She captured the psychedelic side of plants with the cyanotype process

In Tonbridge in 1843, a young woman walked into nature with a camera. Against a base of pure, rich Prussian blue, she created an album of seaweed images that seemed to drown in blue like dim flames.

(Anna Atkins)

This young woman so devoted to plant photography was the renowned British botanist and illustrator Anna Atkins. Today, people always praise her as "the first woman in the world to publish a photographic album," and some even regard her as "the world's first female photographer."

Influenced by her father, in an era when photography meant pungent chemicals, she relied on her love of plants, hercyanotype processobsession and unique insight to successfully publish "Photographs of British Algae," which is also the first photographic album devoted to the study of algal biology.

The cyanotype processis also known as "cyanotype photography." It was discovered by Sir John Herschel, a mutual friend of Atkins and her father, who found between 1841 and 1842 that many iron compounds are light-sensitive, and thereby invented the cyanotype method. This ancient photographic technique is still active today in the field of drafting, known among designers as the blueprint.

(Algae)

She said, "It is difficult to draw accurately the details of so many algae and unknown plants, which prompted me to use Sir John Herschel's beautiful cyanotype process to obtain images of the plants themselves, and I am very happy to recommend it to my botanist friends."

I do not know with how much passion she held back that pungent smell.

I do not know in what kind of weather she picked her "muses."

I do not even know how she felt as she arranged each plant specimen.

But what I can truly feel from her plant albums is this

This quiet yet mysterious blue, like seawater wrapping around her lens. As the sea breeze comes, the seawater stirs slightly, and those clearly visible stems and leaves seem to dance gracefully, exceedingly lively.

(Ferns)

Ferns give off an elegant glow in her ocean

(Poppies)

Poppies bloom with graceful flowers in her blue eyes

I am enchanted by her obsession

Marvelling at her avant-garde and psychedelic style

What surprises me even more is that plants need no embellishment

They are simply a masterpiece of exquisite beauty

Nurtured by nature, growing by nature, the beauty of nature

I think this is probably where the charm of plants lies.