Julia Margaret Cameron: related photographers

Oscar Rejlander

Oscar Rejlander (British, born Sweden, 1813-75) was a self-taught photographer who, like Cameron, often made staged narrative photographs. He visited the Isle of Wight in 1863. There, Cameron posed for his portrait studies and probably collaborated with him on the composition of negatives. She made prints from his glass plates, including this photograph of Kate Dore. It combines his portrait with a photogram of ferns, made by sandwiching the leaves against sensitised paper in her frame with Rejlander’s negative.

David Wilkie Wynfield

David Wilkie Wynfield's portrait of the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt was copyrighted in December 1863. The artist's face, dominantly positioned on the sheet, is slightly out of focus. There is some re-touching around the eyes (achieved by drawing or painting on the glass negative) and the print, though mounted, was left unspotted. These, and the use of period costume, are hallmarks of the photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron (except that she used retouching only rarely). Wynfield was an important adviser to Julia Margaret Cameron. He is known to have given her one lesson in photography and she frequently sought his advice on practical and artistic matters. She wrote of him 'to my feeling about his beautiful Photography I owed all my attempts and indeed consequently all my success'.

Oscar Gustav Rejlander in collaboration with Julia Margaret Cameron, 'Kate Dore with Photogram Frame of Ferns', about 1862. Museum no. PH.258-1982.

David Wilkie Wynfield, 'Portrait of William Holman Hunt', early 1863, Albumen print from wet-collodion-on-glass negative, Museum no. 132-1945.