Paige Billin-Frye

Printing a perfect photographic print is less interesting to me than how I can , enhance and play with the print. Each becomes a one-of-a-kind piece as I tone, bleach and sometimes hand-color the images with watercolor paint or pastels, drawing on painting skills from my experience as an illustrator. Exploring historic photographic printing processes has brought me to the intersection of photography, digital art, and chemistry. My work has taken a deep dive into cyanotype printing and experiments in toning with botanical matter, some harvested from my yard. The tannins in the plant toners react with the iron in the cyanotype emulsion to change the the Prussian blue color of the prints to other colors. Playing with bleaching and the amount of time left soaking in the toners creates differences in the colors. In this way I can control how much blue from the cyanotype is left in the print. Some toners stain the paper more. Some stain less. The important thing is to let go of expectations.