Julia Margaret Cameron: Photography's Greatest Portraitists Of All Time
Artist Analysis #1
Julia Margaret Cameron, one of photography’s greatest portraitists of all time, is still known today for her talent in capturing the soul of her subjects in her photographs. Her vivid portraits brought to life the personality within the people, contrary to all of the other portraitists of this time.
Born in June of 1815 in Calcutta, British India, Julia Margaret Cameron would not pick up her knack for photography until 1863, at the age of 48. Cameron was given her first camera as a gift from her daughter and son-in-law, along with the equipment for processing wet collodion glass plates. Her studio began as a chicken coop and her darkroom as a coal store. She was to use what she could and made the best of it. As an amateur …show more content…
She found a way of implementing life into her photos, capturing more than just physical beings. "From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour," she wrote, "and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour" (Daniel, Malcolm). But, her lack of focus and artistic take on portraits was not admired by all. Striving to be a successful woman at this time was hard enough, stepping outside what was of typical qualities of photography at this time brought about even more criticism from outsiders and competitors. Cameron did not falter. Her work was mocked and misunderstood by many fellow photographers, but inspired and sparked interest of many artists of this time. Not until the mid to late 1900 's was Cameron 's work more renowned and appropriately …show more content…
“Sadness”, taken in 1864 was a portrait of the actress Ellen Terry when she was 16. Her use of soft focus and grand sense of lighting is very prominent in this picture. Posing for long exposures in exaggerated light settings didn’t exactly make for a pleasant photo shoot though. Slight movements were allowed because Cameron found them to contribute to her photographs, but processing photographs was not an easy task in this time period. Albumen silver prints were made from wet collodion glass plate negatives, which had to be coated, exposed, and processed.
Cameron also did volumes of photographic illustrations, which remarkably resembled oil paintings. Alfred Tennyson, one of her portrait subjects, requested she take these photographic illustrations for his book, Idyll’s of the King. “Vivien and Merlin”, done in 1874, used Cameron’s husband, Henry Hay Cameron, as Merlin. Julia Margaret Cameron often had friends and family pose as people from history or literature for her photographs, dressing them up and recreating scenes and scenarios. The soft focus and poise of her subjects brings this whimsical photograph to
Julia Margaret Cameron, one of photography’s greatest portraitists of all time, is still known today for her talent in capturing the soul of her subjects in her photographs. Her vivid portraits brought to life the personality within the people, contrary to all of the other portraitists of this time.
Born in June of 1815 in Calcutta, British India, Julia Margaret Cameron would not pick up her knack for photography until 1863, at the age of 48. Cameron was given her first camera as a gift from her daughter and son-in-law, along with the equipment for processing wet collodion glass plates. Her studio began as a chicken coop and her darkroom as a coal store. She was to use what she could and made the best of it. As an amateur …show more content…
She found a way of implementing life into her photos, capturing more than just physical beings. "From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour," she wrote, "and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour" (Daniel, Malcolm). But, her lack of focus and artistic take on portraits was not admired by all. Striving to be a successful woman at this time was hard enough, stepping outside what was of typical qualities of photography at this time brought about even more criticism from outsiders and competitors. Cameron did not falter. Her work was mocked and misunderstood by many fellow photographers, but inspired and sparked interest of many artists of this time. Not until the mid to late 1900 's was Cameron 's work more renowned and appropriately …show more content…
“Sadness”, taken in 1864 was a portrait of the actress Ellen Terry when she was 16. Her use of soft focus and grand sense of lighting is very prominent in this picture. Posing for long exposures in exaggerated light settings didn’t exactly make for a pleasant photo shoot though. Slight movements were allowed because Cameron found them to contribute to her photographs, but processing photographs was not an easy task in this time period. Albumen silver prints were made from wet collodion glass plate negatives, which had to be coated, exposed, and processed.
Cameron also did volumes of photographic illustrations, which remarkably resembled oil paintings. Alfred Tennyson, one of her portrait subjects, requested she take these photographic illustrations for his book, Idyll’s of the King. “Vivien and Merlin”, done in 1874, used Cameron’s husband, Henry Hay Cameron, as Merlin. Julia Margaret Cameron often had friends and family pose as people from history or literature for her photographs, dressing them up and recreating scenes and scenarios. The soft focus and poise of her subjects brings this whimsical photograph to