Exquisite plant portraits created using Victorian photography method

These intricate plant images are a nod to Victorian botanical techniques, which used silver to expose the inner beauty of plants – here collected by photographer William Arnold on country walks

By Gege Li

Photographer
William Arnold

Agency
Panos Pictures

THESE exquisite and intricate plant portraits by photographer William Arnold are a nod to the Victorian era of botany, as well as to the rural beauty tucked away in English hedgerows and kerbsides.

Arnold gathered an assortment of plants during walks in Truro, Cornwall, before printing photos of them in monochrome using a technique called silver gelatin printing.

William Arnold/Panos Pictures

Developed in 1871, the process involves printing photographs onto paper coated in a gelatin layer that contains silver halides, chemical compounds sensitive to light. After exposure to a negative image (where the lightest areas appear dark and vice versa) and development with chemicals, small silver particles are tethered to the gelatin to form the final image.

This form of printing not only preserves plants in all their natural splendour, it also exposes the delicate details of petals, leaves, flowers and stems.

William Arnold/Panos Pictures

These images come from the 100 prints in Arnold’s recent book, Suburban Herbarium.

Arnold’s images are on show at Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall until 2 January 2021. He is also working with the Eden Project to involve the public in collecting local specimens across the UK.