A cyanotype is a photographic printing process which produces a cyan/blue print. Engineers used this process in the 20th century to create blueprints. This process involves using two chemicals ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. This process what discovered by a British scientist Sir John Hershel in 1842.

Anna Atkins

Was a British botanist and photographer Anna was the first person to publish a book with photographic images her 19th century cyanotypes used light exposure to create detailed images of botanical specimens.

Annas use of cyanotypes helped to merge photography and science and showed that photography has a potential in books.

1849 Anna published her book ‘Photographs Of British Algae: cyanotype impressions’ which only had a limited amount of copies.

my cyanotype

Here is the cyanotype I created on our visit to the Hamptonne using flowers and leaves that I had collected. I placed them on top of the paper and left it in the sun to process then I placed it in water for 2-3 minutes to stop it from developing more and set it out to dry.