WOMEN IN ART: ANNA ATKINS

Some of you may have noticed that the other day (March 16th) Google had a Doodle celebrating Anna Atkin's 216th Birthday. She was a botanist and a photographer using her photographic techniques to document and study many different plants.
First learning of photogenic drawing and calotypes through the inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot and her husband's friend. Herself and Constance Talbot, William Henry Fox Talbot's wife, are known as the first women photographers. She was able to learn about cyanotypes through her husbands friendship with Sir John Herschel, who invented the cyanotype in 1842. After learning the process, Atkins created many photograms of dried algae and then created a book of her studies and photograms in 1843. This book is known to be the first book to have photographic images, even though it was privately published and not many copies were made. Less than a year later Talbot created his book "The Pencil of Nature" which is the first commercially published book to be illustrated with  photographs.

Title Page of Anna Atkins "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions", 1843, cyanotype photogram, Spencer Collection/ Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, NY Public Library

Introduction of Anna Atkins "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions", 1843, cyanotype photogram, Spencer Collection/ Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, NY Public Library

Cystoseria granulata, Anna Atkins "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions", 1843, cyanotype photogram, Spencer Collection/ Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, NY Public Library

Atkins went on to create two more volumes of "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions" and in the 1850s collaborated with Anne Dixon to create more cyanotype books: "Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns" (1853), "Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns" (1854). In addition to the photographic books she also wrote many books, without photograms, of her studies.

Poppy, Anna Atkins "Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns", about 1854, cyanotype photogra, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

I've written a previous post about Dark Room Photography and how important it is, so check it out if you're curious: link here. But I never fully described what cyanotypes are. So here's a detailed description:
-First you mix together equal volumes of a photosensitive solution of 8.1% potassium ferricyanide and 20% ferric ammonium citrate.
-Then you brush it evenly on a natural fibered cloth/paper. And set to dry in a dark room.
-A positive image will be produced when the emulsion covered paper is shown to UV light (sunlight or UV fluorescent lights) with a negative image laying straight on the emulsion. This is called a contact print because the negative and the emulsion must be in flat contact to avoid any blurriness.
-Once the image is a steely blue/gray then you take it out from under the light and wash it in a water bath washing off the yellow iron that was reduced by the UV.
-After you wash off the iron you can wash the print in another bath of water and a splash of 3% hydrogen peroxide which darkens the blues of the print.
-These prints can also be toned after they're dried through tea, bleach, and wine among other things.

You can find many scans of her cyanotypes online and the actual pages and scans across London.

PHOTO LABS: WHY THEY ARE IMPORTANT

Recently across the United States, many high schools and colleges/universities have been shutting down their dark rooms, companies stopped selling film, and people just stopped learning about film photography or photo processes. A lot of people either don't know why this is happening. A lot of people don't care and don't think it is important. And for some reason a lot of people are against having photo labs running. 

In high school when the dark room was being closed down, I didn't care. I was a digital photo kid, not a film kid. I still am, but that doesn't mean that I don't support it and find that the results people get from film photography is stupid. It's gorgeous. I have taken a few classes about the historic photo processes: cyanotypes, van dyke browns, salt prints and work in the photo lab. I think that if you are going to call yourself a photographer, or I'll even go to say, if you are going to call yourself an artist you need to take a photography class. Any kind of photography, digital or film, you will learn so much about composition, tweaking a final image, and critiquing that will be amazingly helpful in whatever process you do.

What made me want to write this post was mainly because many people don't realize the amazing prints that can come out of these processes. There any so many techniques that are so much more amazing when done by hand than by digitally editing an image. For instance, this 35mm film print is a double exposure. It's not just laying two images over each other with 50% opacity in Adobe Photoshop.

Ryan Teed, Alley, 35mm Double Exposure & Sequentially Toned

Other historic processes like Cyanotypes, Van Dyke Browns, Salt Prints, and Gum Prints create beautiful hand made prints that are literally one-of-a-kind. These processes are not being taught as broadly anymore and are quite rare to find, therefore their worth goes up, but popularity goes down. Here are just some examples to make you in awe of the gorgeous types of photography people are missing out on:

Aisling Housel, Flowers 5, Cyanotype

Leyla, Van Dyke Brown

Ryan Teed, Mask 1, Gum Print

 Most of these processes include mixing the emulsion in a dark area, and painting it on, exposing it, and then developing your print. There are many ways to change the image during the process to create weird effects that are worth it in the end. It's all science so experimenting and testing things out is what is the most fun about it, just don't forget they're also chemicals so you have to be really careful!
Slaving over a perfect print for an hour versus clicking a few buttons? All depends on what it's worth to you. But the ending result is something amazing and valuable.

Photo Cites:
Film - Alley: http://rnteed.wix.com/teedphotography
Cyanotype - Flowers 5: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aisling-Housel/207239936104721
Van Dyke Brown - Leyla: http://leylaphotography.com/#/van-dyke-brown/
Gum Print - Mask 1: http://rnteed.wix.com/teedphotography#!historic-processes/c14ak