World Cyanotype Day

World Cyanotype Day is an annual celebration of the cyanotype process — a 19th-century alternative photographic technique that uses iron-based salts and UV light to produce prints in distinctive shades of blue. The event was founded in 2015 by AlternativePhotography.com (itself established in 1999) and runs each year on the last Saturday of September. The 2026 cycle covers September 26 through October 2.

Submissions are free and open to anyone working with the process. Each year carries a theme — 2025's was "Cultivating Community," with the 2026 theme to be announced in spring. The format is single-image submissions: 1080px on the longest side, under 2MB, JPEG only (no PNG, TIFF, or HEIC), with filenames structured as "Name Surname, Title, Country.jpg." No nudes; submissions must follow the year's theme.

Selected work is shown across AlternativePhotography.com's gallery, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, BlueSky, and YouTube channels. There is no cash prize.

The event references Anna Atkins — the first woman to illustrate a photography book, using cyanotypes — as part of its lineage. AlternativePhotography.com is a non-profit, runs the event without sponsor backing, and maintains a substantial educational resource library on cyanotype chemistry, paper preparation, and exposure techniques.