John atkins photography tucson

As someone who enjoys snapping photographs, especially of flowers and landscapes, I’m so pleased to share about two women photographers who made an impact in the world of photography.

The competition is stiff for the title of first female photographer, but most agree Anna Atkins, a British artist and botanist, was the first.

She was born in Kent, England, in 1799. Her mother never recovered from “the effects of childbirth” and died in 1800. Anna was close to her father, John George Children, who was a chemist, mineralogist, and zoologist. He invented a method to extract silver from ore without the need for mercury. Thanks to him, Anna received an unusually scientific education. Her detailed engravings of shells were used to illustrate one of her father’s books.

In 1825, she wed John Pelly Atkins, a London West India merchant. The couple had no children, so Atkins pursued her interest in botany. She was elected as a member of the London Botanical Society in 1839.

Atkins learned the technique of calotyping (an early process in which negatives were made using paper coated with silver iodide) and applied it with her plants. She would go on to publish the first book in history comprised of phot