Cyanotypes, the word sounds all scientific and snazzy but really.. they're actually really simple. Anna Atkins used this process most famously and she was the first female photographer that used this process and made a book out of it British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.
Atkins was an professional botanist and drawer of plants, she discovered the cyanotype process after meeting British inventor, Fox Talbot. She found when potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate (green) and water are mixed together then painted onto to paper then something placed over it, then placed into the sun and left it would print an exact picture of what she put onto the paper. Before this discovery, people who wanted to make books with pictures they would d have to hire an artist to draw for them. That could cause unreliable information, with this new process Anna Atkins proceeded to create an entire book to do with plants made from cyanotypes. |
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