Victorian Giants : The birth of art photography

The idea of ‘art photography’ is nearly as old as photography itself, for in the 1850s photographers began to claim fine-art status for their work. Debates about photography and its role raged internationally, but it was in England, through the work of Oscar Rejlander, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll and Clementina Hawarden in particular, that the new art form found its fullest expression.