While to the modern eye photograms are somewhat strange and unworldly some of their earliest uses were for empirical purposes. The cyanotype photogram originated in 1842 with Sir John Herschel, the nineteenth-century polymath who invented the cyanotype process. This method of producing images generates a stable blue and white image and was commonly used for the production of “blueprints” in architectural and engineering firms.

In 1843 botanist Anna Atkins used the method to produce a book of photograms of British algae, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype impressions. This was perhaps the world’s first photographic book and contained over 400 life sized cyanotype images.