1843

December 24, 2024  •  Leave a Comment

A few readers asked me when was the first "photo book" published in history by whom ?

I believe it is safe to say there are two good answers to this question.

In general it is accepted that English botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (Née Children) published what's considered the first book ever to be illustrated exclusively with photographs. ("Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1843.)

The most complete edition of this work is housed in The Royal Society in London.  This version contains 403 pages with 389 photos or maybe more accurately referred to as "photograms".

These photos are not captured by camera, but are cyanotypes where Atkins placed the algae directly onto photography paper, exposed by sunlight and then developed by rinsing the unreacted iron solution off with running water.  A technique discovered by English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842.  (Herschel has many contributions to photography technology but that's another story.)

He was a family friend of Anna Atkins, who subsequently applied the "photogram" process to her botanic work.

Atkins was known to have access to a camera in 1841 and she learned directly from her friend William Henry Fox Talbot about photograms and calotypes.

There will possibly never be a satisfactory answer to who was the first female photographer.  Anna Atkins or Constance Fox Talbot, as no camera-based photographs from either survive.

The J. Paul Getty Museum has a link to Anna Atkins and examples of the photograms here in the "Collections".

The second good answer is "The Pencil of Nature", published in six installments between 1844 and 1846 and written by William Henry Fox Talbot.  The latter doesn't need much introduction as many books have been published on his accomplishments and impact on the historical development of photography.

The "Pencil of Nature" book detailed the development of the calotype process and included 24 calotype prints, pasted in by hand.

The book was not a commercial success and the project was terminated after six installments.

A digital copy can be found at the Gutenberg project here

Happy book hunting !

Cheers,

 

Rudi A Blondia

 

 

 

 

 

 


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