cyanotype sightings

Catherine Rogers (crogers@mpx.com.au)
Thu, 03 Apr 1997 00:59:14 +0000 (GMT)

Dear list,
Like other artists, I am sure that there are many on this list who take note of
the pictures and art work used in movies and on TV shows. For example I used to
watch "LA Law" from time to time when it was on television here in Australia.
It was fascinating checking out the artwork on the walls of their absolutely
incredible offices. For the same reason I like watching James Bond movies
because photography, particularaly cameras - spy cameras - almost always
feature, and are in fact quite important to those movies.(Well after his cars
perhaps...) Oh yes, and, for those who remember (and love as I do) the
incomparable "Get Smart", there were from time to time some delightful uses of
the camera.

Anyway the other night I caught the end of an English programme on television
called "Drop the Dead Donkey", and blow me down if I didn't see two cyanotypes
on their office walls! Absolutely no doubt about these pictures being
cyanotypes. One was perhaps (guessing here from a rather small TV screen) 16" x
20" or half imperial perhaps, featured the emulsion application brush strokes
and pictured architecture as abstract modernist shapes. Quite dynamic. The
other image was a contained arrangement of perhaps 6 or 8 negatives on a large
sheet. Too small to see what the images were of.

Got quite a surprise. Alterntive processes has made it on TV!
(Sorry to all those in the USA who haven't heard of this series, unless it has
been sold to PBS, but it's quite popular here in a small cult circle.)

I'm always on the lookout for uses of photography on film and TV, has anyone
else sighted alternative processes on film sets? Or uses of cameras?

Just a thought.
Catherine Rogers