This month we will begin with an AGM after which we will be very pleased to welcome Catherine Orr. Catherine studied photography at the Polytechnic of Central London when the photographic world was analogue. Those hours watching images emerge in darkroom trays remained a fond memory, so when Catherine found herself disillusioned with the slick digital image she went back to the roots of photography and began exploring the cyanotype process. Years after exposing her first cyanotype photogram, Catherine is still exploring, often with photograms, sometimes with digital negatives. Many of her prints are toned using botanicals such as tea, rosemary and fenugreek.
The cyanotype is the oldest photographic printing process. A combination of iron salts are used to coat watercolour paper. The coated paper is exposed to sunlight, rinsed in tap water and magically the image appears. It’s non-toxic, environmentally friendly and no darkroom is needed. The process can be simple, or you can dig deeper into image calibration and chemistry tocomplicate – or enhance. Catherine’s work celebrates wild and wonderful plants, landscapes and animals, usually from her adopted county of Suffolk. She’s also drawn to more mundane objects, currently completing a year-long project producing a cyanotype for each day of 2025 using single-use plastics.