Jo Howell and Cyanotype Beyond the Image

 

Is This Still Photography? Jo Howell and Cyanotype Beyond the Image

Some photographs are primarily meant to be looked at. Others quickly reveal that looking alone is not enough. Jo Howell’s work belongs to the latter category. The characteristic blue initially makes it easy to recognise cyanotype, but after a closer look it becomes clear that these are not conventional photographic prints. Paper is cut, folded, torn, layered and formed into three-dimensional structures. Fragments of other prints, found materials, packaging and text become part of the image. A photograph can be broken apart and then assembled again into something new.

This is why Jo Howell’s work is difficult to describe in terms of technique alone. For her, cyanotype is more than a method of making an image. It becomes a material, a language and a means of experimentation, while her practice increasingly moves into the territory of the object, collage and sculpture. Her work therefore offers an interesting example of how a contemporary artist can employ a historical photographic process without attempting to recreate its original function.

Jo first encountered cyanotype in 2008, during an additional alternative photography course at the University of Sunderland. As she recalls, she was immediately interested in the fact that the process offered a different way of working with light from that of the traditional darkroom. Initially, however, it remained only a brief episode. She returned to cyanotype several years later, when she began using alternative processes in educational activities and projects exploring the relationship between photography and science. The process became particularly important to her during the pandemic. The possibility of working outside the darkroom and organising activities outdoors made cyanotype a practical solution in circumstances in which other photographic processes were more difficult to use.¹

What began as a practical interest gradually developed into a conscious working method. Jo points to the low cost of the chemistry, the limited equipment required and the freedom to experiment without the fear of making expensive mistakes. For this reason, she describes cyanotype as “the great democratic process of the alternative processes”. In her view, accessibility is not a weakness of the technique but one of its greatest strengths. It is possible to begin without specialist facilities and to move relatively quickly from learning the process to developing an individual practice.² A similar point is made by Christopher James, who describes cyanotype as a process whose simplicity and relatively broad tolerance allow beginners to enter the world of alternative photography with comparatively little technical or financial investment.³ Christina Z. Anderson likewise emphasises the low cost of the process, its accessibility and the wide range of contemporary applications, from traditional photograms to conceptual work and printing on unconventional surfaces.⁴ In Jo’s case, however, these qualities have an additional significance because they are closely connected to the social and physical circumstances in which she works.

Her choice of cyanotype also has a personal dimension. Jo explains that, over time, the traditional darkroom became increasingly difficult for her as a working environment. Chemical smells and the constant movement between darkness and light became stimuli she could no longer easily tolerate. Cyanotype proved to be a process much better suited to her circumstances. In her case, a photographic technique is therefore not simply a neutral tool that can be exchanged for another. It is connected to the physical conditions in which she can work and has influenced the structure of her artistic practice.⁵

From Photography as Image to Photography as Material

Jo Howell is particularly interested in what happens to an image when the photographic process is no longer primarily concerned with accurate representation. In her view, cyanotype produces an image that is more suggestive than realistic. Its limited tonal range simplifies representation, while its distinctive blue shifts the image towards impression and association. She even suggests that the character of cyanotype is closer to Impressionism than to Realism.⁶

This comparison is also interesting from the perspective of photographic history. It should not, however, be taken to mean that Jo identifies herself as a pictorialist or attempts to reconstruct the aesthetics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather, it points to a related question: photography can be understood not only as a means of faithful representation but also as a means of transforming visual experience. Contemporary cyanotype practice often draws on precisely this quality, moving the process away from straightforward documentation towards interpretation, abstraction and material experimentation.⁷

The issue becomes even more significant when the print ceases to be the end of the process. Jo stresses that the physical act of making is extremely important to her. She is interested in materiality and in the possibility of leaving a direct trace of herself in the work. At the same time, she is fascinated by entropy.
A negative that is used repeatedly becomes worn and degraded over time. Each subsequent work therefore becomes not only another image but also a record of the history of that particular negative. In this context, Jo invokes The Picture of Dorian Gray, because the image gradually changes as it ages and is repeatedly used. Eventually, the degraded negative itself becomes, in her words, the “mother” of all the works produced from it.⁸ In traditional photography, the negative was expected above all to provide stability and repeatability. Its function was to allow further prints to be made. In Jo Howell’s practice, this relationship is reversed. Traces of use are not something to be concealed but part of the history of the process. Photography begins to document not only what has been photographed, but also its own making.

This approach closely corresponds to the understanding of photography as a material object that has developed in photography studies since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart argue that a photograph is not simply a carrier of an image but also a thing whose physical properties contribute to the production of meaning. Materiality is not an addition to the image; it is part of the way the photograph functions.⁹ Elizabeth Edwards develops this argument further by showing that photographs can be experienced not only visually but also through their physical properties, their modes of storage and use, and their presence in space.¹⁰

In Jo Howell’s practice, this theoretical perspective becomes tangible. A photograph is no longer simply a surface carrying an image. It can become the material for another work.

Waste Ground: Photography Made from Things Meant to Be Thrown Away

This logic becomes most fully visible in the project Waste Ground. Jo uses empty medication packaging, transforming it into surfaces for cyanotype. The idea grew out of everyday life and from observing the amount of material left behind once medication has been used. Over time, the sheer quantity of this material began to shape the development of the project. The packaging kept accumulating, and preparing it for use required a considerable amount of labour, which itself became part of the work.¹¹

In this case, the material is not simply decorative. The packaging is simultaneously a residue of everyday life, waste, a carrier of information and a photographic surface. When a self-portrait appears on it, these elements begin to merge. Jo speaks of wanting to make the invisible visible. The packaging reflects the scale and repetitive nature of daily medication use, while at the same time becoming the basis for works that document her own experience.¹²

It is important to note a distinction that Jo herself makes. She does not present this approach as an invention. She explicitly acknowledges existing practices such as collage, decoupage, photography and printmaking; what is distinctive is the way she brings these together with materials arising from her own life.¹³ This matters because it shows that the originality of her practice does not lie in inventing a new technique, but in the particular way existing methods, materials and personal experience are combined.
For this reason, Waste Ground can be understood as more than a series about reusing materials. Body, everyday life, medical waste and photography meet within the project. The material on which the image is made is connected to the history of the person represented in it. Jo emphasises that self-portraiture is particularly important to her because it makes the personal significance of the material most apparent. At the same time, the project has a documentary dimension: its successive parts are intended to record changes taking place over time.¹⁴

Fragmentation, so characteristic of these works, is likewise more than a formal device. Jo describes layering and concealment as ways of directing attention towards what lies beneath the surface. A person’s experience is never entirely visible from the outside. Showing only one layer would therefore mean reducing it. The fragmented construction of the image allows her to retain that sense of incompleteness.¹⁵ Her attitude towards works that do not meet their initial expectations is equally revealing. She experiments with humidity, dilution, toning and other variations of the process. Not every result is a print she would regard as finished. This does not necessarily mean that the work has failed or reached the end of its life. It may be used in another piece or treated as material for further experimentation.¹⁶

In this way, the boundary between a “successful” and an “unsuccessful” photograph begins to shift. A print that might be regarded as waste in one context can become material in another. This is particularly significant when considered alongside Waste Ground, because the same principle applies both to discarded medication packaging and to earlier photographic experiments.

When Photography Leaves the Surface

The same logic can be seen in Jo’s three-dimensional work. She uses, among other things, demonstration prints left over from workshops. These are often chance images, imperfect and produced primarily so that participants can see how the process works. Instead of storing or discarding them, she transforms them into three-dimensional constructions.¹⁷

In her own description of this work, Jo asks: “What happens when images take up physical space?” The question captures the direction of her experiments particularly well. Fragments of cyanotype paper begin to function as elements of a construction rather than merely as carriers of representation. Some works take the form of suspended structures, while others incorporate paper, wood, metal and ready-made objects. In one case, the artist brings together prints made in different years, treating them as a kind of “waste images” from which a new spatial whole can be constructed.¹⁸ This movement from photography to object is not an incidental extension of her practice. It follows directly from her understanding of the photograph as a physical thing. If a photograph exists materially in the world, it can be manipulated in much the same way as any other material.

At this point, the conventional definition of photography begins to become more difficult to sustain. We can still recognise the photographic origin of the image, but the print no longer has to be the final work. It can become an element of a construction, the material of an installation or one part of a larger arrangement. Photography remains present, but it is no longer the sole principle organising the work.

Christina Z. Anderson’s work on contemporary cyanotype also demonstrates how far the process has moved beyond the conventional photographic print. Her study includes not only the history and practice of cyanotype but also contemporary approaches to alternative surfaces, experimentation and current artistic applications.¹⁹ The issue is therefore not simply a matter of expanding the technical repertoire. Contemporary cyanotype has become a field in which experiments with surface, process and form are integral to artistic practice. Jo remains consciously aware of the historical origins of the process. In her workshops, she discusses John Herschel and Anna Atkins. Atkins is particularly important to her because her work offers a way of connecting the history of photography with the history of science and the position of women within scientific practices.²⁰ Historical context, however, is not a model that Jo seeks to reproduce. It is a point of departure for further experimentation.

This distinction is fundamental. Anna Atkins used cyanotype to record botanical specimens and to create a photographic record of plant forms. Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, published between 1843 and 1853, remains one of the most important early applications of the process.²¹ In Jo Howell’s work, however, this historical photographic process is incorporated into a very different system: collage, self-portraiture, found materials, spatial objects, waste and experimentation.

The process remains recognisable, but its function has expanded.

Photography After the Screen

One of the most interesting issues emerging from Jo’s answers is her relationship with the material nature of photography. She grew up during the transition from analogue to digital photography and remembers photography primarily as an object: a print that could be kept, touched and viewed away from a screen. With digitisation, photography increasingly became information, and its materiality was no longer self-evident.²²

This issue has been discussed extensively by Joanna Sassoon. She points out that a digital image does not pass through the same material stages as an analogue photograph and that digital reproduction changes the way we understand the original, the copy and the material identity of the photograph.²³

Jo Howell does not, however, attempt to set analogue and digital photography against one another in simplistic terms. She is more interested in the space between them. Her works are photographs and can be digitally reproduced, but their physical qualities — the paper, texture, layers, spatial presence, smell and traces of the process — can only be fully experienced through direct contact with the original. As she herself observes, seeing a work on a screen is a much thinner experience than encountering it physically.²⁴
This becomes particularly interesting in the case of an artist whose work also circulates through digital space. The paradox is that a practice so concerned with the physicality of photography is often encountered through digital images. Documentation can therefore record a work, but it cannot fully replace the experience of the original. In this sense, Jo Howell’s practice enters the broader debate about photographic materiality in the digital age, but it does so through making rather than through theory. She does not construct an abstract theory of materiality. Instead, she creates works whose meaning depends, at least in part, on their physical existence.

This is also what distinguishes her practice from a purely aesthetic interest in historical techniques. Cyanotype is not simply a signifier of the past or a decorative effect. It becomes a means of restoring physical presence to the image.

Photography That Remains Open

Jo Howell describes herself as a photographic artist, but her practice also includes printmaking, collage, work with found materials, educational projects and community-based activity. She does not attempt to confine herself to a single specialism. Light remains the fundamental material of her work, but the way she uses it can change from one project to another.²⁵ Her attitude towards the completion of a work is equally characteristic. Jo openly acknowledges that she does not always bring works to what would conventionally be regarded as a finished state. Sometimes this is an artistic decision; at other times it reflects a lack of space, money or the practical means to present the work in a conventional exhibition setting. She does not necessarily regard this as a failure. A work can remain open and return to the studio at a later stage.²⁶

With Waste Ground, this openness becomes almost a defining principle of the project. New material appears through the routines of everyday life, so the project itself cannot simply be closed. Further packaging, prints and self-portraits will gradually expand the whole. Jo expects to continue developing the series for many years.²⁷ For this reason, it is difficult to describe Jo Howell’s practice simply as a collection of individual photographs made using a particular technique. It is more accurate to think of it as a process encompassing successive transformations of both material and image. One work can become the material for another, while something initially produced by chance or regarded as unsuccessful can acquire new meaning later.

The question posed in the title of this essay therefore has no simple answer. Is this still photography? In Jo Howell’s case, it is more interesting to observe how the boundary continually shifts than to establish it once and for all. Cyanotype remains a photographic process, but its results may also become collage, object, installation, self-portrait or a material record of lived experience. Her practice shows that the contemporary use of a historical photographic process does not have to involve reconstructing an earlier way of working. The process may remain recognisably historical while its role within the structure of the artwork changes completely. Conventional photographic paper can be replaced by waste materials; a negative can be allowed to deteriorate rather than preserved in a stable condition; unsuccessful prints can be reused rather than discarded; and photographs can become objects rather than remain confined to a flat surface.

This, perhaps, is what is most distinctive about Jo Howell’s work. She is not trying to demonstrate that cyanotype is superior to other processes, nor that analogue photography should replace digital photography. She is interested in what happens when the image remains open to transformation. Cyanotype gives her an unusually responsive material with which to pursue that process. Photography, in her practice, is therefore not the final product of making. It is the beginning of another stage.

And this may be precisely why Jo Howell’s work deserves to be considered not simply as contemporary photography made with cyanotype, but as an exploration of how far photography can move beyond the image itself while still remaining photography.

Notes

1. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire concerning her artistic practice, 2026, answer to question 1, correspondence with the author.
2. Ibid., answer to question 2.
3. Christopher James, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, 3rd ed., Boston: Cengage Learning, 2015, p. 162.
4. Christina Z. Anderson, Cyanotype: The Blueprint in Contemporary Practice, New York: Routledge, 2019, pp. 1–4.
5. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 2.
6. Ibid., answer to question 3.
7. Christopher James, op. cit., pp. 162–183; Christina Z. Anderson, op. cit., pp. 1–10.
8. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 4.
9. Elizabeth Edwards, Janice Hart (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, London–New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 1–15.
10. Elizabeth Edwards, “The Thingness of Photographs”, in: Stephen Bull (ed.), A Companion to Photography, Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019, pp. 97–112.
11. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 6; Jo Howell, “Waste Ground: Making Art from Medical Waste”, Maverick Beyond, 14 August 2026, https://maverickbeyond.com/2026/08/14/waste-ground-making-art-from-medical-waste/, accessed 1 October 2026.
12. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 5.
13. Jo Howell, “Waste Ground: Making Art from Medical Waste”, op. cit.
14. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 6.
15. Ibid., answer to question 7.
16. Ibid., answer to question 9.
17. Ibid., answer to question 8.
18. Jo Howell, “10 Amazing Cyanotype Photography Sculpture Ideas”, Maverick Beyond, 25 September 2024, updated 14 September 2026, https://maverickbeyond.com/2024/09/25/cyanotype-sculptures-exploring-physical-space-with-photography/, accessed 1 October 2026.
19. Christina Z. Anderson, op. cit., chapters 11–15.
20. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 10.
21. Mike Ware, Cyanotype: The History, Science and Art of Photographic Printing in Prussian Blue, London: Science Museum; Bradford: National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1999; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions”, 1843–1853, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/286656, accessed 1 October 2026.
22. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 12.
23. Joanna Sassoon, “Photographic Materiality in the Age of Digital Reproduction”, in: Elizabeth Edwards, Janice Hart (eds.), Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images, London–New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 186–202.
24. Jo Howell, responses to the research questionnaire…, answer to question 12.
25. Ibid., answers to questions 11–13.
26. Ibid., answers to questions 7 and 14.
27. Ibid., answers to questions 6 and 14.