Cyanotype processing

Cyanotype processing

Technically the cyanotype process falls in the photography category although I think it is on the verge of tipping over into printmaking.

Around 1841, Sir John Herschel disovered the sensitivity to light of a particular iron solution. When the chemical is dissolved in water, it can be applied to a surface like paper for example and an object is placed on top and during exposure to uv light, the background goes blue and a negative image of the object remains. Simple and cheap and still practised today by artists and school children.

Anna Atkins background knowledge was science and was a member of the Botanical Society of London. She developed the Herschel discovery to allow her to producemillustrations of the plants in which she was interested such as algae and ferns.

"The difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects as minute as many of the Algae and Con[i]fera, has induced me to avail myself of Sir John Herschel's beautiful process of Cyanotype, to obtain impressions of the plants themselves."

During the course of the 1840s Atkins produced more than 200 cyanotypes which were included in a 3 volume publication called Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. It stands as the first publication to include images made from a photographic technique and Atkins herself is distinguished as being the first ever female photographer. (The first photograph was produced by Joseph Nicephore Niépce in ~1827)

http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/processes/cyanotype/cyanotype-classic-process