Like most people in Europe, I’ve been living through endless days of heat, drought and sunshine this Summer. It's been difficult to get out with a camera. For dramatic, moody images you want dark clouds, not blue skies. For hiking the landscape, you want cool temperatures, not the 30ºC we’ve been experiencing.

But I discovered this weather is good for at least one type of photography project: wet cyanotypes.

This was a project that started as a fun way to stay creative in the heat. But as I simplified my workflow and found my subject, it turned into something more serious.

Regular readers will know that I’ve used cyanotypes in the past for my RPS Fellowship panel. In that project, one of the challenges I faced is that a panel needs consistency. But cyanotype is a process that does not want to be controlled. Like a grumpy teenager, it likes to do its own thing.

Some days it’s happy to give you precise borders, but on other days it wants to leak under the edges of your masking tape. Some days it’s happy to give you a smooth finish, but on other days it prefers a more grainy texture. That’s why I typically needed to make six versions of a print to get one that was suitable for my panel.

The ‘wet’ cyanotype process is different. It doesn’t just embrace the variability of cyanotype: it amplifies it. Practitioners spray vinegar on the coated paper, add turmeric and soap bubbles, and cover the paper with shrink wrap to create texture in the print. Some people layer objects under multiple panes of glass to blur the objects that are furthest from the sensitised paper (this simulates the depth of field effect you get with a camera).

It's a good candidate for a Summer project because you can work outside in the garden (wet cyanotypes are messy). The high UV levels of Summer mean that prints develop relatively quickly. And the warm weather means prints dry in an hour or so rather than having to wait overnight.

But my first experiments with wet cyanotype did not go well. I coated a sheet of paper with cyanotype and then threw everything at it: the soap bubbles, the turmeric, the shrink wrap…

Eventually, I settled on just one ingredient: turmeric dissolved in water. I sprayed this where I wanted yellow highlights to appear in the final print.

This image was a turning point for me, for two reasons.

First, I realised the importance of finding the right botanical subject. These prints show allium seed heads and I think they provide exactly the right subject for this treatment. The seed heads are simple enough for people to identify, transparent enough that the contact printing process can reveal more than a silhouette, and detailed enough to be visually interesting.

The second reason was that I realised the images could also take on a conceptual reading.

This wasn't my intention when I started the work. I'd intended it as a bit of fun, something to do in the sunshine.

But a few days ago, the UK Government literally raised the alarm about wildfires. It was becoming hard not to see fire everywhere, including inside these cyanotypes. The prints were capturing something about how the planet feels to me in the Summer of 2026.

Here I am, making cyanotypes while the world burns — quite literally, as there are wildfires just a few miles from where I live. It's not a concept that occurred to me when I started the work, but now I couldn't help but view these seed heads metaphorically: as miniature worlds burning at the core.

This reading is even more stark when the print contains a single ‘world’. It simplifies the composition, resembling a firework.

I’m still unsure how I feel about the wet cyanotype process. My preference is for a controlled technique with precise outcomes. That's why I ended up with just one ‘wet’ ingredient.

That said, I also ended up with images that I find simple and beautiful.

And the project taught me that play can lead to images that go beyond formalism: yes, these are pretty cyanotypes of seed heads. But a collection of these images is a metaphor for something else.

This was a project that kept me creatively active in the hot weather. I’m sure that I’ll think more about this project over the cooler months and will no doubt return to it next Summer, when the world burns again.