I recently visited a fascinating exhibition tracing the story of botanical photography from the 1840s to the present day. (‘Unearthed: Photography’s Roots’ is at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 30 August.)

There is a long history of people creating impressions of plants. Thirteenth century Islamic scholars illustrated books with pressed leaves. Leonardo da Vinci wrote about the practice. In the eighteenth century Tahitian tribespeople made images by placing leaves soaked in ink from tree sap onto tapa cloth. Benjamin Franklin claimed to be the inventor of ‘nature printing’ to foil counterfeiters.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) was one of the pioneers of modern photography. In 1834 he found that he could capture impressions of objects when he placed them in direct sunlight on paper coated with salt, water and silver nitrate. He called this process ‘photogenic drawing,’ and at the exhibition you can see his delicate images of primroses in a teacup, dahlias in a vase, a pineapple in a basket. 

'I do not claim to have perfected an art, but to have commenced one, the limits of which it is not possible at present exactly to ascertain.’
William Henry Fox Talbot

Botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871) was an early adopter of the cyanotype process, which involved mixing two chemicals to produce a photosensitive solution. (Cyanotypes were employed to reproduce architectural drawings, hence the term ‘blueprint.’) She published twelve volumes of algae images, the first books with photographic illustrations, and helped to fuel the Victorian ‘fern craze’. Against a vivid Prussian blue background the plants have an ethereal presence, a fragile beauty. 

'The difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects so minute as many of the Algae and Confervae has induced me to avail myself of [the] beautiful process of Cyanotype, to obtain impressions of the plants themselves, which I have much pleasure in offering to my botanical friends.'
Anna Atkins

Sometimes early photographers catalogued plant life for scientific records. Sometimes they sought to recreate Dutch flower painting. And sometimes they designed images that suggested life’s transience. Subsequently they saw in plant photography compelling abstractions or resemblances to the human body. They used their pictures as inspiration for textile designs. They turned to botanical subjects to escape the ravages of war.

Charles Jones (1866-1959), a gardener at Ote Hall in Sussex in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, took hundreds of photographs of the plants in his care using a glass plate camera. Probably self-taught, he was not recognised as a photographer in his lifetime. It was only in 1981, 22 years after his death, that a collector found a trunk of his photographs on Bermondsey Market. His images were close cropped and precisely lit – sensitive portraits of turnips, tomatoes, potatoes and broccoli; loving records of cabbages, cucumbers, celery and sugar peas. Stark and simple, they look like they come from another world.

Kazumasa Ogawa (1860-1929), the son of one of the last Samurai, belonged to a Japanese generation that embraced modernity and industry. An early master of colour photography, he adopted the chromo collotype process, creating up to 25 separate plates, one for each colour. Photographers from elsewhere in the world employing this method tended to use only 6-8 colours per picture. Even today, after progressing past gallery walls filled with black and white imagery, one is shocked to see Ogawa’s vibrant colour pictures of chrysanthemums, lotuses and lilies. Such frail elegance.

What can we learn from all these exquisite archaic images frozen in time? 

First we can appreciate the virtues of constraint. The early photographers concentrated on plants because exposure times were around 40 minutes. Animals and people made quite challenging subjects.

Then there is the power of observation. If we scrutinise a subject, however humble; if we really examine it closely with curious eyes, it will offer up extraordinary rewards. 

And thirdly we can reflect on the fundamental capacity of pictures to communicate. In her Foreword to the exhibition catalogue, gallery director Jennifer Scott quotes a 1606 letter sent by the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel on the completion of a still life.

‘I have invested all my skill in this picture. I do not believe that so many rare and different flowers have been painted before, not rendered so painstakingly: it will be a fine sight in the winter.’

Of course, we now inhabit a visual culture where pictures are ubiquitous - so easy to create, edit and distribute. But Brueghel’s remark reminds us of the primary powers of the image: to demolish distance and time; to bring beauty to drab surroundings; to transport us to other worlds; to conjure up companionship in our loneliest moments, and sunshine in the depths of winter.

There was one final lesson that I took from the exhibition, a lesson about priorities.

Charles Jones, though a hugely gifted photographer, loved his plants first and foremost. Once a photograph had been printed, he would scratch the glass negative clean so he could use it again - or repurpose it as a cloche for his seedlings. 

'Think it over,
Life ain't a four leaf clover.
Love is a flower, from that a bud,
To spread its sunshine and make us love.’
The Emotions, ‘Flowers’ (A Bowers / R Harding / J Hibbert / C Lee / B Mitchell / L Prior / S White)

No. 330