biography of the day--anna atkins, botanist, photographer (ist to publish book with photos)
Anna Atkins
Anna Atkins (née Children; 16 March 1799 – 9 June 1871[1]) was an English botanist and photographer. She is often considered the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images.[2][3][4] Some sources claim that she was the first woman to create a photograph.[3][4][5][6]
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Atkins was known to have had access to a camera by 1841.[8] Some sources claim that Atkins was the first female photographer.[3][4][5][6][13] Other sources name Constance Talbot, the wife of William Fox Talbot, as the first female photographer.[14][15][16] As no camera-based photographs by Anna Atkins[8] nor any photographs by Constance Talbot[15] survive, the issue may never be resolved.
Sir John Herschel, a friend of Atkins and Children, invented the cyanotype photographic process in 1842.[1] Within a year, Atkins applied the process to algae (specifically, seaweed) by making cyanotype photograms that were contact printed[1] "by placing the unmounted dried-algae original directly on the cyanotype paper."[5]
Atkins self-published her photograms in the first installment of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions in October 1843.[2] Although privately published, with a limited number of copies, and with handwritten text, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions is considered the first book illustrated with photographic images.[2][3][4][17] Eight months later, in June 1844, the first fascicle of William Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature was released; that book was the "first photographically illustrated book to be commercially published"[18] or "the first commercially published book illustrated with photographs."[19]
Atkins produced a total of three volumes of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions between 1843 and 1853.[20] Only 17 copies of the book are known to exist, in various states of completeness.[21] Copies are now held by, among other institutions:[5][7]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Atkins
