photography to explore the intertwined history of botany and photography. Many early photographers, including William Henry Fox Talbot, John Herschel and Anna Atkins were accomplished botanists.
I use digitally printed waxed paper negatives to produce large panels of cyanotype prints. Each print is then toned in a concentrated solu5on of green tea, precipitating a chemical reaction that turns them from bright blue to charcoal black. Both, the cyanotypes and their appendant waxed paper negatives are displayed in adjacent panels.
The series is the latest instalment of a hybrid practice which combines historic techniques with current digital photography to explore the intertwined history of botany and photography. Many early photographers, including William Henry Fox Talbot, John Herschel and Anna Atkins were accomplished botanists.
I use digitally printed waxed paper negatives to produce large panels of cyanotype prints. Each print is then toned in a concentrated solu5on of green tea, precipitating a chemical reaction that turns them from bright blue to charcoal black. Both, the cyanotypes and their appendant waxed paper negatives are displayed in adjacent panels.