The cyanotype process was discovered in 1842 by an English scientist and astronomer called John Herschel. However it was given a photographic process in 1843 by an English botanist; Anna Atkins, making her the very first woman to use photography.
Anna Atkins photography stood out to me the most, as I was impressed with how her work was made using only chemicals and sunlight. As a plant biologist, she used sun prints to document the specimens of algae found in the British Isles, which she eventually published in the form of a book called ‘British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions’.
Being greatly inspired by Anna Atkins, I decided to create my own version of blue prints, using leaves and plants.
I coated watercolour papers with a mixture of ammonium ferric citrate, potassium ferricyanide and water. Once the cyanotype solutions had dried up, I positioned the leaves on top and placed the paper in a glass frame. As the day was quite dull and cloudy, I had to expose the paper in UV light. At the beginning, I was hesitant to do this as I believed that sun light exposure would produce higher quality prints, however I was impressed the result of the UV light exposure.
For the final prints, I will make sure to experiment further with the composition of the leaves and use small leaves with fine details as it provides details in the prints.