KUMMERBUND

nabokovsnotebook:

Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions was self-published in 1843 by botanist and photographer Anna Atkins. Atkins may have been the first woman to create a photograph and to publish a book with accompanying photographic illustrations. That makes her the first female photographer, folks. 

Cyanotype is a type of contact printing (invented by the interesting-in-his-own-right John Herschel for blueprint copying, and brought to photographic art by Atkins), and Atkins created her photograms of algae by placing dried specimens directly atop the paper for exposure.