Then I got an email from my friend Bob. Turns out his brother makes his own cyanotypes. Then he dyes them in wine. Or he dyes them in coffee.

What is a cyanotype?
To create a cyanotype all you need is two chemicals, negative film, sunlight and water. The two chemicals dissolved in water become a photo-sensitive solution that you paint onto paper. After exposure to UV rays and rinsing in water, the two chemicals react in such a way that you are left with a permanent dye called Prussian Blue.

The process was discovered in 1842, but it didn't become photography until Anna Atkins got her hands on it a year later. Ms. Atkins -- a scientist who is credited as the first female photographer -- created a limited series of cyanotypes by pressing ferns and other botanical specimens onto the light sensitive paper and exposing them to sunlight.
Read more about cyanotypes in (on?) The Wiki.
[Photo Credits: Mark Hemauer, Anna Atkins cyanotypes via wikipedia.]