Julia Margaret Cameron, a 19th-century British photographer, has been attributed with being known as one of the best portraiture photographers of her time and an early contributor to the pictorialistic trend that came about shortly after her death (“Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79)”). Cameron was born in 1815 in Calcutta, India, which was known to favor the primitive ideologies that women maintain home-life while men work and provide for the family. She was fortunate to escape these “wifely” duties since her family was wealthy and she married Charles Hay Cameron, a member of India’s law commission (Higgins). The Cameron family eventually included Charles, Julia, five of their own children, five relatives’ children, and a neighborhood girl that …show more content…
Shortly after first practicing with her new camera, Cameron devoted her efforts to creating photographs using the most common practice at the time which used a large, wooden camera that sat on a tripod, glass plates, hazardous chemicals, and a darkroom, that resulted in albumen prints (“Julia Margaret Cameron Working Methods” ). (This process can now be referred to as the wet-collodion process that results in glass negatives and albumen prints.) One of the most interesting aspects about Cameron’s line-of-work is that she converted her personal home into her studio to kick-off her career. The chicken coop that sat outside was quickly altered to act as her studio and the family’s coal bin was utilized as a darkroom to develop the negatives (The Editors). Inside of these two small buildings is where Cameron’s energetic, creative energies were brought out to produce some of the greatest portraits that people can view …show more content…
These portraits clearly were executed using special costuming, props, and staging in order to fulfill these her visions. As Marta Weiss, an exhibition curator, had explained in the YouTube video, An Introduction to Julia Margaret Cameron, Cameron’s energy was an excellent contributor to her work and made creating tableaux photographers based on these religious or folkloric characters more easily possible (“An Introduction…”). Along with capturing these characters, Cameron also has produced portraits of intellectual leaders, children, and house servants who were all seen in a different light with her lens. She utilized a soft-focus technique that allowed for a gentler interpretation to be taken away by the audience. The image clearly was not crisp by any means, but this made the subject appear to be more “dreamy.” This was also accomplished by the dramatic lighting she utilized and the photographs being taken near the subject rather than from far away. These trends that Cameron used became her signature for taking photographs along with how she developed her