In 1842, Sir John Herschel invented a photographic process using two chemicals: ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide. All early photographic techniques were spawned from decades of gentlemen scientists mixing and matching chemicals and compounds, and after much experimentation, Herschel finally figured out how these two chemicals, when dissolved in water, applied to paper and exposed to ultra-violet light (sunlight) would produce an image - although a blue one. He called these images
"cyanotypes" and this process was the basis for the "blueprint" process used by engineers through much of the 20th century.
As digital photography becomes the newest technology in a medium that has never stopped reinventing its processes since the first photographic image was made in 1839, some photographers are reaching backwards to honor the sometimes complicated chemical-based, hand-made processes of early photography - cyanotypes, ambrotypes, daguerrotypes, tintypes, platinum prints, etc..
Brenton Hamilton, professor and History of Photography lecturer at Maine Media Workshops for almost 20 years, is such a photographer. He develops large cyanotype images in the window of his midcoast Maine studio, mostly during the summer when the light is strongest. He is a renaissance man at heart, and his work is inspired by history, mythology, astronomy, anatomy and painting, to name a few influences. As well, Hamilton is deeply influenced by the unique light and colors of the Maine coastal landscape - the blues of sea and sky. Some of Hamilton's images are then finished with various washes, blurring the lines between photography and painting, resulting in a thoroughly modern evocation of a very old process.
Poet of Levitation © Brenton Hamilton
Brenton Hamilton's first one-man show in Maine will be held October 3-30 in Portland at VoxPhotographs (
www.voxphotographs.com), located at the top of the Old Port and open by appointment. For more information or for an invitation to the Reception in Hamilton's honor on October 3, please call 207-323-1214 or write to:
info@voxphotographs.com.
