Anna Atkins
[Photographer, b. 1799, Tunbridge, Kent, England, d. 1871, Halstead, Essex, England.]
The difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects so minute as many of the Algae and Confervae has induced me to avail myself of Sir John Herschel’s beautiful process of Cyanotype, to obtain impressions of the plants themselves, which I have much pleasure in offering to my botanical friends.
(1843, text accompanying the first photographically illustrated book, British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, authored by the Atkins, recognized as the first female photographer.)