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| Julia Margaret Cameron Annie 1864 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Annie 1864 Getty |
In January 1864 Julia Margaret Cameron mounted the albumen silver print above and wrote across the bottom border "Annie – My very first success in Photography." Only a month earlier, Cameron's daughter had produced the camera as a gift – an expensive and unusual gift at the time. The mother immediately threw herself into learning the extremely awkward processes required to use large wet-glass negatives, recruiting sitters from among her large household (children, grandchildren, servants, visitors) and inducing them to maintain poses through long exposure-times. In a career lasting scarcely more than a decade Julia Margaret Cameron made almost a thousand photographs. This body of work then waited a full century before its importance was widely recognized.
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Herschel c. 1865 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Vision of the Infant Samuel c. 1865 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Water Babies, Again 1864 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Study of the Child St. John 1872 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Study of Dead Child 1868 Getty |
The photograph above appears to document Cameron's encounter with an actual dead child, anticipating the industry of mortuary photography that would flourish on both sides of the Atlantic in the turn-of-the-century period. Below, Cameron photographs one of her own living grandchildren as if dead, calling the picture Shulamite Woman and Dead Son. This baby-model's apparent deep sleep might of course have been naturally induced, but knowing the ways of the Victorians it is hard to avoid the suspicion that a drop or two of opium was involved.
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Shunamite Woman and Dead Son 1865 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Angel of the Nativity 1872 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Florence 1872 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron George, Archie, Charlotte, Adeline c. 1868 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Study of the Cenci 1868 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron A Study 1867 Getty |
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| Julia Margaret Cameron Adeline Norman 1874 Getty |
All prints are from collections at the Getty in Los Angeles.