Today’s gardeners can take digital photographs of plants in the blink of an eye. But horticulturally trained cyanotype artist Sophie Cook has returned to photography’s analogue beginnings, working with natural cycles to capture botanical forms in a slower, more considered manner, to create pieces in Prussian blue, white and gold.
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Cyanotype is one of the oldest forms of photography, invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842. Sophie first discovered the technique 20 years ago during her art foundation course in Nottingham. “I was really interested in analogue, low-tech, hands-on photography,” she says.
“I was introduced to cyanotypes during that year. Something about the blue really stuck with me and I’ve been doing it ever since.” Sophie went on to study environmental science and horticulture, ending up as assistant nursery manager at Great Dixter from 2019 to 2022.
As her knowledge of plants grew, it provided her with a wider range of subjects for her cyanotypes.
The process begins with her treating watercolour paper with iron salts, turning it lime green. After leaving it to dry, she selects one or more pressed plants from her home-made herbarium and carefully arranges these on top of the paper, which she then takes outside into bright sunshine before bringing it back inside and washing with water. That’s when the rich blue colour reveals itself, while the area covered by the plant reverts to the paper’s colour.
Even though I’m an artist, I’ve got a real science head, so everything is in the right order
Lunaria annua is a brilliant plant for this process, but when it sheds the outer layers of its distinctive seedpods, and seeds come off too, Sophie is not afraid to edit nature by glueing them back on. “The seed is slightly asymmetrical, like a circle with a belly button in it, and one side is always pointed towards the plant. I’ve become intimately acquainted with these plants,” she says.
a lime green. Image credit: Lisa Linder
Poppies work well because of their delicate petals, and she uses many different types including Welsh and Icelandic as well as the common field poppies, and bigger oriental species. She prefers to use white cultivars of flowers such as nigella and forget-me-nots, as the lack of colour in the petals allows more sunlight to penetrate, creating a greater tonal contrast. Fine botanical features such as the fronds of maidenhair ferns and the flowers of umbellifers like Ammi majus are other favourites.
Drawing on her background in horticulture, she grows many of the plants she uses in her own garden – although now she is no longer a professional gardener, she has a more relaxed approach. “I just clear areas that I want to use.
I have a more hands-off approach now and I’m seeing a lot more invertebrates. Kind of unlearning again,” she says. The propagation skills she learned at Great Dixter also allow her to be more specific about which plants she wants to grow for her work.
When Sophie has gathered her plant material, she then places it in a giant flower press she made herself from two sheets of MDF, each measuring around a metre square, between sheets of cardboard cut from packaging. She labels each layer, then after six weeks, she opens the press and sorts through the dried flowers.
You think you know a plant well, but you never quite know how it’s going to turn out
Around 70 to 80 per cent of the plants will press well; the others she composts. Those that have worked, she mounts onto sheets of card, fixed with masking tape, covers them in tissue paper then adds them to her herbarium. “Even though I’m an artist, I’ve got a real science head, so everything is in the right order,” she says.
The beauty of storing plants in this way is that they can be reused. Next, she makes practice sheets, which she sticks up on her studio wall to analyse. “The colour is such a big part of the allure of the plant that when you then transfer that to a monochrome image it looks so different. You think you know
a plant well, but you never quite know how it’s going to turn out,” she explains.
of a field at social farming centre Heartwood CIC as a studio. Image credit: Lisa Linder
While some cyanotype artists use UV lights for consistency, Sophie prefers to work with direct sunlight, meaning her work is weather dependent. Weeks of rain or overcast conditions can cause a delay, whereas she must take advantage of clear, bright days by working long hours. The length of exposure varies dramatically according to the time of year. In midwinter, even in bright sunlight, it can take 25 minutes, whereas at midday in midsummer, a minute can be too long.
Each cyanotype is a unique work of art finished with touches of metallic gold paint. Sophie believes in original art being part of the everyday, making bookmarks to sell alongside her larger cyanotypes.
This year, she has produced a new collection based on plants gathered from the garden of Chatsworth House, to sell in the shop there. She is also focusing on exhibiting and selling her work at plant-based locations including at the RHS Flower Show Wentworth Woodhouse in July and the craft fair at RHS Garden Hyde Hall in August. Her ambition is to make larger-scale statement pieces that are a profile of a garden through the seasons, allowing her to explore new plants and planting combinations.
Find out more about Sophie Cook’s work at blueandgoldbotanics.co.uk