What is Chlorophyll printing ?

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 I’ve been tinkering with Chlorophyll printing. 



It’s fun, when it actually works. I start with a photo I took, and print it out in black and white on a clear sheet of acetate. I overlay that clear acetate on a leaf. 

Only certain types of leaves work, this one happens to be a hasta leaf. I leave it outside on a sunny day, oriented directly facing the sun. As the sun beats down on the leaf, the places where the image shades the leaf stay green, and the places where there is no image force a change in the chlorophyll, resulting in an image on the leaf.

It’s not transferring anything from the acetate to the leaf, the image is entirely a result of the chlorophyll in the leaf trying to cope with being in extended very direct sunlight for an extended time.

How cool is that! Here are some more images.





Lots of different tests, trials, and tribulations…. I’ll leave those perhaps for another post.


Comments

motoadventurer said…
That's pretty neat, Suzy. Did you print the acetate on an inkjet or a laser printer? And how long did transfer take? I would imagine you can't really check on it mid-process unless you have a way to position the acetate overlay in perfect relation to the leaf consistently?
August 8, 2021 at 12:39 PM
motoadventurer said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
August 8, 2021 at 12:40 PM
Suzy Deffeyes said…
I've tried both inkjet and laser, inkjet made a better print. The icky part was the coating used on acetate actually gets gummy with humidity, so I am always fussing with that. 4.5 hours tends to be the sweet spot, and there is a fine line between no print at all and crispy fried leaf
August 16, 2021 at 6:07 AM

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