William Henry Fox–Talbot called his early photographic experiments photogenic drawings. Created without the use of a camera, these pictures offer silhouette images of leaves and lace that had been placed in direct contact with writing paper sensitized with silver salts. Talbot announced his photographic research in 1839. Not long after, in 1843, Anna Atkins created Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book illustrated with photographs. Privately published as a hand-bound, limited edition, it included a handwritten text along with photogenic drawings (cyanotypes) of seaweed and algae she gathered along the British coast.
I am attracted to Talbot and Atkins’ (now alternative) ways of making ...
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