06Oct
John Herschel met Julia Margaret Cameron
"The friendship between Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) and Julia Margaret Cameron (née Pattle) began in South Africa in 1837 when the Prattle family and the Herschels were residing in the vicinity of Cape Town. The friendship was to continue after Julia Margaret's move to Calcutta where she married Charles Hay Cameron and her return to Britain some ten years later in 1848."
(Google AI Summary)
Apart from his friendship and tutoring of Cameron, Herschel made a profound impact on Photography itself, even before he met Cameron.
"Sir John Herschel significantly advanced early photography by coining the terms "photograph," "positive," and "negative," inventing the cyanotype process, and discovering the use of sodium thiosulfate (hypo) for fixing photographic images. His 1839 experiments also included creating the first glass plate negative, a crucial step in photographic development that allowed for multiple prints to be made from one negative."
(Google AI Summary October 2025)
Yes, Herschel not only coined the words 'Photograph' (and 'snap-shot' and 'positive' and 'negative'), he also invented a fixative (hyposulphite of soda) that worked effectively; and he invented the cameraless photograph - the cyanotype or blueprint direct contact print:
That's some contribution! No wonder that Julia Margaret so valued his friendship - and it seems almost miraculous that they should meet when Julia was so young - only 22 - and remain a friend and confidant - and mentor! - through the invention of photography in the 1830s and when Julia was given her first camera in 1863, and quickly adopted it as her own art-form, and her source of delight, inspiration and expression for the rest of her life.
Julia's perhaps unique contribution to the art of photography stemmed from her particular use of focus, and her art-based exercises in composition (learned from the painter GF Watts),and importantly, her wish that photography could make up for her lack of skill in drawing.
Your task is to dramatise or illustrate in some performable way these facts.
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