Veronika Spierenburg - From right to left

Veronika Spierenburg, From right to left, site-specific action, National Library Helsinki,  blu-ray video, 16 min, 2009

See more of Veronika's work here.

The nature printed British sea-weeds

One more example of nature printing. The Nature-printed British Seaweeds, published by Henry Bradbury, (1859–60)

Nature printing

In 2010 I started a research on the arrangement and reproduction of plant specimens at the Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden. The library posses a large collection of rare books and herbariums, produced in many early methods of reproduction. It was there that I got introduced to nature printing, a technique that intrigued me through it’s potential to depict not only the appearance but also the physical surface of plants. The nature print technique was already used by Leonardo da Vinci, who printed the impression of an inked sage leaf in his notebook (Codex Atlanticus 1505). In 1830 printer in the Wiener Staatsdruckerei in Austria began to imprint plants on lead plates and use these as print forms. This was in a time when photography was still in its beginning and of no competition. The images remind on photographs as they are very precise in reproducing physical flat objects. I like how the printers where trying to the arrange the whole plants on the printing plates, as they where 1:1 reproductions in size. "Physiotypia plantarum austriacarum. Der Naturselbstdruck in seiner Anwendung auf die Gefässpflanzen des österreichischen Kaiserstaates, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Nervation in den Flächenorganen der Pflanzen", Constantin von Ettingshausen & Alois Pokorny, Viena, 1855–1873 This work consists of 12 volumes and depicts a total of 1000 plant specimens. You can look at this work in real at the Mertz Library of the The New York Botanical Garden. Its hard to find good reproductions of this books on the internet, so far the best once I saw where on ebay or just use google.

Another book produced in the nature print technique: "The ferns of Great Britain and Ireland" by Henry Bradbury, 1855. You can see scans of the book here.

Anna Atkins

Anna Atkins (1799 - 1871) was an English botanist and photographer. Atkins father was a close friend of Sir John Herschel who invented the Cyanotype process in 1842. Atkins applied this technique in her that self published in its first installment in 1843, which makes it the first book illustrated with photographic images. "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions" consisting of photograms of algae that were contact printed "by placing the unmounted dried-algae original directly on the cyanotype paper".  I have seen the book in real on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York and almost could not get myself move away from the glass vitrine in which is was placed (last picture).

 You can see all pages of the book here.

phil chang

some spreads from four over one, a new book by phil chang, more information here.

[all Phil Chang, 2010 from four over one. top to bottom: cover. pages 8-9. pages 24-25. pages 40-41 ]

Michael Schmelling

Work by Michael Schmelling. See more here

[all Michael Schmelling, from The Week Of No Computer, 2008]

charles benton

work by charles benton. see more here.

[all charles benton. untitled (books). 2009]

pierre le hors

pierre le hors's 'rgb transferences'. see more here.

[all pierre le hors. rgb transferences (offset-printed on newsprint, unbound, 16 pages). 2010.]

bryan graf

work by bryan graf. see more here.

[all bryan graf. open space preserved forever (unique book).]

charlotte dumas

whenever I go to printed matter I always look once through charlotte dumas' book india.

[all images charlotte dumas, 2007]

pierre le hors

work by pierre le hors. see more here

[all pierre le hors, 2009. from his book dummy firework studies]

taiyo onorato + nico krebs

taiyo onorato + nico krebs have just published a new book. more here.

[all taiyo onorato + nico krebs. from the book the great unreal. published by edition patrick frey. 2009.]

the institute for words + pictures

the institute for words + pictures is a project by zak kyes and tahli fisher. "the book is a constructed and fictionalized document of history, politics, and identity of calarts in the late 1980s." see more here and here.

[all from the institute for words + pictures book. 2005.]

words without pictures

i heart photograph recently got it's hands on a copy of the words without pictures book and we can't recommend it highly enough. what started as a one-year-long mostly online project which aimed to "create spaces where thoughtful and urgent discourse around very current issues for photography could happen" it's now manifested into perfect physical form: as a print-on-demand book which collects all the amazing essays, discussions, lectures, and interviews that happened in or around the website and LACMA. i heart photograph is proud to have contributed a short interview, so keep an eye out for that. get your copy right here.

[all words without pictures. published by the wallis annenberg photography department at los angeles county museum of art. concept by charlotte cotton. edited by alex klein. designed by david reinfurt. 2009.]

sam moyer

work by sam moyer. see more here.

[all sam moyer. 2009. top to bottom: angle rock. willie IV. moving in.]