Jaime Aelavanthara- constraints, cyanotypes & students

Welcome to the episode 138 of photography insights, the show that interviews people from the photography world.  I’m your host Andrew Walmsley and today we are hop over the ocean to Florida in the United States.  When we talk about cyanotypes, I think of our friend Jonah who actually introduced Jaime to myself.  But traditionally with cyanotypes we think about small 4×6 style prints and flowers or leaves.  Well Jaime has a really different view on this and it’s why I found her work so interesting.  Jaime Aelevanthara is an assistant professor at the University of Tampa.   As Jaime would put it “her work explores themes of the human condition and an interconnectedness with nature”. 

So looking at her images and projects you will see foilage, trees, water, leaves combined with her love of alternative processes like cyanotypes and gum bichromate.  In fact we discuss her project “palace of leaves” which was shot during COVID.  Also we discuss the problems around “modern beauty” – being surrounded by the perfection and expectations of others.

You will tell from our conversation she cares deeply about learning and applying this to her students.  It’s not about instructing, more a case of empowering a person to learn through trying.  We discuss how this has aided my learning and go through some examples too.

We finish talking about one of her students work – the accordion.  I implore you to check the website for the images and see such wonderful creations considering the circumstances.  You should also check out her writing skills too – Jaime has wrote for Analog Forever!  It’s in the style of a book review of cyanotypes so check that out here.

In this one we discuss:

• Handling questions from students
• sharing knowledge
• cyanotype business cards
• projects during pandemic
• teaching darkroom
• cyanotype pre-treated
• digital negatives
• exposure times
• darkroom sessions
• students
• analog forever

Links

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/darkroomdove/

Website – https://www.jaelavanthara.com/

Analog Forever – https://www.analogforevermagazine.com/

Friends of the show

Large format + medium format cameras – https://chroma.camera

For all your c41 developing needs – https://filmdev.co.uk/

Great and affordable zines from Static Age – https://www.staticage.co.uk/

Zine

There are just a few of zines with prints left now, so grab it now while you can.  I’m going to putting a few more individual prints up soon, hopefully on my new website, but more details in the future.

Featured

I was honoured to be interviewed and have a 4 page feature in a magazine recently.  It’s run by Jay Good and all part of something he does for his Facebook group.  

Extra content

Jaime was so kind to forward a lot of images, so you can see some of the behind the scenes too. Since we discussed different styles cyanotypes there was different technologies at play. Some required the use of a large format printer as you can see.

Like what you see?

Please don’t forget i’ve launched the KO-FI donation page, for anyone wanting to help me fund improvements to the show.  All donations mean a lot to me, i’m trying to blog and experiment with so many more things like cyanotype and lith printing. I can only do this with funds, so please do help, every £1 means so much.