OliveOyl
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Hey Ned, if you pop back in again…
I’m reading a book now about women artists and there was a mention of Anna Atkins. Have you heard of her? She was a British artist and floral illustrator/botanist and in 1843, was the first woman to self-publish a book with photographic images. And the images were cyanotypes…! She did about 6000 of them and of course, as the story always goes…she was pretty much ignored during her lifetime. Her name popped up again around 1985 when one of her books, “British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions” was reissued. Looks lovely.
If you wait for all the pages to load, you can just tap and “leaf” through the book here:
https://ttp.royalsociety.org/ttp/ttp.html?id=2f7d4394-8ec7-4833-b67d-a69b90040592&type=book
I’m reading a book now about women artists and there was a mention of Anna Atkins. Have you heard of her? She was a British artist and floral illustrator/botanist and in 1843, was the first woman to self-publish a book with photographic images. And the images were cyanotypes…! She did about 6000 of them and of course, as the story always goes…she was pretty much ignored during her lifetime. Her name popped up again around 1985 when one of her books, “British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions” was reissued. Looks lovely.
If you wait for all the pages to load, you can just tap and “leaf” through the book here:
https://ttp.royalsociety.org/ttp/ttp.html?id=2f7d4394-8ec7-4833-b67d-a69b90040592&type=book
I love Anna Atkins' prints! ( See post #3 in this long thread.. ) Even though she was a kind of "pioneer" and one of the first to use cyanotype extensively, her prints have a kind of timeless quality to them and many of them are very beautiful. That's not always the case from the early days of photography! I think she was not only the first woman to publish a book with photographic prints but also the first person! Cheers!
