“I never want to see another picture of ________.” Industry veterans share their pet peeves on themes in contemporary photography. In this series they present their “rule” along with five photographs that break the rule in an effort to show that great work is the exception to the rule.

Ecotone #6 (Triptych, Bainbridge Island, WA 07.07.17, Scattered Sunshowers, Draped on Pole)

Rule Setter: Nat Raum, Founder, Fifth Wheel Press
Rule Breaker: Meghann Riepenhoff

I never want to see another cyanotype. Okay, hear me out. I know that cyanotypes have a rich history. It’s not that I have any objection to the process itself, I have simply just seen too many cyanotype projects that fall into the category of cliché or uninspired. I like to see it used with intention rather than as a novelty. Since their invention, many people have used the cyanotype process in interesting and avant-garde ways including Anna Atkins, Laurie Snyder, Madison Trotman, and Emma Cheshire. But the cyanotype work that stayed with me for a long time, the one that I immediately thought of as an exception to this rule, is Meghann Riepenhoff’s Ecotone.

Ecotone is a sister series to Riepenhoff’s Littoral Drift, a body of work of cameraless cyanotype photographs at the edges of the ocean and the landscape. She says of the series, “Ecotone also engages dynamic photographic materials in the landscape, but collaborates with precipitation rather than ocean waves or running water in the landscape.” Riepenhoff is intentionally vague about her exact process, but does state that the cyanotypes change over time, as “photochemically [they] are never fully processed.” The cyanotypes create a beautiful record of impermanence as Riepenhoff photographs them in various states of their life span and displays them as polyptchs.

I think what grabs me about this series is that it truly embraces the medium of the cyanotype and shows a great understanding of photographic process. Gone are the days of an image being “better” or “more interesting” simply because it is printed blue. Meghann Riepenhoff shows a true commitment to broadening and experimenting with this 19th-century alternative process.
—Nat Raum

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