I longed to capture all the beauty that appeared before me, and finally that longing was fulfilled. – Julia Margaret Cameron
English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is one of the most significant photographers of the 19th century. Although an exceptional portraitist, she was unjustly neglected and forgotten for a long time, but today her works are appreciated and famous – both her portraits of famous individuals, for which she is now best known, as well as numerous photographs of her children, friends, and relatives. In her photography career, which lasted only eleven years, she broke all written and unwritten rules of photography, freeing it from Victorian constraints and opening paths for all who saw and experienced photography as art.
Photography Career
Annie, the first success
During Julia’s time, photography was a demanding and arduous job that involved working with potentially dangerous materials and chemicals. The wooden tripod camera She was bulky and heavy. Julia used the common technique of that time and developed photographs from negatives using the wet collodion plate technique. Glass plates, approximately 30 x 25 cm in size, were coated with photosensitive chemicals in a darkroom and exposed in a camera while still wet. After that, the glass negatives were returned to the darkroom and developed, washed, and fixed there. Photographic prints were made by placing the glass plate directly onto photographic paper and exposing it to light. The entire process was quite complex in technical terms, and the slightest mistake could completely ruin the photograph.
A Study for Beatrice Cenci
Alfred Lord Tennyson
In a historical sense, some of her photographs are very important because they are the only photographic portraits of certain significant individuals, but their artistic value is infinitely more important.
In the case of most Victorian photographs, the figures were posed in rigid, traditional poses in front of to promijeniti. Njene fotografije su bile drugačije – umjetničke, nekonvencionalne. Umjesto tipičnih pozadina, Julia je koristila nejasne, minimalističke pozadine. Njene modele je fotografirala s licima u krupnom planu, koristeći leću izvan fokusa, prigušeno svjetlo i dugačke ekspozicije. Ovo je stvaralo snovit i zamagljeni dojam, suprotan od onoga što su drugi fotografi pokušavali postići. Fotografska zajednica je podcjenjivala i čak ismijavala Juliju, ali među prerafaelitskim slikarima, koji su također težili oslobađanju od viktorijanske umjetnosti i njenih konvencija, njeni radovi su bili visoko cijenjeni. Danas bismo se teško mogli zamisliti da fotografija nije priznata kao umjetnost, ali u vremenima Julije to nije bio slučaj. Fotografija je tada bila novi medij s naglaskom na dokumentaristički aspekt, tehničku i zanatsku savršenost, dok je Julia nastojala promijeniti taj pristup. something else – creating an atmosphere, emotionally colorizing the photograph and capturing the character of the portrayed person, so other photographers described her works as “blurred, undefined and in some cases unreadable.” Throughout her career, she decisively and uncompromisingly fought for the acceptance of photography as an art form, on par with painting and sculpture. Perhaps her greatest contribution to the development of photography is the fact that today it is self-evident that photographs are exhibited in museums and galleries and that photography is not just a documentation of reality, but a legitimate, widely accepted artistic form. In one of her last letters, in 1875, she wrote: “It is the sacred grace that has manifested itself in my photographs, which brings pleasure to millions and truly makes many happy.”
Julia Margaret Cameron was born in 1815 in Calcutta, India. She was educated in France, but returned to India where in 1838 she married Charles Hay, who was twenty years her senior. Charles, a high-ranking government official in India. They had a large family – six biological and six adopted children.
Ten years later, Charles retired and the family moved to England. They regularly gathered at her sister Sarah’s apartment in London, where famous writers and artists would also gather. Julia and Charles, both very fond of art, soon became part of that society. In 1863, Julia received a camera as a gift from her daughter and from that moment on, she began to seriously engage in photography.
In 1875, due to family matters, she moved to Ceylon. She continued to take photographs, but faced difficulties in obtaining the necessary chemicals and lack of clean water for developing and printing photographs. Therefore, she took fewer photographs, and only a small part of them has been preserved. She passed away in Ceylon in 1879.