Mary Kocol
Photography

 
 

Anthotypes are ephemeral prints made from plants, a Victorian-era process


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Anthotype Workshop Announcement!
Garden in the Woods, Framingham, MA
July 19, 2025


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Dotyk Natury/Touch of Nature
a group art show,
Municipal Gallery BWA, Bydgoszcz, Poland, 2025



Anthotype Photograms and Portraits

From a Vanishing Garden


Morning Glories
Geranium anthotype
© Mary Kocol


Morning Glory, Ferns, Asters, Oregano
Butterfly pea flower anthotype
© Mary Kocol


Nasturtiums from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,
Nasturtium anthotype


Queen Anne's Lace, Hyssop, Thyme,
Wild black raspberry & pansy anthotype



Mallows,
Wild black raspberry anthotype


Violets Bouquet,
Violets anthotype


Mallows and Queen Anne's Lace,
Iris anthotype


Delphiniums from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,
Wild pansy anthotype

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Anthotype Portraits


Wild black raspberry anthotype
© Mary Kocol

18th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photogrpahers
Honorable Mention for Ephemeral Portraits, Anthotype series

Iris anthotype
© Mary Kocol


Japanese iris anthotype
© Mary Kocol


Rose anthotype
© Mary Kocol


Portrait of an Artist with Hydrangeas
Iris anthotype
© Mary Kocol


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All images © Mary Kocol

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see more Anthotypes: AlternativePhotography.com
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A Year of Plant Colors
© Mary Kocol


 Select pages from Anthotype Process Notebooks:









© Mary Kocol
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CV

Anthotype (flower print) an Eco-friendly photo-based process using colorful flowers and plant emulsions to create ephemeral images and photograms, using the sun to make exposures. It's an enchanting light-sensitive process from the Victorian era and dawn of photography.

Scientists Sir John Herschel and Mary Somerville experimented with plants to produce color prints they named Phytotypes during photography’s early days in the Victorian era. Eventually, the fugitive process was relinquished for better known Cyanotypes and other more permanent printing methods. Now this abandoned artform has found renewed fervor and a new name, Anthotypes.

To me, a garden is a contemplative haven, a place of remembrance. Did the flowers within come from a special person or from a garden of the past? In my small urban garden, the limited number of flowers harvested is precious to me, endowing my anthotypeswith special meaning. I'm amazed by this mysterious technique - that common plants with their luscious and sublime colors can produce light sensitive emulsions at all.
 
One anthotype emulsion is made from blue irises that only bloom for a few weeks and then they’re done. The rhizomes originally came from my mother’s garden a long time ago. Then I wait for the fragrant dark red roses of June, wild black raspberries to forage in July, September’s morning glories and Concord grapes. Spring returns eventually with whispers of colors from violets, grape hyacinth, and squill.

After the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted, I finally saw friends and family in person again and rejoiced by making their portraits. The pandemic was a reminder of life’s fragility, reiterated in the fleeting presence of my friends before my camera and the evanescent emulsions I use to create my prints and photograms. When I layer the portraits with images of flowers, I allude to an eternal spring, a time of hope, with the worst behind us.

-Mary Kocol

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Learn more about the anthotype exhibition I co-curated with Jesseca Ferguson
at the RI Center for Photographic Arts in 2022:
Making Pictures from Plants: Contemporary Anthotypes

 

 

All images are copyright Mary Kocol. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be copied without permission.

contact: marykocol [at] gmail [dot] com