An in-depth explanation of the history of photograms and cyanotypes: https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-33-spring-2015/out-light-shadows
Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. The process uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. The British scientist Sir John Herschel discovered how to create cyanotypes in 1842.
Hershel managed to fix pictures using hyposulphite of soda as early as 1839. In the early days the paper was coated with iron salts and then used in contact printing. The paper was then washed in water and resulted in a white image on a deep blue background. (Apart from the cyanotype process, Herschel also gave us the words photography, negative, positive and snapshot.)
The process remains as simplistic as it did when it was discovered, producing a white image on a deep blue background.
One of the first people to put the cyanotype process to use was Anna Atkins, who in October 1843 became the first person to produce and photographically illustrated a book using cyanotypes.
ANNA ATKINS
Born: March 16, 1799, Tonbridge, United Kingdom
Died: June 9, 1871, Halstead, United Kingdom
English botanical artist, collector and photographer Anna Atkins was the first person to illustrate a book with photographic images. Her nineteenth-century cyanotypes used light exposure and a simple chemical process to create impressively detailed blueprints of botanical specimens.
Anna’s innovative use of new photographic technologies merged art and science, and exemplified the exceptional potential of photography in books.
Anna’s self-published her detailed and meticulous botanical images using the cyanotype photographic process in her 1843 book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. With a limited number of copies, it was the first book ever to be printed and illustrated by photography.
You can view images from the book …
MY CYANOTYPE
I created this cyanotype by picking up random objects (such as petals and flowers) from the floor in Hamptonne Museum and placing them on specific cyanotype paper then leaving them in the sun to develop for a few minutes, once they had been exposed to the sun I rinsed them in water so they stop developing and wouldn’t become over-exposed.