Anna Atkins
Anna Atkins ( born March 16, 1799 in Tonbridge, Kent, † June 9, 1871 Halstead Place, Halstead, Kent; born Anna Children) was an English botanist and illustrator. She published the first book, which had been exclusively illustrated with the aid of a photographic process, and is regarded as one of the first photographers.
Life and work
Anna Atkins was the only child of Hester Anne Holwell and John George Children. The mother died in childbirth. The father, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a polymath with many scientific interests. It addressed, among others, chemistry, mineralogy and zoology. According to him, the mineral Childrenite and the Snake Children 's python ( Antaresia childreni ) were named. John Children relayed the fascination for science to the daughter and gave her the freedom to operate studies and educate yourself. Anna was also interested in artistic techniques, she painted and learned lithography. 1823 their workmanship was so far a way that it could make 200 illustrations for the translated by her father Conchologie of Lamarck. 1825 she married the landowner John Pelly Atkins, the marriage remained childless. Anna and her father were friends with the physicist Sir John Herschel, who had invented in 1839 the photographic process of cyanotype. Within a year, Anna made familiar with the new technology in order to make most accurate pictures of scientific samples. Based on the nomenclature of William Henry Harvey's Manual of British Algae of 1841 they released their blueprints in the image band British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first showed images that were created using a photographic technique. The work she added 1843-1853 to twelve further parts. During this time, 389 titled cyanotype photograms created with additional pages of text. A total of twelve copies of the book were produced elaborate, one of which is now in the National Media Museum in Bradford. Atkins made yet another book with Cyanotypes: With the help of her friend Anne Dixon (1799-1864), a cousin of the novelist Jane Austen, she collected numerous botanical specimens, they published in Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns, 1854.
Little is known about Anna Atkins ' future life. Although their work of a then unprecedented quality were detailed, they found little support in science and soon fell into oblivion. They also seemed to be a marketing their " photographic herbaria " to have been little interest or she has not been possible to make their work more public. In addition, Herschel's cyanotype process was generally little attention and was quickly supplanted by the Calotype, the more realistic pictures allowed. Nevertheless, the cyanotype process should be the only method that has been used even in the following century, for example, in a modified form as blueprints ( diazo ) for architectural drawings. Anna Atkins ' cyanotypes were rediscovered in modern times as an alternative, light visual arrangement method.
Anna Atkins died at 72 years. She was buried in the cemetery of Halstead.