World Photobook Day 2020

#PhotoBookDay 
At Home With My Photobooks

Today is the World Photobook Day 2020, on the occasion of the 177th anniversary of the acquisition by the British Museum of the first photographic book in history: “Photographs of British Algae” by Anna Atkins, in 1843.

 

It goes without saying how much I support photography books, which have been my deep nourishment and the greatest richness of my library.

We therefore give credit to this botanist and lover of photography, considered by many to be the first female photographer in history, who experimented with the new inventions of Talbot and cyanotype.

We can't call ourselves photographers if we don't like looking at other  photographs.

You can't write if you don't read and you can't take pictures if you don't look at and study the photographs of others.

So let's dedicate our day to pampering our books and go shopping for more.

 

Books are always open doors to our still unknown landscapes.

 

World Photobook Day 2020 – October 14th. At Home With My Photobooks

Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions   

The first book to be photographically printed and illustrated, “Photographs of British Algae” was published in fascicles beginning in 1843 and is a landmark in the history of photography. Using specimens she collected herself or received from other amateur scientists, Atkins made the plates by placing wet algae directly on light-sensitized paper and exposing the paper to sunlight. In the 1840s, the study of algae was just beginning to be systematized in Britain, and Atkins based her nomenclature on William Harvey's unillustrated Manual of British Algae (1841), labeling each plate in her own hand.

Although artistic expression was not her primary goal, Atkins was sensitive to the visual appeal of these "flowers of the sea" and arranged her specimens on the page in imaginative and elegant compositions. Uniting rational science with art, Photographs of British Algae is an ambitious and effective book composed entirely of cyanotypes, a process invented in 1842 by Sir John Herschel and long used by architects to duplicate their line drawings as blueprints.”

READ ALSO:

• All About Saul Leiter  
• Edward S. Curtis: The American Indian Singer