Re: Julia Margaret Cameron (Was Re: Women in Photography.)

[Bob Walkden]

Hi,

an exhibition of her work has just opened at the National Portrait
Gallery in London. There was an interesting and very good review of
her work in tpday's 'Independent' newspaper. Unfortunately that review
is not on their website, but there is a review of a recent biography
here: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=374422

Apparently she was only active in photography for 10 years. She wasn't
a dowager at the time, by the way. She was just a slip of a girl at 48
when she started photographing - hardly old, anyway. And not widowed.
She stopped photographing when she went to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with her
husband, who was some sort of Empire-builder.

Bob

Tuesday, February 4, 2003, 2:17:34 PM, you wrote:

> Hi,

> Having taken up the subject in middle age, when she was probably
> expected to settle into dowager-like somnolence, and dealing
> with an almost completely do-it-yourself process involving wet
> negatives when taking a picture, her output is certainly
> impressive.

[...]

Julia Margaret Cameron (Was Re: Women in Photography.)

[mike wilson]

Hi,

Paul wrote:

> I saw an exhibition of her work last year, quite amazing what was achieved so early 
>on.

Having taken up the subject in middle age, when she was probably
expected to settle into dowager-like somnolence, and dealing
with an almost completely do-it-yourself process involving wet
negatives when taking a picture, her output is certainly
impressive.

Many people (then and now) dislike(d) her work as it was the
antithesis of what many were striving for at the time.  Unlike
most of her peers, who were striving to get the utmost
resolution and detail into their prints, JMC dressed her
subjects in mythical, ethereal types of costume and then
deliberately defocused, to give the pictures a dreamy look.

Or, maybe she was just short-sighted.

Her home on the Isle of Wight is now a photography museum.

mike