Sunprint Honeymoon

Sunprint Honeymoon

Image by -RobW-
Sunprint contact print from 6 x 6 colour slide film.

From another version of this shot.

About:

Ages ago, Em got me some "sun print paper". It is a toy UV sensitive paper that turns blue when exposed to sunlight, and can be fixed by simply rinsing in water for a minute.

It’s a great idea for kids – you place leaves, flowers, all sorts on it and get great silhouettes.

I have been meaning for ages to try contact printing film on it to see if it can capture shades of grey at all – these are the results, which I really like, and here are some notes:

1. It’s VERY sensitive to the density of the original negative – you really want the dark areas completely transparent, and the bright areas completely black for best results.

2. Negative colour film doesn’t seem to work at all, must be UV opaque.

3. Slide film works but is even more sensitive to density than B & W. Obviously you have to invert it, giving it that gorgeous orange glow.

4. These have all had the contrast increased after scanning – you can see the image without it, but it’s not very aesthetically pleasing!

6. They say not to use the film after 6 months – this was much older than that; you might possibly get better contrast with new paper. I deliberately didn’t search Flickr for sunprints before I tried this as I just wanted to experiment myself, but after looking now, you can get some pretty clear results if the conditions are perfect! Sadly all the sunprint groups look pretty dead though.