Ms Atkins c1861 from Wikipedia article
Toronto. Did you ever wonder about the first time a book was printed with photographs included? And the topic? and the author?
Well, wonder no more! My good friend and fellow PHSC member, Les Jones, (author, sports photographer, past president of the PHSC, etc.) sent this message along to me with a brief extract from a book review in Nature magazine:
“Anna Atkins was a pioneer of botany [and a friend of William Fox Talbot] at a time when women were largely excluded from scientific discussions. In 1843, she started using a then-brand-new technique called cyanotype [shown are three cyanotypes of (from left) Laurencia pinnatifida, Aspidium denticulatum and Dictyota dichotoma. Credit: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group/Getty] to produce hundreds of ghostly white-on-blue photos of algae and ferns.
“Her book, which became the first to contain photographic illustrations, is now among the rarest of rare. Historian Peter Walther’s print compilation Anna Atkins reveals more than 500 of her images. ‘To leaf through them is to rediscover an era of painstaking observation and preparation, far removed from a casual snap with a smartphone,’ says science writer and reviewer Georgina Ferry.”
An interesting story about an historic figure in the history of our favourite art form. Oh yes, and the review covers a 2023 book entitled Anna Atkins: Cyanotypes by Peter Walther and published in Europe by TASCHEN.
