Members Masterclass: Botanically-toned Photography (Afternoon)

Member Events

Past event

Location: Stratford

Date: Monday 20th October 2025

Time: 14:30 — 16:30

In this hands-on masterclass with Melanie King, you’ll learn how to mix, coat, expose, and develop your own cyanotype prints, before chopping, brewing, and boiling a palette of natural toners made from everyday botanicals to alter your images. From seaweed to garden herbs, each toner reveals subtle colour shifts and surprising hues of gold and reds. This is a masterclass of playful experimentation and natural expression. You’ll leave with a collection of uniquely toned photograms and a deeper understanding for the hidden toning potential in plants.

Participants will be invited to bring flat objects, such as ribbons or pressed plants, to use during the workshop. This is not compulsory - there will be plenty of materials ready and available to choose from.

Dr Melanie King is an artist, curator, and researcher interested in the intimate relationship between the natural world, photography, and materiality. She lectures in Photography at Canterbury Christ Church University, and is the founder of the London Alternative Photography Collective, as well as co-director of super/collider and Lumen Studios.

Important information about our ticket ballot for this event:

We are using a ballot system to book tickets for these masterclasses.

The ballot is open for a limited time: from 10:00 Friday 19th September until 23:59 on Thursday 25th September.

Entering the ballot means that you've entered into a draw for the opportunity to book a ticket. From Friday 26th onwards, successful entrants will be automatically booked onto the event and sent a confirmation email. If you can no longer attend please cancel your place so someone else can be booked on.

Unfortunately, the ballot may be oversubscribed, so entering it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be offered tickets.

Once tickets are fully booked, we will notify everyone and offer the opportunity to join the waiting list.

Images courtesy of Melanie King.

Event location

Institute of Making Stratford
UCL Marshgate Building
7 Sidings Street
London
E20 2AE

Please note that entering our postcode into Apple Maps will take you to the wrong address. Instead, please find us by searching 'UCL Marshgate Building' if you use this software.

More details about Stratford

Attendee information

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