Anna Atkins, Cyanotypes and British Botany

Anna Atkins was a British botanist of the 19th century. She was born on this day, March 16, in 1799. Her notability is due to her novel use of the cyanotype photographic process (similar to a blueprint) to record images of plants and algae. What a revolution this was for science! No more relying solely on illustrators to record what plants look like.

Here’s a cyanotype I made from a transparency of a photograph. It shows a latticed stinkhorn mushroom, fly and all: