Anthotypes

Through my love of gardening I developed an interest in creating anthotypes. Over the course of one year I made anthotype images of each plant I grew on my allotment. Anthotypes are photographic sun prints made with vegetable juice as the light sensitive emulsion. They are created by extracting juice from the petals or leaves of plants, dying the paper with the juice, then laying a plant or printed acetate of the plant over the dyed paper and placing in the sun for 6–12 weeks exposure until the sun bleaches the exposed dye, leaving a positive image. This process was developed by Sir John Hershal (1792–1871). These images are sensitive to light and even though protected by UV glass will fade with time and cannot be fixed. Many of these images are featured in a book called Anthotypes by Malin Fabbri.