Anna Atkins was trained as a botanist and utilized photographic techniques to make visual records of botanical specimens. She learned about the development of photography from Willam Henry Fox Talbot, and learned to use the cyanotype process directly from its inventor Sir John Herschel. Using Herschel’s cyanotypes and Talbot's method of photogenic drawing, Atkins produced the entirely photographically printed and illustrated book "British Algae," published in sections between 1843 and 1853. “British Algae” is significant in that it marks the first known photographic work by a woman, and the first book produced entirely by photographic means.