teacher looking for used negatives

[gveeh]

Hi everyone!
I am a teacher and I want to do a cyanotype project with my students. Many of them have never even seen a negative before and I was thinking this would be a fun idea to introduce them to some history of photography and to learn a little bit about how the process works.

I am looking for unwanted negatives that we could use for this. Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[Josh66]

Couldn't you just buy a roll of film and take some pictures?

Or, better yet - make your students buy a roll of film and take some pictures...?

 

[gveeh]

We don't have a darkroom or film cameras. The class is a digital class, but I still want them to get an idea of how negatives work. I am hoping to find some larger negatives somewhere that are unwanted.

 

[Scatterbrained]

Just peruse some of those California garage sales, maybe you'll come up with a box of faux Ansel Adams negatives.

 

[compur]

There are lots of large format negatives on eBay that sell for a few dollars.

 

[gveeh]

Scatterbrained-

compur- Yeah, I've been looking on ebay too. There's a couple listings I have my eye on.

 

[Vautrin]

How many negatives do you need?

 

[Vautrin]

Also what kind of school?

 

[Olive_Miceli]

I took an experimental class in the fall and we made our own negatives digitally in photoshop.
You just find an image
image>mode>grayscale
to make it more true to a negative quality you want to make it flat,
image>adjustment>levels
on your input level drag your midtones to the left, and on your output level drag your shadows to the right
then turn it back to color capabilites
image>mode>CMYK
Set your foreground color
double click the foreground box> c=0 m=70 y=70 k=0
to add the negative color layer
edit>fill
Choose the overlay mode
NOW
you just need to make them transparent, you can print them out on computer paper an rub mineral oil on the paper to make it translucent, but this takes time to dry.
you can also take the digital files to an office supply store and have them print it off on transparency sheets.
and Ta-Dah!
Instant Digital Negative, good for cyanotypes, van dykes, or gum bichromate.
Cheers!

 

[ann]

you can do the above and print them out on overhead transparent "film" and they work fine without the extra step using oil , etc.

 

[gveeh]

Vautrin- I'm hoping to just get as many as I can. It's a public high school.

Olive- Thanks for the detailed idea.