Pioneering Photography of Julia Margaret Cameron at the Morgan

Staff | Fine books and collections | 19th May 2025

The first photographers were preoccupied with image accuracy. Not Cameron. When given a camera in 1863, she understood that it was “an instrument of imagination and emotion”. Embracing a style of “spontaneous intimacy” she used effects like motion blur and soft focus, making her the preferred portraitist of artists and scientists. Her work profiles the intellectually ambitious Victorian age and makes her, says one writer, “one the world’s top ten photographers of all time”. An in-depth piece is here.