Annette Golaz: When Cyanotype Becomes More Than Blue

Cyanotype is one of the most recognisable historical photographic processes. Its distinctive blue has become so closely associated with the technique that, for many viewers, the colour itself is enough to identify a cyanotype. That visual certainty can also become a limitation: once the blue is removed, altered or challenged, what remains of the process?

Annette Golaz approaches this question through sustained experimentation with colour, materials and photographic image-making. Her work does not simply bring a nineteenth-century process into contemporary practice. Instead, she explores how changes within the process can alter the image itself—its atmosphere, visual structure and relationship to photography.

Colour is central to that transformation. For Annette Golaz, cyanotype is no longer defined by a single characteristic hue. It becomes a medium through which the photographic image can be constructed, altered and reinterpreted.¹

Beyond Blue

Cyanotype was not originally at the centre of Annette Golaz’s practice. She also worked with gum bichromate, platinum/palladium and combinations of historical processes, while cyanotype initially played a more supporting role. Over time, however, it became an increasingly important field of research.²

The turning point came through her experiments with botanical toning. What began as an investigation into plant-based materials developed into a much broader exploration of the colour possibilities of cyanotype. Golaz tested a wide range of botanical substances and gradually discovered colours extending far beyond the traditional blue.³ The significance of this research lies less in the introduction of additional colours than in what those colours do to the image. In a conventional cyanotype, blue is one of the defining characteristics of the process. In Golaz’s work, colour becomes part of the artistic decision-making. Reds, pinks, yellows and other tonal variations can interact with the familiar cyanotype blue, changing the balance, atmosphere and visual character of the print.

The process acquires greater freedom.

The viewer is no longer encountering a historical technique simply through its familiar appearance. Instead, the technique becomes a means of shaping the image.

Colour as a New Image-Making Language

This becomes especially apparent in Annette Golaz’s tricolour cyanotypes. The significance of these works lies not simply in the presence of several colours, but in the way the image is conceived through their interaction.

The photographic source is no longer merely translated into cyanotype. It is reinterpreted through colour. Each component contributes to the final structure, and the finished print emerges from their relationship rather than from a single monochromatic tonal scale.⁴

This changes the status of colour within the photograph. It is no longer something added to an existing image. It becomes one of the means by which the image is constructed. That distinction matters. Golaz’s tricolour prints do not simply present cyanotypes that happen to contain red or yellow. Their colour structure affects how the subject is perceived in the first place. The familiar logic of a photographic print—where the image precedes the process—gives way to something more fluid, in which process and image develop together.

For this reason, her work is better understood not simply as an updated version of cyanotype, but as an exploration of what cyanotype can become as a contemporary image-making medium.

Between Photograph and Print

Annette Golaz describes a corresponding change in her own relationship with photography. In the material she provided for this research, she explains that photography has increasingly become a starting point rather than a finished work, and that she increasingly identifies herself as a printmaker rather than simply as a photographer.⁵

This distinction helps to explain the physical character of her work. The photographic image remains important, but it is no longer the final destination. The subsequent transformation—through colour, material, layering and the particular behaviour of the chosen process—becomes an integral part of the work.⁶ The resulting object can therefore occupy a space between photography and printmaking. Its photographic origin remains visible or conceptually present, while its physical form depends on decisions that belong equally to the world of the handmade print.

This is one of the most productive tensions in Golaz’s practice. Photography provides the starting point, but the final work is shaped by everything that happens after the photograph has been made.

Fear of Dementia

The connection between process and artistic meaning becomes particularly clear in Fear of Dementia.

Golaz developed the project in dialogue with a poet, drawing on the experience of caring for a mother and on the gradual disappearance and distortion of memory. To find a visual form appropriate to that experience, she works with a camera obscura and blurred projected imagery, later translating these images into tricolour cyanotypes.⁷

Here the visual character of the work is inseparable from its subject.

The lack of sharpness, the instability of the image and the layered colour all contribute to an atmosphere in which the photographic record becomes uncertain. Rather than providing a precise reconstruction of reality, the image evokes something fragmented and incomplete.

The effect is particularly compelling because Golaz does not illustrate memory directly. Instead, she uses the behaviour of the image to suggest what happens when memory can no longer provide a stable account of experience.

The project also extends beyond photography. Its dialogue with poetry creates a reciprocal exchange in which images can become the starting point for texts, while poems can lead to new visual works.⁸

Here, the photographic process becomes part of a broader artistic language.

When Nature Becomes Part of the Image

Another distinctive element of Annette Golaz’s practice is her long-term research into botanical toning.

Plants can appear in photographic work as subject matter, but Golaz gives them another role. Their physical and chemical properties can participate in the transformation of the print itself. Her research has produced a broad range of tonal effects and has opened another route towards moving cyanotype beyond its conventional blue.⁹

This creates an intriguing relationship between subject and material.

Nature can exist in front of the camera, but it can also enter the making of the image.

The distinction is important. A plant used as a photographic subject is represented by the image. A plant used in the transformation of the print becomes part of the material history of the image. The photograph consequently carries traces of both what has been photographed and what has been used to create the final object.

For a contemporary practice increasingly concerned with materiality, this is a significant development. The natural world is no longer simply represented. It can participate in the formation of the work.

Photography as an Experience

A related idea appears in Golaz’s experiments with extremely simple photographic equipment and with image-making under conditions that minimise contemporary technological infrastructure.

In one project, undertaken in a remote valley in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, she explored the possibility of producing a cyanotype without electrical power. Using a large-format camera fitted with a magnifying-glass lens, she treated the entire process as a material and environmental experience rather than simply as a means of producing an image.¹⁰

The interest of such a project lies less in technical ingenuity than in the way it expands the photographic event.

Camera, light, time, place, material and print become interconnected. The circumstances in which the image is produced are no longer merely technical conditions. They become part of the work.

From Experiment to Knowledge

There is another dimension of Annette Golaz’s practice that extends beyond her individual artworks: the transmission of knowledge.

In 2021, Routledge published her book Cyanotype Toning: Using Botanicals to Tone Blueprints Naturally as part of the series Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography. The book brings together research into botanical toning, colour and contemporary cyanotype practice.¹¹
Its significance is broader than that of a conventional technical manual. Alternative photographic processes depend heavily on the circulation of practical knowledge. Many historical techniques are no longer taught as standard components of photographic education. Their survival and development therefore depend on books, workshops, personal exchanges, studio experiments and the willingness of practitioners to document what they discover.

Golaz’s research enters this wider network through publication.

She has explained that sharing her findings and making them useful to other artists was an important motivation for publishing the book.¹² In this sense, her experiments do not remain confined to her own studio. They become resources that can be tested, adapted and extended by other practitioners.

The artwork therefore acquires another form of circulation.  What begins as an individual experiment can become collective knowledge.

Annette Golaz and the Alternative Photography Ecosystem

Annette Golaz occupies several roles within contemporary alternative photography. She is an artist, a process researcher, an author and an educator. Her practice includes cyanotype, botanical toning, gum prints, platinum/palladium and combinations of historical processes, alongside experiments with unconventional photographic devices.¹³

This plurality is significant. The contemporary ecosystem of alternative photography is not sustained only by exhibitions and finished artworks. It also depends on people who preserve knowledge, develop processes, publish research and create ways for others to enter and participate in the field. Annette Golaz contributes to that ecosystem on both levels. Her images expand the visual possibilities of cyanotype, while her writing and teaching help to maintain the circulation of knowledge about how such images can be made. That combination of artistic practice and knowledge-sharing is particularly important in a field whose development depends so strongly on exchange between individual practitioners.

After Photography, Before the Image

The most important aspect of Annette Golaz’s work is not simply that she has found ways to introduce colours beyond the traditional cyanotype blue.

The deeper transformation concerns the role of the process itself. Once cyanotype is no longer tied to a single characteristic colour, it can become a more open form of image construction. Colour can shape the structure of the photograph rather than merely decorate it. Botanical materials can participate in the physical transformation of the image. In Fear of Dementia, the visual behaviour of the print becomes part of the articulation of memory and uncertainty. Photography can become the starting point for a print rather than its final form. And beyond the individual image, experimentation can become published knowledge that enters the wider circulation of alternative photographic practice. This is what makes Annette Golaz’s work particularly significant within contemporary alternative photography.

She does more than introduce new colours into cyanotype.

She expands the possibilities of cyanotype as a contemporary image-making medium.

The blue remains, but it is no longer the whole story.

Notes

1. Annette Golaz, “About Me,” Annette Golaz Photography, https://www.agolaz.ch/about-1/about-me/ (accessed 19 September 2026). Annette Golaz Photography

2. Annette Golaz, “Interview with Annette Golaz – author of ‘Cyanotype Toning’,” AlternativePhotography, 9 November 2021, updated 5 April 2024, https://www.alternativephotography.com/annette-golaz-cyanotype-toning/ (accessed 19 September 2026). alternativephotography.com

3. Annette Golaz, Cyanotype Toning: Using Botanicals to Tone Blueprints Naturally, New York–London: Routledge, 2021. Routledge

4. Annette Golaz, “Exhibitions,” Annette Golaz Photography, https://www.agolaz.ch/exhibitions/; “Tricolor Cyanotypes,” https://www.agolaz.ch/portfolio/tricolor-cyanotypes/ (accessed 19 September 2026). Annette Golaz Photography

5. Annette Golaz, written responses to questions by Grzegorz Gorczyński, September 2026, unpublished research correspondence.

6. Ibid.

7. Annette Golaz, “Creators in Focus: Artist Annette Golaz’s Tricolor Cyanotype Process,” Lomography, 1 March 2026, https://www.lomography.com/magazine/357877-creators-in-focus-artist-annette-golaz-s-tricolor-cyanotype-process (accessed 19 September 2026). Lomography

8. Ibid.

9. Annette Golaz, “Interview with Annette Golaz – author of ‘Cyanotype Toning’,” AlternativePhotography, 9 November 2021, updated 5 April 2024, https://www.alternativephotography.com/annette-golaz-cyanotype-toning/ (accessed 19 September 2026); Annette Golaz, Cyanotype Toning: Using Botanicals to Tone Blueprints Naturally, New York–London: Routledge, 2021. alternativephotography.com

10. Annette Golaz, “Creators in Focus: Artist Annette Golaz’s Tricolor Cyanotype Process,” Lomography, 1 March 2026, https://www.lomography.com/magazine/357877-creators-in-focus-artist-annette-golaz-s-tricolor-cyanotype-process (accessed 19 September 2026). Lomography

11. Annette Golaz, Cyanotype Toning: Using Botanicals to Tone Blueprints Naturally, New York–London: Routledge, 2021, 284 pp. Routledge

12. Annette Golaz, “Interview with Annette Golaz – author of ‘Cyanotype Toning’,” AlternativePhotography, 9 November 2021, updated 5 April 2024, https://www.alternativephotography.com/annette-golaz-cyanotype-toning/ (accessed 19 September 2026). alternativephotography.com

13. Annette Golaz, “About Me,” Annette Golaz Photography, https://www.agolaz.ch/about-1/about-me/; “Exhibitions,” Annette Golaz Photography, https://www.agolaz.ch/exhibitions/ (accessed 19 September 2026). Annette Golaz Photography

Illustration

Source: Annette Golaz Photography, Exhibitions, https://www.agolaz.ch/exhibitions/.