Julia Margaret Cameron, The Angel at the Tomb, 1869-70, Royal Photographic Society, Bath, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
British photographer Julia Margaret Pattle was born on June 11th, 1815 in Calcutta, India to Adeline de l’Etang, a French aristocrat, and James Pattle, a British official of the East India Company. In 1838, in Calcutta, she married Charles Hay Cameron and they eventually settled on the Isle of Wight near their friend Lord Tennyson. They had six children together; nevertheless, Julia also was close to her nieces, her favorite being Julia Prinsep Jackson who was the mother of Virginia Woolf.
Julia Margaret Cameron received her first camera when she was 48 years old. She mostly took photographic portraits and allegorical scenes with legendary or romantic themes. Her soft-focus images helped to elevate photography to the realm of fine art and influence the first international photography movement, Pictorialism.
