Amateurs, Photography, and the Mid-Victorian Imagination

Besides the scientists, the earliest photography was done by amateurs who were usually members of the intellectual and aristocratic elite. They formed societies and clubs, publishing journals and papers that promoted their work and their rapidly evolving photographic techniques. Grace Seiberling, in this historical book, investigates the work of thirty-three of these early photographers. Both their aesthetics and their techniques are closely scrutinized along with the values of mid-Victorian English culture.