About the talk

Jill uses the historic cyanotype photographic process with an artistic twist to create
botanical images that capture a sense of a fleeting moment. Nature is ephemeral,
the constantly changing weather and light affect the growth and decay cycle of plants
throughout the seasons. By using only natural sunlight to develop the images in her
garden in North Yorkshire Jill is tapping into the same resource that sustains the
circadian rhythms of nature. Every image she creates is completely unique.
The cyanotype process, invented in 1842 by Sir John Herscel, is a contact printing
technique creating photograms of plants and flowers, the technique was later used to
create architectural blueprints.
Jill has developed her own technique for creating botanical photograms using plant
specimens collected from her own and friend’s gardens and often collects hedgerow
wildflowers whilst on her daily dog walks. One of her cyanotypes was the overall
winning image of International Garden Photographer of the Year competition 12.
For the past year she has been working on a project at Burton Agnes Hall in East
Yorkshire to create a series of cyanotype prints of the flora of their walled garden
and woodland through the seasons. This was due to culminate in an exhibition of the
work at the Hall in May but has been postponed due to the current pandemic. She
has also created a series of work using leaves and plants from the Yorkshire
Arboretum at Castle Howard with an exhibition hopefully taking place there in August
2020.

The talk will provide a brief history of the cyanotype process and a basic insight into
the technique giving details of the materials required to produce a cyanotype print.
The talk will be illustrated with a selection of Jill’s images and hopefully give you the
inspiration to try something completely different and leave your camera in the bag!