Anna Atkins

Anna Atkins was a botanist who used the new cyanotype process, invented by her friend John Herschel, to make Photographs of British Algae, issued from 1843 and often called the first book illustrated with photographs. Each blue-and-white print was made by laying a seaweed specimen directly on sensitised paper. Botanists used it as a reference; today the pages hang in galleries as early photographic art.