If you go to Google today you'll see a delicate cyanotype photogram:
It celebrates the 216th anniversary of the birth of Anna Atkins, considered the earliest female photographer, and the first photographer to publish an entirely photographic book. The Washington Post explains here.
Only 20 copies of the book, titled Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, still exist. You can see it in digital form at the British Library site. And here's a portrait of Anna, in 1861 at age 62.
Mike
(Thanks to John Winder)
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Featured Comments from:
John Linn: "It is interesting that, as abstract as the doodle is, it still reads (or implies) 'Google.'"
I couldn't be more pleased.
Posted by: Rob Atkins | Monday, 16 March 2015 at 12:44 PM
There is also this video about this book...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUUuU7whe0
Brady Haren makes several series of nice videos about a lot of things.
Posted by: psu | Monday, 16 March 2015 at 12:58 PM
How nice that the first photobook is online. Too bad it wasn't easier to view; clicking on each individual page and then having to double click to see the page at a decent resolution is a bit awkward.
Posted by: Jack Nelson | Monday, 16 March 2015 at 03:46 PM
Let's not forget Constance Talbot. According to some photographic histories she was the first woman to make a camera-based photograph, although none of her or Atkins's camera images exist today.
Posted by: Jeff Sprang | Monday, 16 March 2015 at 06:43 PM
Anna Atkins's cyanotype photogram documentation of algaes is truly a remarkable body of work for any day, but especially for its day.
George Eastman House produced a relatively recent video on the cyanoype process which briefly references Atkins's work while describing the cyanotype process, one of photography's earliest methods.
Mike: Pay close attention to catch brief remarks by a mutual friend, former MAM curator Lisa Hostetler, who has just celebrated her first anniversary as Curator-in-Charge at GEH.
Posted by: Kenneth Tanaka | Monday, 16 March 2015 at 07:09 PM
I'm going to have the absolute pleasure of seeing some Anna Atkin's work this year at Stills gallery in Edinburgh. Something I've always wanted to see.
Posted by: Jack Luke | Thursday, 19 March 2015 at 04:45 PM