A PIONEER OF ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY BORN IN INDIA

This illustrated book is about a Victorian pioneer of artistic photography, who had Bengali, French and British ancestors and was born in Kolkata (Calcutta) - JULIA MARGARET CAMERON (1815-1879).

It focuses on the Isle of Wight, where her friends and acquaintances included notable cultural figures such as the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, the writer Charles Dodgson, the historian Thomas Carlyle, the painter George Frederic Watts, the actress Ellen Terry, the scientist John Frederick Herschel, and the naturalist Charles Darwin. It is also about her important associations with Kolkata, Sri Lanka,, and London.

The text, which moves from India to South Africa, back to India, then to England, and finally to Sri Lanka., was inspired by how much the author’s travels have paralleled those made by Julia Margaret Cameron. This book illuminates aspects
of her life and those of her contemporaries, and presents them in an innovative way.