Photography’s relationship to the shoreline was established in 1841, when Anna Atkins began blueprinting all the plant specimens the English countryside had to offer. Her monumental undertaking, which resulted in Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843), not only pioneered the evolution of a then-innovative photographic technique, but renewed modern ideas regarding natural history and ecological conservation.
Of all of Atkins’ heirs, few stand out as distinctly as American photographer Meghann Riepenhoff. Where the Victorian botanist used materials from the shoreline to make her cyanotypes, Riepenhoff uses it as her subject and process. Ever since she noticed the formation of crystals in pigments on a very cold day on the Puget Sound, Washington, back in 2014, she has sought to capture the mercurial personalities of water. Produced by introducing photographic paper into aquatic landscapes – along the shore, across branches or beneath snow – Riepenhoff’s cyanotypes share a similar magic with Atkins’. They are made with Mother Nature, the great collaborator.
