Digital Cyanotypes

I chose to use more than one leaf as I thought that it would look more interesting. It was a last minute decision to arrange them in the way that they are but I'm happy with the way the image looked as a whole. If I was to make one of these again I would have got a more variety of different leaves. I prefer the original image that was created than the photoshopped one. I think it looks better with true colours.

What is a cyanotype?

Cyanotypes are photographic blueprints. Chemically treated sufaces such as paper and fabric are exposed to sunlight and after a chemical reaction happens you are left with silhouettes with blue backrounds.

What is a scanogram?

Scanogram, also called scannography, is the process of producing artistic digital images by using a flat-bed image scanner.

Anna Atkins

Anna atkins was an english photographer and botanist. Some people believe that she was the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images. Other sources say that she was the first woman to create a photograph. Anna was close to her father who was a scientist. Back then, the scientific knowledge that Anna recieved, was rare. She did deatailed engravings of shells that were used to illustrate her father's translation of Lamarck's Genera of Shells. John George Children’s Royal Society group included members: William Henry fox Talbot (inventer of the calotype photographic process) and Herschel (chemist-astronomer and photographic scientist who invented the precursor to blueprinting also known as the cyanotype). Atkins made cyanotypes of all the algae in the British Isles in 1854. Less than 20 copies of her pioneering book are known to existence.