TRUE BLUE: Digital copy of the cyanotype of Fucus vesiculosus var. linearis, scanned from the edition of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, Part XI, once owned by John Frederick William Herschel, inventor of the cyanotype process and neighbor of Anna Atkins. The volume, which now resides at the New York Public Library, is one of only 13 extant editions of the book.NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
In 1842, Anna Atkins, a 43-year-old amateur botanist from Kent, England, began experimenting with a brand-new photographic process called cyanotype or blueprint. With the utmost care and under minimal ambient light, Atkins arranged algae specimens collected from around the British Isles on a sheet of glass and placed it on top of paper coated with photosensitive iron salts, using another sheet of glass to hold the algae in place. After the prepared specimen had lain in the sun, the exposed areas of the paper turned a bright cyan blue, in stark contrast with a stunningly detailed white impression of the alga.
Atkins learned the cyanotype process directly from its inventor, neighbor and family friend Sir John Frederick William Herschel. Within a year of beginning to ...
