An Exhibition of Royal Photographers



The Princess Royal and Princess Alice, Balmoral 1856 by Fenton


A new exhibition entitled Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron: Early British Photographs from the Royal Collection, will be on display at The Arts and Crafts House, Blackwell, Cumbria until April 27 2011.

Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were photography enthusiasts who kept voluminous photo albums containing pictures of their own family, as well as “art” photographs of models, people and places. At her death in 1901, Queen Victoria’s collection numbered an estimated 20,000 photographs. In December of 1853, the Royal Couple attended the inaugural exhibition of the Photographic Society. Roger Fenton, founder of the Society, of which Prince Albert later became a patron, personally showed them the exhibits and was invited to Windsor Castle to photograph the royal children, the beginnings of a large collection of photos he’d take of the family. Coincidentally or not, after Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Fenton sold his photo equipuipment and gave up photography to retrun to the practice of law and relative obscurity.



Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, by Fenton, June 30, 1854



Julia Margaret Cameron (self portrait)

Queen Victoria first saw the work of Julia Margaret Cameron after Albert’s death at Colnaghi’s photo gallery in London and began collecting her work. Born in 1815, Cameron took up photography in 1863, when her daugther gave her a camera. Within a year, Cameron became a member of the Photographic Societies of London and Scotland. A few of her artistic photographs are show here –



The Kiss of Peace 1869



“Sadness” featurning Ellen Terry For further information on photos of the royal family . . .