Today's photo of the day is entitled "my very first cyanotype [yay]," and is by Emily Barrera. Emily is a photography student here in Chicago who shoots exclusively on film (I'm assuming at one of the downtown campuses; this photo, for example, was taken in the Loop's Millennium Park, using a bulky 4x5 camera checked out of her school); she has a MySpace page as well, for those who would like to know more. As the title suggests, this is indeed a cyanotype, an antique process that dates to the dawn of photography itself in the 1830s and '40s, in which a certain combination of photosensitive chemicals are smeared across your favorite paper of choice, and exposed to the light while having things like large negatives or physical objects laying on top of it. (In the above image, for example, Emily printed to a thick sheet of stationary paper.) It's an interesting process, and it's always nice to run across good examples of it like this one.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.