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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. 

(via preposterousness)