1 00:00:11,950 --> 00:00:22,940 Welcome, everyone, to this online tool book. The title of the talk is Anna Atkins' Botanical Illustration and Photographic Innovation. 2 00:00:22,940 --> 00:00:32,000 The event is a collaboration between Photo Oxford Clitic to Oxford Festival and towards the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. 3 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:39,830 Now we'd like to say thank you tutorage, for hosting this event tonight and for making everything possible and for sharing sleights. 4 00:00:39,830 --> 00:00:48,320 So we see some images. My name is Enough, which I'm the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Maritime Museum, University of Oxford. 5 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:53,960 And I'm also a big fan of photography and a researcher of photography. 6 00:00:53,960 --> 00:01:00,290 I did my page on Japanese photography and I've published a on well, mainly Japanese photography. 7 00:01:00,290 --> 00:01:11,630 And yes, I'm very excited. That's tonight I'm joined by Professor Jeffrey Betsen, who knows much more about photography than me. 8 00:01:11,630 --> 00:01:16,700 And we want this to be a really fun, relaxed talk tonight. So please get yourself a drink. 9 00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:24,350 Have a nice little Campari here and just relax and please ask us questions. 10 00:01:24,350 --> 00:01:33,230 So there will be there's a little chat box. And so you can comment and ask us questions that we will then be able to answer at the end. 11 00:01:33,230 --> 00:01:37,970 I'm going to say a few words about Jeff, who you can already see, I think, on the screen. 12 00:01:37,970 --> 00:01:44,240 Jeff is the head of auto history at the University of Oxford, and he's also a fellow of Trinity College. 13 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:51,080 And his research has really focussed on photography, on photography in a very diverse way. 14 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:56,390 I'm just going to mention a few main publications, for example, Burning with Desire, 15 00:01:56,390 --> 00:02:05,420 The Conception of Photography from 1997, each wild idea writing, photography, history from 2001 emanations. 16 00:02:05,420 --> 00:02:08,480 The Art of the camera. This photograph from 2016. 17 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:16,610 I think this might actually also be interesting for tonight's talk and apparitions, photography and dissemination from two thousand eighteen. 18 00:02:16,610 --> 00:02:27,530 And Jeff, like me, has also curated quite many shows in his case, ranging from Australia and New Zealand to Japan to the Netherlands and Germany. 19 00:02:27,530 --> 00:02:31,340 So welcome, Geoff. Thank you, Lena. Thanks for having me. 20 00:02:31,340 --> 00:02:40,970 Thanks for the introduction. So just to kind of give you a brief idea how you know how the event is organised tonight, 21 00:02:40,970 --> 00:02:45,140 I'm going to first give you kind of very brief introduction about you to Oxford, 22 00:02:45,140 --> 00:02:50,120 about the festival, the theme of the festival, and also about an Atkins. 23 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:55,570 And this will be accompanied by slides. So you can see so you can see some images. 24 00:02:55,570 --> 00:02:59,150 And then following this, I'm going to ask what is going to be different? 25 00:02:59,150 --> 00:03:05,750 A conversation, but maybe asking me, Jeff, various questions about Atkins work. 26 00:03:05,750 --> 00:03:12,490 And yet, as I mentioned at the beginning, please ask us questions. So at the end, we can come back to your questions. 27 00:03:12,490 --> 00:03:21,230 Yes. Could I please get the first slice? You see, this is our kind of injury slide. 28 00:03:21,230 --> 00:03:25,850 Again, botanical illustration and photographic innovation. Could I see the next slide? 29 00:03:25,850 --> 00:03:36,890 These. Yes. So, of course, this is about photography and we would like to think many people who have made it possible for us to show images tonight, 30 00:03:36,890 --> 00:03:40,610 different institutions that hold I atkins' images. 31 00:03:40,610 --> 00:03:44,390 So thank you very much. The next slide, please. 32 00:03:44,390 --> 00:03:50,510 So this is just to give you a kind of idea of what the photo ID festival is about this year. 33 00:03:50,510 --> 00:03:54,740 So the theme of this year's festival is women and Photography. 34 00:03:54,740 --> 00:04:00,590 And I happen to be a trustee of Photo Oxford. And I'm very excited about this theme. 35 00:04:00,590 --> 00:04:04,520 One of the reasons why I wanted to focus on women and photography this year is that 36 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:10,310 it is exactly 100 years ago that the first woman graduated from Oxford University. 37 00:04:10,310 --> 00:04:13,310 So this was in 1920, in October. 38 00:04:13,310 --> 00:04:21,320 And so we thought it's really kind of fitting to to celebrate that by focussing on women and photography and theme women. 39 00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:27,410 And photography does not only mean women photographers, but it also relates to women in front of the camera, 40 00:04:27,410 --> 00:04:32,870 relates to women who work with photography as curators. Women who collect photography. 41 00:04:32,870 --> 00:04:38,870 So, you know, really women and photography in the widest possible sentence. 42 00:04:38,870 --> 00:04:48,020 And here we see a photograph by Helen Must Separate, which is one exhibition that was on during the first festival at the Western Library in Oxford. 43 00:04:48,020 --> 00:04:53,960 Of course, unfortunately, during the pandemic, the exhibition is closed at the moment. 44 00:04:53,960 --> 00:04:56,030 Next slide, please. 45 00:04:56,030 --> 00:05:05,180 But we have obviously knowing about kov it the when we at the beginning of the year when we were thinking about what to do with the festival. 46 00:05:05,180 --> 00:05:08,690 We thought about various alternative ways of presenting photography. 47 00:05:08,690 --> 00:05:16,820 And then you can see two interviews that I did for the for the home page, basically, for example, one with Canadia PARCA, 48 00:05:16,820 --> 00:05:23,870 contemporary artists who I think is actually quite interesting also in relation to Atkins' Photography and Tokyo to Wandel, 49 00:05:23,870 --> 00:05:34,360 whose work would have been shown in a big exhibition at the Ashmolean this summer, an exhibition called Tokyo Art and Photography, which we had to. 50 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:43,360 Postponed, which is hopefully going to happen next summer. So, yeah, various online events, you can see their home page in their slide. 51 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:47,800 I hope so. Please cheque out the home page. There's a lot of content there. 52 00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:56,080 Next slide, please. And the other way of sharing photography, if I have to close experience, is, of course, outside. 53 00:05:56,080 --> 00:06:05,590 So we decided to have a few outside installations. So if you're an Oxford on the home page, you can see that there is a map which you can download. 54 00:06:05,590 --> 00:06:11,090 And with basic on your phone could walk around town and to see where they are different 55 00:06:11,090 --> 00:06:17,380 to outdoor installations of photography ranging from Italian to young Italian. 56 00:06:17,380 --> 00:06:22,410 London based photographer Severo See to next slide, please. 57 00:06:22,410 --> 00:06:28,210 And Atkins', whose walk is presented also outside at Trinity College. 58 00:06:28,210 --> 00:06:35,340 And Jeff made a selection of beautiful and Atkins' photographs that are shown outside. 59 00:06:35,340 --> 00:06:40,660 I think there is a thatt slide showing some outdoor installations. 60 00:06:40,660 --> 00:06:44,380 Yeah, we're really what we really likes about this is, you know, kind of people who might have never, 61 00:06:44,380 --> 00:06:50,740 ever heard of Anna Atkins' just come across a walk by just looking through occiput it and suddenly 62 00:06:50,740 --> 00:06:58,510 seeing an installation and then might be curious and want to find out more about her work. 63 00:06:58,510 --> 00:07:04,930 Next slide, please. So I'm as I said, I'm not really an expert of early photography. 64 00:07:04,930 --> 00:07:07,420 I do 20th century photography most of the time. 65 00:07:07,420 --> 00:07:15,820 And so kind of you know, I wanted to see how atkins' photography is now perceived today by people who don't know anything about photography. 66 00:07:15,820 --> 00:07:22,210 And so I basically just Googled us and it was kind of interesting to see that all these products came up. 67 00:07:22,210 --> 00:07:26,450 So there are all these and Atkins' prints that you can buy, of course, but they're also, 68 00:07:26,450 --> 00:07:31,690 you know, table cloths and puzzles and there is an atkins' wallpaper even. 69 00:07:31,690 --> 00:07:39,370 And I thought it's quite amazing that a woman who's a photographer who's seen as make maybe even the first woman photographer is definitely one of 70 00:07:39,370 --> 00:07:50,480 the very early photographers that her work is still so fashionable and that it still works today that that they even wallpaper with her goatees. 71 00:07:50,480 --> 00:08:00,400 But yeah, who was an Atkins next slide? These napkins was born in seventeen ninety nine in Kent. 72 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:05,950 Her father, John Jauch children was a botanist and chemist, zoologist. 73 00:08:05,950 --> 00:08:09,970 Her mother passed away when she was very young just a year later. 74 00:08:09,970 --> 00:08:13,420 And she had a quite close relationship with her father. 75 00:08:13,420 --> 00:08:22,770 And considering the fact that she was a woman and considering, you know, at the time she actually received quite a scientific education, 76 00:08:22,770 --> 00:08:27,640 she'd collected plants and dried them, creating these kind of karriem albums. 77 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:32,320 I recently actually found some in our basement when we were going through when my grandmother 78 00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:37,010 passed away and we found all these albums by my grandfather and great grandfather. 79 00:08:37,010 --> 00:08:42,640 So I think, you know, many of you probably also know this this wonderful tradition of barriers. 80 00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:45,700 So she she holds a collective breath, plants and dried them. 81 00:08:45,700 --> 00:08:54,040 And I researched them and was then also elected a member of the London Botanical Society in eighteen hundred thirty nine. 82 00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:58,060 So that was kind of, you know, the botanical interest was already there. 83 00:08:58,060 --> 00:09:03,250 She married John Peli Atkins. And so that's where the name Atkins' then comes from. 84 00:09:03,250 --> 00:09:08,890 Who is a businessman and a proponent of railways. She didn't have any children. 85 00:09:08,890 --> 00:09:13,810 And maybe we can go to the next slides. We can see some of her wax. 86 00:09:13,810 --> 00:09:20,280 And so, John, John, George, Children's father, and John Atkins, the husband, 87 00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:28,660 they were both friends with William Henry Fox Talbert's we're senior important pioneer of photography. 88 00:09:28,660 --> 00:09:31,960 And and Adkins was also friends with John Herschel, 89 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:40,370 who is also an experiment photographer and astronomer who invented the blueprint in eighteen hundred forty two. 90 00:09:40,370 --> 00:09:44,830 And we're going to hear more about the technological side of things in a minute. 91 00:09:44,830 --> 00:09:53,400 And so basically, one of the very important works by Anne Adkins is, you know, this very early photobook that was first published. 92 00:09:53,400 --> 00:09:59,110 It was published between eighteen hundred forty three and eighteen hundred fifty fifty three and different kind of components. 93 00:09:59,110 --> 00:10:04,600 But the work that we see here on the screen is one of those really early wax 94 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:12,000 dutchie that created it in the early 1940s with this new innovative technique. 95 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:17,650 You just have a look at a few more images for now. So these have Oggy. 96 00:10:17,650 --> 00:10:24,640 It's a whole book only about LGT, and it's just fascinating how beautiful these Palicki look in her work. 97 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:33,670 And the reason why she originally created this these these works, these images was that there was already a book about. 98 00:10:33,670 --> 00:10:42,670 These algae, Emmanual. It's called manual to the British Algae from eighteen hundred and forty one by William Henry Harvey. 99 00:10:42,670 --> 00:10:54,360 And that one didn't have any illustration. It didn't have any photographs. And so she created these photographs in a way to complement the manual. 100 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:58,620 She continued to create more of these wonderful cyanotype prints. 101 00:10:58,620 --> 00:11:08,200 I think overall it must have been over a thousand that she created these artworks that we now see that she created together with her friend and Dixon. 102 00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:13,140 And it's actually quite interesting if you look at the work, how it develops kind of gets more abstract, 103 00:11:13,140 --> 00:11:18,670 even it gets even more creative and more kind of decorative. 104 00:11:18,670 --> 00:11:24,730 And yes, I would like to ask Jack some questions about it, about these blacks. 105 00:11:24,730 --> 00:11:27,870 Presley, maybe, you know, just the kind of personal context. 106 00:11:27,870 --> 00:11:37,230 Jack, how did you first encounter and Atkins photography and how did you do you remember how you how you first encountered her photographs? 107 00:11:37,230 --> 00:11:44,520 I do remember because like most people, I think I first encountered Atkins' work in the form of this book, 108 00:11:44,520 --> 00:11:52,380 which came out in nineteen eighty five, authored by the eminent American scholar Larry Sharf and published by Aperture in New York. 109 00:11:52,380 --> 00:11:53,520 Beautifully illustrated. 110 00:11:53,520 --> 00:12:03,720 I'll just show you the nice thing about genotypes is that they reproduce very nicely because they're such stock blue and white images. 111 00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:10,350 So until about mid 1980s and Atkins' had been more or less forgotten and Larry had 112 00:12:10,350 --> 00:12:15,590 encountered her work and did a fair amount of research and presented this book on it. 113 00:12:15,590 --> 00:12:22,830 This was my first introduction to them. So I first saw them in the form of reproductions in this book before I'd ever seen an actual print. 114 00:12:22,830 --> 00:12:32,250 I should just mention that just last year, Larry has issued a revised and much expanded version of that book. 115 00:12:32,250 --> 00:12:40,140 So the one I showed first is now apparently a rare and valuable item where this one is still available in print. 116 00:12:40,140 --> 00:12:45,690 So if people are have an interest in learning more about icons, Larry is the source of all knowledge. 117 00:12:45,690 --> 00:12:51,390 And this is a very beautiful book. It was only recently just come out. So, yeah, that's how I first encountered her work. 118 00:12:51,390 --> 00:12:57,210 I know, though, since then I have seen her work because many of the world's pre-eminent museums 119 00:12:57,210 --> 00:13:01,950 and certainly those that collect photography have collected work by ACoNs. 120 00:13:01,950 --> 00:13:05,010 I'll just add something to what you said before. According to Larry, 121 00:13:05,010 --> 00:13:11,930 there is actually at least six thousand sinor touched by Atkins' of British ALGY plus several hundred others of various other things. 122 00:13:11,930 --> 00:13:20,690 So there's actually a lot of Atkins' prints out there in the museum and even in the market. 123 00:13:20,690 --> 00:13:25,950 Maybe we can kind of talk a little bit more about, you know, this kind of first book, 124 00:13:25,950 --> 00:13:34,660 the photographs of British Algate Cyanotype Impression's, which is often considered to be the first photo back. 125 00:13:34,660 --> 00:13:38,770 How, you know, how were these works actually created technically? 126 00:13:38,770 --> 00:13:46,650 So I already mentioned it was a cyanotype photographic process was developed by by John HaShalom. 127 00:13:46,650 --> 00:13:50,800 Eighteen hundred forty two. It was a completely really new technology then. 128 00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:56,200 At the time when she used it, how did how did you actually create these flags? 129 00:13:56,200 --> 00:14:02,950 As you said before, Lina Herschel was a friend of John Children and therefore also of Anna ACoNs. 130 00:14:02,950 --> 00:14:08,680 And when he published his discovery of Cyanotype, he sent John children a copy. 131 00:14:08,680 --> 00:14:16,000 And so Anakin said Direct had direct access, if you like, to all the formulae and chemicals that were necessary. 132 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,130 And she was a very industrious person. 133 00:14:18,130 --> 00:14:27,220 So she immediately imagined this particular function for this new invention and decided she would create the series of albums. 134 00:14:27,220 --> 00:14:32,380 So what it involved was some relatively available chemistry. 135 00:14:32,380 --> 00:14:38,550 And certainly if you were an expert chemist, as her father was, and presumably Anna herself also was, 136 00:14:38,550 --> 00:14:46,600 you mixed Ferrick ammonium nitrate and potassium, very, very cyanide to make an iron salt that would sensitive to light. 137 00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:54,370 So you would take an ordinary piece of writing paper, you would brush this chemistry onto the paper and let it dry in the dark. 138 00:14:54,370 --> 00:14:59,680 And then when you ready to expose it to light, you would take it out of the dark, put it in sunlight, 139 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:08,410 literally put in this case a specimen of dried algae on top of the piece of paper exposed to light for between maybe five to 15 minutes, 140 00:15:08,410 --> 00:15:11,820 depending on the degree of sunshine that was available. 141 00:15:11,820 --> 00:15:18,940 And the image, as you can see, a wide impression on a blue background would gradually begin to appear. 142 00:15:18,940 --> 00:15:26,050 And then when you based on actually obviously unexperienced, realised that the full impression had been made, 143 00:15:26,050 --> 00:15:32,680 you would take the specimen off the paper and then wash the piece of paper in clean water. 144 00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:41,110 And that then washed out the light sensitive salts and you had a permanent white on blue impression of the plant specimen in your hand. 145 00:15:41,110 --> 00:15:52,700 And as you can see, they've lasted from 1843 until now and they still look, most of them almost as fresh as the day that she made them. 146 00:15:52,700 --> 00:16:00,050 It's amazing. I'm sorry. If we think about the purpose of these, like so they were originally made for, you know, 147 00:16:00,050 --> 00:16:09,980 there's a kind of botanical scientific purpose to record this specimen and record them as accurately as possible. 148 00:16:09,980 --> 00:16:18,320 And of course, there were shown in the correct size because they were based on dried algae and striped plants. 149 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:27,200 And they're presented together with their Latin name just the way that, you know, you which present plants in these herbarium orphans at the time. 150 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:34,430 Could you talk a bit about this botanical interest and the context that these images were first created? 151 00:16:34,430 --> 00:16:40,880 Yeah, Atkins' was already familiar with the mechanics, if you like, of scientific illustration. 152 00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:46,610 She had helped her father illustrate a book devoted to the genera of shells. 153 00:16:46,610 --> 00:16:53,570 And she had done the drawings on which engravings were based. So before Atkins' and even after Ekins, to some degree, 154 00:16:53,570 --> 00:16:57,080 the way that scientific illustration occurred was somebody would make a drawing of 155 00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:01,250 a specimen and that drawing would have been translated into an engraved plate. 156 00:17:01,250 --> 00:17:05,210 And then you would make income paper impressions from that great play. 157 00:17:05,210 --> 00:17:14,300 That, of course, was a rather laborious means of illustrating scientific texts and also allowed a brought into the mechanism, 158 00:17:14,300 --> 00:17:18,590 if you like, the potential imperfection of the human hand and the human eye. 159 00:17:18,590 --> 00:17:27,170 So what Atkins' wanted to do is replace this imperfection with a means of making impressions or images of algae 160 00:17:27,170 --> 00:17:33,620 where the algae got to make their own drawing and the imperfection of the human hand was taken out of the equation. 161 00:17:33,620 --> 00:17:38,300 So what she would do was literally she had this extraordinary collection of British algae, 162 00:17:38,300 --> 00:17:44,270 some of which she collected herself and some of which had been sent to her by friends and colleagues. 163 00:17:44,270 --> 00:17:47,990 She would then take each specimen and literally place it on the page. 164 00:17:47,990 --> 00:17:54,500 As you said, one of the striking things about these images is that they are one to one copy of the original specimen, 165 00:17:54,500 --> 00:17:59,390 because The Matrix, if you like, is literally the piece of seaweed or algae itself. 166 00:17:59,390 --> 00:18:06,680 She then also used a handwritten Latin label that she placed on each page. 167 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:11,720 And that's been written on a piece of paper which has then been oiled so that the paper is made transparent. 168 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:16,670 Then she would put that on the paper as well. And then over the specimen. And this label, 169 00:18:16,670 --> 00:18:23,600 she would put a sheet of glass and all of it would be then screwed down into a wooden frame and then they would be left out in the 170 00:18:23,600 --> 00:18:31,730 sunlight so that the glass in the frame within flatten the specimen down onto the paper and create a sharpened impression as possible. 171 00:18:31,730 --> 00:18:42,050 And then what happens is that the specimen prevents light reaching the light sensitive eye and salt in the paper and thus leaves a wide impression. 172 00:18:42,050 --> 00:18:49,660 And the rest of the paper goes blue. And so we get these kind of reverse tone impressions of all the details of the plant. 173 00:18:49,660 --> 00:18:51,410 And as we've been looking through the examples, 174 00:18:51,410 --> 00:18:59,420 you will have seen how on occasions she's folded part of the seaweed or algae over itself in order to make it fit the page. 175 00:18:59,420 --> 00:19:05,360 So there's a certain amount of creativity involved, if you like, in arranging the specimen on the page. 176 00:19:05,360 --> 00:19:13,160 Usually the specimen was placed directly in the centre so that there's a sense of the logic of symmetry, if you like, 177 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:19,520 involved in the way in which the specimen itself was placed on the page or in this case, across the diagonal. 178 00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:29,280 So that all as much of the specimen as possible could actually be included in in the in the plate that represents it, of course. 179 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:33,680 When like when the when the specimen is somewhat transparent, light can go through it. 180 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:42,890 And so we get some sort of variations that tells us something about the thickness and transparency, relative transparency of each specimen as well. 181 00:19:42,890 --> 00:19:49,820 If you are the little things about it that are worth noting, books at this period were usually issued in parts. 182 00:19:49,820 --> 00:19:55,400 So as you mentioned, the first part was issued in October of 1843 with eight plates. 183 00:19:55,400 --> 00:20:02,870 And then this. Each of those Fazekas, as they were called, would then be hand sewn together in a sort of paper wrapper. 184 00:20:02,870 --> 00:20:10,850 And then that would be sent out to her friends and to botanical colleagues, both in England and possibly around the world. 185 00:20:10,850 --> 00:20:19,310 And so probably she would have used her servants to help her do this, because what we're talking about is an awful lot of manual labour. 186 00:20:19,310 --> 00:20:23,300 So one of the interesting things about these kinds of albums is that on the one hand, 187 00:20:23,300 --> 00:20:27,740 we have this industrial automatic process of making images and on the other hand, 188 00:20:27,740 --> 00:20:34,400 we have a lot of hand labour and manual creativity that's involved in the making of them. 189 00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:37,730 In the example you have up here, which is quite an interesting one, 190 00:20:37,730 --> 00:20:43,480 you can see that how she would have literally placed the specimen on the piece of paper and then lifted it off, 191 00:20:43,480 --> 00:20:51,050 flipped it over onto another piece of paper. And we get the same specimen, but now in a different arrangement on the other piece of paper. 192 00:20:51,050 --> 00:20:55,660 So we have to imagine. Her and her servants sitting there or standing there, 193 00:20:55,660 --> 00:21:02,590 clipping these pieces of algae from page paper to paper to make multiple copies of the same specimen. 194 00:21:02,590 --> 00:21:10,990 It's reminded that what this project is about is providing accurate data, accurate scientific information. 195 00:21:10,990 --> 00:21:14,650 So it didn't matter that each image didn't look exactly the same. 196 00:21:14,650 --> 00:21:23,080 What mattered was that the same information was imparted in every version of the specimen that was represented in the album. 197 00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:24,190 And this, she imagined, 198 00:21:24,190 --> 00:21:31,780 would make scientific comparison so that all colleagues will be looking at the same image in the same representation of the same specimen, 199 00:21:31,780 --> 00:21:42,810 wherever they were. And this would allow scientific conversation and debate about these specimens much more accurate and much easier. 200 00:21:42,810 --> 00:21:46,930 What else would you ask? That's interesting because that already leads kind of to the next question. 201 00:21:46,930 --> 00:21:55,380 You know, you just mentioned that the scientific relevance and that you can compare the different specimen and but at the same time, 202 00:21:55,380 --> 00:22:01,470 of course, we also already use the words creativity and could actually arrangement and composition. 203 00:22:01,470 --> 00:22:08,010 So what is this relationship between science and art in this book, which I find really fascinating? 204 00:22:08,010 --> 00:22:10,570 How would you describe the relationship between science and art? 205 00:22:10,570 --> 00:22:16,170 And I think one of the things we have to remember about all of these people from this period of 206 00:22:16,170 --> 00:22:23,670 Herschel to all but children Atkins' was that they imagined themselves to be natural philosophers. 207 00:22:23,670 --> 00:22:28,800 And under that rubric, almost all knowledge rested so that you studied science. 208 00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:33,120 But for example, both children and Atkins' also wrote poems, 209 00:22:33,120 --> 00:22:41,220 Tolbert wrote published poetry and also drew and also invented Electric Motor and also was involved with the translation of cuneiform. 210 00:22:41,220 --> 00:22:49,320 These were kind of omnivorous intellectuals. And so the division that we now have between science and art would not have been normal for them. 211 00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:53,520 And so, of course, there was always an aesthetic element to what they did. 212 00:22:53,520 --> 00:23:04,680 Good scientific illustration is about conveying data information as accurately as possible, but also in as pleasing a manner as possible. 213 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,990 So certainly she would have had some consideration for the look of the prints. 214 00:23:08,990 --> 00:23:15,570 And as we can see, the symmetry of them, the way the label always sits in a particular place on the paper. 215 00:23:15,570 --> 00:23:22,290 She obviously was imagining how people might be leafing through this album and what kind of pleasures they would get from it, 216 00:23:22,290 --> 00:23:36,780 both intellectual and aesthetic. I think equally. And at the moment on screen, we see a photograph of Cyanotype from a late latex album. 217 00:23:36,780 --> 00:23:45,660 It's it's one of the books that she puts together together with MDX and the British and foreign flowering plants. 218 00:23:45,660 --> 00:23:50,460 How do you see the kind of development and in the work? Is it changing? 219 00:23:50,460 --> 00:23:57,340 So if I look at them, it looks to me as if they become a little bit more, you know, even more kind of free, even more liberal. 220 00:23:57,340 --> 00:24:05,290 She kind of gets even more experimental. Later on, then at the beginning, I think that's true. 221 00:24:05,290 --> 00:24:16,090 She produced 12 festivals of the British algae algae publication over 10 years that her father, to whom she was very close, died in 1852. 222 00:24:16,090 --> 00:24:25,390 So she Borland's took a year off to wind up his estate and to produce a memorial book devoted to him and her close friend. 223 00:24:25,390 --> 00:24:28,630 And Dickson helped her in that endeavour. 224 00:24:28,630 --> 00:24:35,630 And it's thought that and might well have helped Anna with the last farcical of the British algae publication, 225 00:24:35,630 --> 00:24:38,500 but that they then went on to produce various other albums, 226 00:24:38,500 --> 00:24:43,990 including this one to better to British and foreign flowering plants and other ones devoted to ferns, 227 00:24:43,990 --> 00:24:48,310 and then some that included things like feathers and other kinds of things. 228 00:24:48,310 --> 00:24:54,010 And with these other specimens like this rather extraordinary example, you can see them being far more creative. 229 00:24:54,010 --> 00:24:57,970 In other words, the constraints of science seem to have been put aside, 230 00:24:57,970 --> 00:25:11,310 and now they're more interested in the decorative possibilities of how these types of photographs might be might be created and enjoyed. 231 00:25:11,310 --> 00:25:14,740 We don't really need the slides anymore now. 232 00:25:14,740 --> 00:25:21,990 And perhaps you can talk a little bit more about photography at the time in general and kind of context of photography, 233 00:25:21,990 --> 00:25:27,240 because, of course, we're talking about the very early stages of photography. 234 00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:35,100 And maybe you can you know, for some people who are not so familiar with this context, you could tell a bit more about, 235 00:25:35,100 --> 00:25:39,040 you know, maybe also some other people that we've already mentioned, like Talbert's and Cashel. 236 00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:49,560 And now photography has an interesting sort of origin story in that at least two people claimed to have invented photography. 237 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:54,630 A Frenchman named Louis to get a professional painter and entrepreneur announced his invention 238 00:25:54,630 --> 00:26:00,660 of a metal based photography process that he immodestly called after himself the daguerreotype. 239 00:26:00,660 --> 00:26:05,130 And he announced it in the first week of January of 1839 in Paris. 240 00:26:05,130 --> 00:26:10,460 And then this gentleman, scholar named William Henry Fox Tolbert, 241 00:26:10,460 --> 00:26:15,120 heard of this announcement and suddenly realised that his own experiments of six 242 00:26:15,120 --> 00:26:20,850 years before he'd had similarly explore experimented with the photographic process. 243 00:26:20,850 --> 00:26:25,590 But he never thought he'd quite resolved it enough to be for it to be worthy of a public announcement. 244 00:26:25,590 --> 00:26:30,390 So harassed by his mother, who was very annoyed that he hadn't got in there before the Frenchman, 245 00:26:30,390 --> 00:26:39,660 he hurriedly made a similar announcement and presented some of his work, and he'd invented a process that he called photogenic drawing. 246 00:26:39,660 --> 00:26:44,850 And this is where he soaked writing paper in a light sensitive chemist, a chemistry, 247 00:26:44,850 --> 00:26:52,230 and then exposed the specimen to life on a piece of paper, much as Atkins' did a few years later with the cyanotype process. 248 00:26:52,230 --> 00:26:56,520 So in his case, you could see the image develop out on the paper in front of you. 249 00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,590 And then he added more salt and that delayed. 250 00:27:00,590 --> 00:27:08,790 It didn't exactly fix, but it at least temporarily delayed the development process and had allowed an image to be seen and to be recorded permanently. 251 00:27:08,790 --> 00:27:16,230 So this is the, if you like, double origin point of photography's introduction into modern culture, the daguerreotype, 252 00:27:16,230 --> 00:27:25,050 which gave this very sharp and clear image we quickly developed into the primary commercial form of photography. 253 00:27:25,050 --> 00:27:30,630 And if you wanted a photographic portrait made, you would normally go to a professional daguerreotypes studio. 254 00:27:30,630 --> 00:27:37,710 The first of these opened in London in March of 1841, and by the end of that year there were perhaps a dozen professional studios operating 255 00:27:37,710 --> 00:27:43,190 throughout Britain and similar studios opened up in most other countries around the world. 256 00:27:43,190 --> 00:27:52,590 This process, because it involves soaking chemicals directly into writing paper, which in the early 19th century was a rather fibrous paper. 257 00:27:52,590 --> 00:28:00,190 The image tended to be blurred and less clear. And the exposure times that his process were quite long compared to the degree of time. 258 00:28:00,190 --> 00:28:06,960 So it was only a little later, a year or two later, when he invented his second process that he called teletype, 259 00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:17,700 which involve making a negative and then printing positives from it, that the exposure times came down to a level where portraiture became possible. 260 00:28:17,700 --> 00:28:24,870 But even then, paper-based processes like the ones that Talbot invented tended to be used by gentlemen and gentlewomen, 261 00:28:24,870 --> 00:28:27,270 amateurs rather than by professionals. 262 00:28:27,270 --> 00:28:35,430 So the daguerreotype dominated the professional market for photography up until and through the mid eighteen fifties that paper-based 263 00:28:35,430 --> 00:28:45,030 photography tended to be used by people have told its own class members of the landed gentry people in the world science course, 264 00:28:45,030 --> 00:28:51,030 scientists who were interested in botany founded of particular interest. And that's the link really with the Atkins'. 265 00:28:51,030 --> 00:28:55,980 She's of more or less the same class as Tolbert. She moves in the same circles. 266 00:28:55,980 --> 00:29:02,470 They're involved in the same scientific societies, and they are sharing their various experiments. 267 00:29:02,470 --> 00:29:12,830 So how influential was photobook? Did it have an impact at the time on other books and on photography in general? 268 00:29:12,830 --> 00:29:15,770 It doesn't seem to have had a big influence on others. 269 00:29:15,770 --> 00:29:23,660 She certainly shared, for example, she sent a farcical of her book to Torbert and he in turn sent part of his pensive nature, 270 00:29:23,660 --> 00:29:30,290 his first photographic book to her. And there is occasional references to her work through the 19th century. 271 00:29:30,290 --> 00:29:37,910 But it, for example, doesn't seem to have spawned a lot of copies, similar kinds of books by others. 272 00:29:37,910 --> 00:29:42,710 There are there are other examples of cyanotype publications. 273 00:29:42,710 --> 00:29:47,720 An American named Bertha Jack, for example, produced one, but not until the turn of the 20th century. 274 00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,920 So there isn't an immediate, for example, what one might imagine. 275 00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:56,270 Oh, my God, look at this amazing way of making botanical books. And everybody starts doing it. 276 00:29:56,270 --> 00:30:01,700 That actually doesn't occur. There were some limitations to what Atkins' was doing. 277 00:30:01,700 --> 00:30:10,620 And professional botanists continue to use engravings rather than photographs as the illustration of choice. 278 00:30:10,620 --> 00:30:18,060 Well, an excuse is often called the first woman photographer, although there are kind of debates. 279 00:30:18,060 --> 00:30:26,240 What would you say? Well, I would say as an historian that we need to avoid claiming firsts. 280 00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:31,950 It's a it's a kind of a it's a nice headline, but it usually can't be backed up with evidence. 281 00:30:31,950 --> 00:30:35,070 There are probably earlier women who worked with photography. 282 00:30:35,070 --> 00:30:40,260 For example, Talbot's wife, Constance, refers in letters to making photographs and so on. 283 00:30:40,260 --> 00:30:45,510 But I think it'd be fair to say that Anna Atkins' is the first woman to produce a substantial body of 284 00:30:45,510 --> 00:30:52,980 photographic work and certainly the first major publication entirely focussed on the making of photographs. 285 00:30:52,980 --> 00:31:00,580 So she certainly deserves a. She does not think so, I'm sorry. 286 00:31:00,580 --> 00:31:03,100 She certainly deserves a place of honour, 287 00:31:03,100 --> 00:31:15,400 but it is interesting and maybe there's a book to be written about why it isn't until the mid 1980s that that honour was properly accorded to her. 288 00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,460 Let's talk about the relevance of Anna Atkins black today. 289 00:31:18,460 --> 00:31:27,190 So, I mean, I mentioned there is, you know, kind of merchandising products that you can find online and also mentioned calling pockets black. 290 00:31:27,190 --> 00:31:31,700 And he's not which is not directly related to Anna Atkins necessarily, but more to tell. 291 00:31:31,700 --> 00:31:39,080 But she actually went to Oxford and went through the archives and got inspired by the objects that were there. 292 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:46,330 But clearly. So they are artists today. You get still get inspiration from, you know, early photographic works. 293 00:31:46,330 --> 00:31:55,480 So what what would you say today? How relevant is is the work, let's say in some ways and Adkins has never been more current. 294 00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,020 Possibly. Possibly because of the advent of digital imaging. 295 00:31:59,020 --> 00:32:05,440 A lot of photographic artists going back to handmade photographs, including cameral as handmade photographs. 296 00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:10,840 And for them, Anna Atkins' is a kind of high point of early practise. 297 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:17,020 As I mentioned at the outset, one of the striking things about Atkins' work is that it still looks contemporary. 298 00:32:17,020 --> 00:32:22,150 It has no periodicity, if you like. It looks like they've made yesterday the best preserved ones. 299 00:32:22,150 --> 00:32:26,530 Certainly look as if they were made yesterday. So they seem and feel very current. 300 00:32:26,530 --> 00:32:29,800 In fact, you might well say that there's more personally, 301 00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:37,870 I think it's very hard for contemporary photographer to to outdo Atkins' in a way, you know, Campbell's photographs with Cyanotype. 302 00:32:37,870 --> 00:32:44,650 She kind of she is the Everest and everybody else seems to be somewhat imitative. 303 00:32:44,650 --> 00:32:53,130 But for example, I was very fortunate last year to be able to see a fabulous exhibition of Anna ACMS work at the New York Public Library. 304 00:32:53,130 --> 00:32:57,490 It was like going into an aquarium with all these floating albums of these blueprints all around. 305 00:32:57,490 --> 00:33:07,090 It was fantastic experience. And the New York Public Library organised a supplementary exhibition of contemporary artists working in a similar way. 306 00:33:07,090 --> 00:33:13,120 And it's a reminder that indeed there are many artists inspired by people like Hopkins who are revisiting these sort 307 00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:22,060 of early handmade photography techniques and trying to find ways to make photography still respond to the present. 308 00:33:22,060 --> 00:33:30,400 I think Ekins is an inspiration for that. We actually already have a few questions that have come through, 309 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:37,270 so maybe I might kind of open up and encourage more people to ask questions and ask you. 310 00:33:37,270 --> 00:33:44,730 One question that came, which is about camera based photography. 311 00:33:44,730 --> 00:33:53,200 So is there any evidence that Atkins' also used a camera, a camera, or that you engage in lens based photography? 312 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:59,320 There is evidence total, but as I say, it was close to her father. 313 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:07,420 And when he announced his invention of photography, he first sent an account of that invention to the father and then some examples of his prints. 314 00:34:07,420 --> 00:34:13,360 And we have letters and we know that Anna Atkins herself went out and bought a camera shortly after that. 315 00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:18,820 So we can only presume, given the evidence we have of the curiosity and accomplishment, 316 00:34:18,820 --> 00:34:24,130 that she also made camera photographs using Talbot's earliest processes. 317 00:34:24,130 --> 00:34:30,130 However, so far, those have not been found. So we assume that she must have made some. 318 00:34:30,130 --> 00:34:37,210 But we have yet to find any actual examples in the memoir that she prepared for her father. 319 00:34:37,210 --> 00:34:44,260 It includes poems about colour type portraits. So we also presume that perhaps they made portraits of each other at some point. 320 00:34:44,260 --> 00:34:50,340 Certainly. Her father went and had a professional colour type portrait made of himself in London. 321 00:34:50,340 --> 00:34:55,450 So, you know, by the time by 1850, I would have been 52 when he died. 322 00:34:55,450 --> 00:34:58,540 Photography had thoroughly infiltrated modern culture. 323 00:34:58,540 --> 00:35:05,890 And there are studios and professional photographers and everybody was everybody there means having portraits of made of themselves. 324 00:35:05,890 --> 00:35:11,140 So the short answer is yes, very likely. And Atkins' made camera based photographs. 325 00:35:11,140 --> 00:35:17,470 But we don't have any actual examples, unfortunately. Interesting. 326 00:35:17,470 --> 00:35:23,530 Yeah, there is a there's a question about the algae and this specimen in the photo box. 327 00:35:23,530 --> 00:35:28,450 Are there any extinct species that must have extra value? 328 00:35:28,450 --> 00:35:33,220 I assume so. But I don't I mean, I don't I don't know off the top of my head. 329 00:35:33,220 --> 00:35:38,470 But coming back to your earlier question about what Atkins' might mean today, 330 00:35:38,470 --> 00:35:44,320 there have been recent articles talking about ACoNs project because a kind of model for eco 331 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:50,080 criticism that that it's perfectly possible if I knew more about the history of botany, 332 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:56,110 that there are specimens in her albums that are now rare or difficult to find or even extinct. 333 00:35:56,110 --> 00:36:01,150 And certainly these kinds of Victorian depositories are becoming increasingly 334 00:36:01,150 --> 00:36:05,740 interesting because precisely they offer us a kind of ecology of the eighteen, 335 00:36:05,740 --> 00:36:10,750 thirties and forties that we may not otherwise have access to today. 336 00:36:10,750 --> 00:36:16,780 Fascinating. Coming back to the question about the kind of first photobook. 337 00:36:16,780 --> 00:36:26,010 So of course, I talbott's book, The Pedestal If Nature is often seen as the first photobook, but Atkins' Block was Leah. 338 00:36:26,010 --> 00:36:30,870 Is that a question? But it's a state of the art file. 339 00:36:30,870 --> 00:36:39,150 What's just. It's a bit like first, it all depends on how you define book and first and things like that there. 340 00:36:39,150 --> 00:36:40,770 As soon as photography was invented, 341 00:36:40,770 --> 00:36:49,710 Tolbert imagined its facility for publication and tried to promote the idea amongst friends that photography might be a great way, 342 00:36:49,710 --> 00:36:55,350 for example, for poets to publish their manuscripts without having to go to a publisher or a printer. 343 00:36:55,350 --> 00:37:03,270 So he certainly had ideas of his own about the ways in which his paper-based photography might facilitate publication. 344 00:37:03,270 --> 00:37:09,480 He published a book called The Pencil of Nature between 1844 and 1846. 345 00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:14,340 And so he began that project maybe about a year after Atkins' began Heard's. 346 00:37:14,340 --> 00:37:20,400 So I think she properly should be honoured as the first photographic book. 347 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:27,120 On the other hand, you might say what's interesting about the Pencil of Nature is that it was a book about photography, not just of photographs. 348 00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,400 So it was a selection of his own work with commentaries by Todd, 349 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:36,750 but about the role that photography might play in different kinds of image making practises. 350 00:37:36,750 --> 00:37:41,970 So I think, you know, they were friends and colleagues and I think they should be honoured equally. 351 00:37:41,970 --> 00:37:51,000 And the two books are an interesting complement to each other. They showed two different ways in which photography could be used to aid publications. 352 00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:56,460 Well, if you think about it and the context of what kind of social obstacles might 353 00:37:56,460 --> 00:38:01,040 Afghans have had for being considered an innovative or a serious photographer, 354 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:04,950 wish you were recognised in her day. 355 00:38:04,950 --> 00:38:14,610 Well, as I say, she was known in this small circle and she certainly was a respected contributor to botanical science in those circles. 356 00:38:14,610 --> 00:38:21,660 But like most women of that period, there were obviously serious constraints to her, for example, 357 00:38:21,660 --> 00:38:27,870 reaching the imminence of her father, who was a member of a number of societies and so on. 358 00:38:27,870 --> 00:38:32,100 She also, by the way, was a member of, for example, the Royal Botanical Society and things like that. 359 00:38:32,100 --> 00:38:40,760 It's not as if she was entirely excluded, but there's no doubt that her work has not reached the eminence. 360 00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:47,880 It did not reach the eminence during her lifetime and during the 19th century that looking back, we feel it ought to have. 361 00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:53,460 On the other hand, for example, Julia Margaret Cameron, who begins photographing in the 18th 60s, 362 00:38:53,460 --> 00:39:01,710 certainly was an eminent photographer in her time and almost ever since was recognised around the world as being a pre-eminent photographer. 363 00:39:01,710 --> 00:39:07,140 So, you know, there needs to be some analysis of why exactly Atkins' project, 364 00:39:07,140 --> 00:39:12,980 for example, didn't have the impact that Cameron's career had just 20 years later. 365 00:39:12,980 --> 00:39:17,450 And Cameron's wife was also quiet very, very early on by that, by the BNA. 366 00:39:17,450 --> 00:39:22,360 It was and she exhibited all around the world. She had an exhibition in Australia in 1974. 367 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,420 You couldn't imagine being further away from the centre of the empire than that. 368 00:39:26,420 --> 00:39:32,810 So she was certainly a very ambitious photographer and a professional photographer, if you like. 369 00:39:32,810 --> 00:39:40,220 Atkins', I think was a quieter personality and circulated her work in a much smaller circle of colleagues for her. 370 00:39:40,220 --> 00:39:48,830 I think the project was primarily science. And whereas Cameron definitely had a had a flair for self promotion and Atkins' was more 371 00:39:48,830 --> 00:39:55,300 content with contributing to the small world of botanical science in which she found herself. 372 00:39:55,300 --> 00:39:59,090 I mean, the similarity would be, though, that they started quite late. 373 00:39:59,090 --> 00:40:04,950 Both of them didn't date and were both in their 40s when they first kind of picked up photography. 374 00:40:04,950 --> 00:40:09,980 Yeah, yeah. I think Cameron was even older than that. Yeah. No, they both started relatively late. 375 00:40:09,980 --> 00:40:19,730 Of course, in the case of Atkins', photography was only invented a couple of years before she took it up and decided to make this series of albums. 376 00:40:19,730 --> 00:40:21,560 So she was really an innovator. 377 00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:29,930 I mean, we tend to forget that people looking at these albums at the time would have seen them as an incredible modern innovation. 378 00:40:29,930 --> 00:40:36,170 I mean, it's almost industrial that you can put something on a piece of paper and have it leave its own impression behind. 379 00:40:36,170 --> 00:40:39,470 The use of chemistry, for example, as your medium. 380 00:40:39,470 --> 00:40:47,040 All of these things were new and modern innovations and made her project is entirely a modernist one. 381 00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:53,280 There is a question about, you know, the later albums where the plants come from basically all over the world. 382 00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:58,680 There were some you know, we saw one from Norway, for example. So how did you actually get hold of all these plants? 383 00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:02,250 Did you travel or herself? Not not as far as I know. 384 00:41:02,250 --> 00:41:08,220 But there's a few things to be known about her. Of course, we're talking about a relatively wealthy woman. 385 00:41:08,220 --> 00:41:12,420 Her husband, John Atkins', and his family had plantations in Jamaica. 386 00:41:12,420 --> 00:41:19,890 At one point, owning slaves to work those plantations. So this is where the wealth of the family came from. 387 00:41:19,890 --> 00:41:26,280 And this, of course, allowed her to work independently at the need to actually make money from her labours. 388 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:32,100 And of course, it allowed her to have servants in her own labour force, if you like, to help produce these books. 389 00:41:32,100 --> 00:41:36,570 So but she is a you know, she's a member of this community of fellow botanists. 390 00:41:36,570 --> 00:41:43,620 And one of the things that these communities and the societies engineer is the exchange of specimens. 391 00:41:43,620 --> 00:41:48,390 So she would have gathered up British examples and sent them off to botanical friends around the world. 392 00:41:48,390 --> 00:41:53,400 And equally, she would have collected or had sent to her specimens from around the world. 393 00:41:53,400 --> 00:42:00,330 And one of the interesting things about the later albums is precisely that they, in effect, encompass the entirety of the British Empire. 394 00:42:00,330 --> 00:42:06,720 So they're exempt their firms from Jamaica. There's burns from New Zealand and from Australia and from all over the place. 395 00:42:06,720 --> 00:42:12,810 And so she was obviously concerned to give us give give our viewers a kind of global view of, 396 00:42:12,810 --> 00:42:19,620 for example, the species, the firm's species that she was documenting. So that's something that also, I think we need to take into account. 397 00:42:19,620 --> 00:42:25,200 We imagine that globalism is a contemporary phenomenon, but by the mid 19th century, 398 00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:31,110 the British Empire has made somebody like ACoNs feel like she is at the centre of the globe. 399 00:42:31,110 --> 00:42:42,200 And in many ways she was. And so all the specimens come into the centre and then she documents them in her albums. 400 00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:46,580 There is a question about the introduction of paper photography. 401 00:42:46,580 --> 00:42:53,330 Could you talk a bit more about that? And also the relationship to kind of botanical illustration? 402 00:42:53,330 --> 00:42:56,780 Well, like Atkins' told, it was a world famous botanist. 403 00:42:56,780 --> 00:43:03,650 And so one of the first functions that he imagined for his new invention of photogenic drawing was that it could 404 00:43:03,650 --> 00:43:10,910 allow him back with Atkins' to make accurate botanical impressions without the intervention of the human hand. 405 00:43:10,910 --> 00:43:16,730 So amongst the very first images he made with his new process were botanical contact prints, much like Atkins'. 406 00:43:16,730 --> 00:43:23,480 But using different light sensitive chemistry. And he quickly sent specimens, as she did to botanists. 407 00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:27,560 For example, there's an album that was put together initially. 408 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,190 Tolbert sent these specimens to a botanical colleague in Italy. 409 00:43:31,190 --> 00:43:35,840 So, you know, again, he's part of this sort of international network of like minded people. 410 00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:46,040 And he was trying to persuade them that his new invention of photography was going to be very useful, as Atkins' did in her time. 411 00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:50,800 Tolbert is an interesting fellow. So he's a member, a member of the landed gentry. 412 00:43:50,800 --> 00:44:01,750 He lived at Laycock a few hours outside of London. And he, you know, his money came from renting his estates to two people who worked his land. 413 00:44:01,750 --> 00:44:07,000 So he was relatively wealthy, but not being fabulously wealthy, but relatively wealthy man. 414 00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:15,100 In other words, he's not driven by financial need. And so although with his second invention, the Calor type, he took out a patent, 415 00:44:15,100 --> 00:44:21,640 which meant that to use it, you had to pay him a licence and get his permission. He wasn't a very good businessman. 416 00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:28,780 He attempted to encourage others to set up commercial studios that would use paper for his paper photography process, 417 00:44:28,780 --> 00:44:35,920 and a number of studios attempted it. But all of them eventually fell into financial trouble and went bankrupt. 418 00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:42,490 So it wasn't until the eighteen fifties and the invention of glass negatives that paper-based 419 00:44:42,490 --> 00:44:46,350 photography because then they would make paper prints from these glass negatives. 420 00:44:46,350 --> 00:44:53,620 The paper based photography superseded the daguerreotype and became the premier commercial photography. 421 00:44:53,620 --> 00:44:59,710 On the other hand, gentlemen, amateurs like Torbert himself found paper photography to be very useful, 422 00:44:59,710 --> 00:45:04,390 and they could make photographs of the trees and the landscapes on their estates and so on. 423 00:45:04,390 --> 00:45:11,860 They could put together indeed botanical albums of their own specimens and show them to friends and things like that. 424 00:45:11,860 --> 00:45:16,780 And over in France, where they basically ignored towboats, patent rights, 425 00:45:16,780 --> 00:45:23,030 they experimented with paper based photography and made it a more commercially viable proposition. 426 00:45:23,030 --> 00:45:29,590 And paper based photographs began to be made, for example, by French travellers to Egypt and places like this. 427 00:45:29,590 --> 00:45:37,720 So outside of Britain, paper-Based photography had a better at a stronger commercial presence than it did inside Britain. 428 00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:47,980 And retrospectively, we might well say that Talbert's defence of his patent rights somewhat stymied innovation for the process in Britain. 429 00:45:47,980 --> 00:45:56,180 Whereas in other countries where that patent didn't quite hold, some innovation was impossible and the process became far more popular. 430 00:45:56,180 --> 00:46:05,750 Interesting. We already had a bit about, you know, kind of the network that Anna Atkins had and the people that she was engaging with. 431 00:46:05,750 --> 00:46:09,440 And there is a question about other early female photographers. 432 00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:15,980 And if she had only contact with them, for example, Elizabeth stuck there, Wilkinson was mentioned. 433 00:46:15,980 --> 00:46:26,630 I don't think it was. I have not heard of Elizabeth Wilkinson. We do know that, as I say, women of, say, Atkins' class did take up Talbert's process. 434 00:46:26,630 --> 00:46:36,870 And we have various examples of women making similar botanical specimens, usually using towboats process rather than cyanotype. 435 00:46:36,870 --> 00:46:44,400 There are also examples of women running professional daguerreotypes, studios usually not invariably, 436 00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:49,500 but usually they've inherited them from a husband who's died or something like that. 437 00:46:49,500 --> 00:46:54,330 But they were professional women photographers working in the eighteen forties and fifties. 438 00:46:54,330 --> 00:47:01,890 So women did have a presence in the photography world. Of course, it's a relatively small presence relative to the number of men working in it. 439 00:47:01,890 --> 00:47:11,220 But it's like many aspects of the 19th century, we find innovative and determined women finding a place for themselves within that world. 440 00:47:11,220 --> 00:47:18,300 One thing about photography was it was a new industry, like a kind of Start-Up new tech industry for the time, 441 00:47:18,300 --> 00:47:26,760 and perhaps that allowed women to take it up in ways that more traditional industries still were denied to them. 442 00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:31,050 I should say also, Lane, that women were very enthusiastic patrons of photography. 443 00:47:31,050 --> 00:47:40,440 So, you know, there are a small number of women photographers from this early period, the eighteen forties, but there were far more women customers. 444 00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:45,360 So some of the first customers for daguerreotypes studios in London, for example, were women. 445 00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:49,410 Quaker women in particular, for reasons that I'm not quite sure of. 446 00:47:49,410 --> 00:47:52,800 But we have a lot ability to go to types of Quaker women, for example. 447 00:47:52,800 --> 00:48:02,250 So, yeah, women certainly embraced the possibilities of photography and sometimes made photographs themselves as well. 448 00:48:02,250 --> 00:48:08,340 Just looking at a few other questions that have come through quite many or all kinds of different questions. 449 00:48:08,340 --> 00:48:18,270 Can you talk more about the shift in Atkins? Janet Seanna types becoming associated more with photographic objects rather than scientific evidence. 450 00:48:18,270 --> 00:48:23,600 Is this to do with where or how her work was collected or reproduced? 451 00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:27,120 Yes, that's a lot to do with how photography is seen these days. 452 00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:36,330 I mean, these kind of categorisations, right? I mean, as I say, there's a shift in Atkins' work around 1852 with the death of her father. 453 00:48:36,330 --> 00:48:42,510 She finishes up the British ALGY project and then with Anne Dixon, she begins to make other kinds of albums. 454 00:48:42,510 --> 00:48:45,510 But whereas with the other projects she published, 455 00:48:45,510 --> 00:48:52,140 basically 12 festivals that were she imagined would be bound together by the people who receive them over this 10 years, 456 00:48:52,140 --> 00:48:56,790 that they would then be bound together into a single sort of compendium. 457 00:48:56,790 --> 00:49:02,510 These other after 1852 or so, these other albums were more for personal pleasure. 458 00:49:02,510 --> 00:49:07,440 That is, they were not made like not quote unquote, mass produced. 459 00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:16,120 We think maybe they were like 30 complete sets of the British algy made Rosies other albums or more like single objects made up of many plates, 460 00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:22,440 but single in a molik, singular objects that were possibly made for themselves or as gifts to close friends. 461 00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:31,820 So in other words, they weren't widely distributed. And in that sense, we're not particularly widely known either. 462 00:49:31,820 --> 00:49:37,250 We have another question about how. Watch how she saw herself. 463 00:49:37,250 --> 00:49:45,200 I think we talked about this a little bit, but did she consider herself an ecologist or an artist or is that a modern distinction? 464 00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:47,090 I think that probably is a modern distinction. 465 00:49:47,090 --> 00:49:53,420 And the sad thing is we actually have relatively little evidence of what Atkins' thought about this or most other topics. 466 00:49:53,420 --> 00:49:54,530 We have quite a lot. 467 00:49:54,530 --> 00:50:00,890 We know quite a lot about what she thought about her father because she lovingly produced this memoir that took a year to put together, 468 00:50:00,890 --> 00:50:05,150 including poems and memories of her father and all of this kind of thing. 469 00:50:05,150 --> 00:50:10,280 We have relatively little written by Atkins' about her project. 470 00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:15,890 We mostly glean it from letters often written by her father, who refers to what his daughter is up to. 471 00:50:15,890 --> 00:50:21,500 So Atkins' is one of those figures who remains somewhat enigmatic in terms of the wider 472 00:50:21,500 --> 00:50:30,730 knowledge of her personality or her own ideas or about life other than this album. 473 00:50:30,730 --> 00:50:40,660 There was also an earlier question about designers and manufacturers. I mean, we already know if they took inspiration from from high genotypes. 474 00:50:40,660 --> 00:50:45,670 Particularly thinking about wallpaper or textiles, etc., that we saw at the very beginning that, you know, 475 00:50:45,670 --> 00:50:54,430 today I using motifs and the colour, actually, I mean, this blue colour is, of course, something that must have been quite spectacular. 476 00:50:54,430 --> 00:51:00,080 Also at the time, generically, there were any inspiration for designers or manufacturers. 477 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:08,890 As I say at the time, we have little evidence that Atkins' albums had an impact outside of the small botanical circle in which they circulated. 478 00:51:08,890 --> 00:51:19,030 However, by the late 19th and early 20th century, we do find other photographers photographing details of nature of plants, 479 00:51:19,030 --> 00:51:24,910 specifically for the use, for example, of designers, let's say, during the ongoing movement. 480 00:51:24,910 --> 00:51:30,400 So we find people making photographic albums of botanical specimens precisely so that designers 481 00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:36,700 could copy details and incorporate them into industrial design and other kinds of work, 482 00:51:36,700 --> 00:51:44,980 including wallpaper design and so on. But it's only after the 1980s that Anna Atkins' work has any kind of public profile like that. 483 00:51:44,980 --> 00:51:54,650 What you showed in the opening up to our talk. That's a very contemporary phenomenon. 484 00:51:54,650 --> 00:51:58,740 I think that's about it in terms of questions that have come through. 485 00:51:58,740 --> 00:52:02,840 Is there anything else that you would like to say about her work? 486 00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:08,360 Only that I think Larry's done a fantastic job of giving us as much information as possible about Atkins'. 487 00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:12,050 But there's still an awful lot to say about it. 488 00:52:12,050 --> 00:52:19,880 She deserves detailed analysis of anybody's listening who would like a project, for example, the later albums. 489 00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:28,010 There's not a huge amount written about them. I mean, we talk about them as possible sort of studies of early Victorian ecology. 490 00:52:28,010 --> 00:52:31,790 But it would be wonderful to have people not only from art history, but, for example, 491 00:52:31,790 --> 00:52:38,120 from the sciences and bought me looking at them and giving us some more information about what their significance might be. 492 00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:41,570 So I think Larry has opened the door to the study of Atkins'. 493 00:52:41,570 --> 00:52:46,340 But there's an awful lot more to do. And I hope over time we'll know a lot more about her. 494 00:52:46,340 --> 00:52:51,320 And we'll have a better understanding of what the significance really is. 495 00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:57,080 Do you think there is any more work to be discovered that might be hiding somewhere? 496 00:52:57,080 --> 00:52:59,900 Yes. In fact, in that exhibition in New York, 497 00:52:59,900 --> 00:53:07,430 they discovered an album that had been mis catalogued in a huge album of the work that had been mis catalogued in a library somewhere, 498 00:53:07,430 --> 00:53:16,410 and that was discovered by almost by chance. So we're pretty confident that there's quite a lot more of atkins' work out there. 499 00:53:16,410 --> 00:53:21,320 Possibly. Who knows? Deposited in libraries, you know, in the botanical section. 500 00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:25,560 And people don't realise that as as photographs. They're quite important as well. 501 00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:29,510 So, yeah, I think there's certainly more work to be found. 502 00:53:29,510 --> 00:53:34,700 But I would say in general that the early history of photography is still a field that is understudied. 503 00:53:34,700 --> 00:53:41,210 And there's just a lot of work in general out there to be not only found, but to be analysed and interpreted and appreciated. 504 00:53:41,210 --> 00:53:47,150 A new. Yeah, I think that's a very good way to end as well. 505 00:53:47,150 --> 00:53:51,550 And coming back to the whole theme of women and photography, it just shows that, 506 00:53:51,550 --> 00:53:55,970 you know, today there are so many photographers who happen to be women and are active. 507 00:53:55,970 --> 00:54:03,470 But actually, there were quite many women active as photographers at the very beginning of photography as well. 508 00:54:03,470 --> 00:54:12,570 And it would be great to find out more about them and to maybe rediscover some of their work and appreciate it properly. 509 00:54:12,570 --> 00:54:19,190 Yes, I think almost certainly there are more women to be discovered and fantastic work waiting for somebody to do 510 00:54:19,190 --> 00:54:25,840 the proper analysis of the whole field is just waiting for scholars to dig into it and make new discoveries. 511 00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:33,240 Well, thank you, Jeff, so much for joining me tonight. And thank you again tutorage for organising this event. 512 00:54:33,240 --> 00:54:36,100 And for those of you who are in oxfords to play, 513 00:54:36,100 --> 00:54:44,330 toxoid festival is still on for another few days so you can wander around the city and discover some work there. 514 00:54:44,330 --> 00:54:49,620 And otherwise, please visit the home page. And thank you very much for joining us tonight. 515 00:54:49,620 --> 00:55:40,068 And thank you also for all the nice questions. By.