Portrait of Anna Atkins, albumen print, 1861
In October 1843, the botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799–1871) wrote a letter to a friend. “I have lately taken in hand a rather lengthy performance,” revealed Atkins. “It is the taking photographical impressions of all, that I can procure, of the British algae and confervae, many of which are so minute that accurate drawings of them are very difficult to make.”
Botanist Anna Atkins’s interest in rendering nature’s forms was not a pursuit of art but of science. Seeking to record botanical specimens for a scientific reference book, British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, she began experimenting with cyanotypes, a process invented in 1842 by Atkins’s neighbor Sir John Hershel. This publication was one of the first uses of light-sensitive materials to illustrate a book. Atkins placed her specimens onto paper coated with an iron-salt solution and left them in the sun. When she developed the paper in water, the specimens left white silhouettes against a vibrant, Prussian blue. Instead of traditional letterpress printing, the book's handwritten text and illustrations were created by the cyanotype method. Atkins printed and published Part I of British Algae in 1843 and in doing so established photography as an accurate medium for scientific illustration.
