Kalahari Stuart

March 16 - Today we remember and celebrate the birthday of Anna Atkins who was born on March 16, 1799 in Tonbridge, UK. She was a botanist and photographer who published the first photographically illustrated book,"Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions" in October 1843. Atkins self-published her photograms with the first installment in October 1843. She used the cyanotype process invented by her friend John Herschel to make contact printed photograms of dried-algae on cyanotype sensitized paper. She even printed the text captions on transparent paper directly on the cyanotype prints. She is one of our favorites. We are fortunate to have one original print of ferns by Anna Atkins in our collection. William Henry Fox Talbot was also a family friend. Anna learned from Talbot of his inventions of photogenic drawing and his later calotype process. She is said to have had access to a camera in 1841, and is sometimes credited as the first woman photographer. Unfortunately no camera images by her are known to have survived. She died on June 9, 1871, at age 72 at Halstead Place, Sevenoaks, Kent, England.
Anna Atkins (1799-1871)

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