Lord Justice James 1868 - 1872

This portrait of Lord Justice James was created by Julia Margaret Cameron using the wet collodion process. As a photographer, Cameron harnessed the relatively new technology of chemical photography to produce highly textured images. Look at the granular quality of the print. This was in part due to Cameron’s embrace of soft focus and her rejection of the perfect clarity that other photographers strived to achieve. Cameron’s technique, although pioneering, was laborious: each photograph involved coating a glass plate with light-sensitive chemicals, exposing it in the camera while still wet, and then developing it immediately. The tactile quality of this print is notable; it resembles a charcoal drawing or painting. The result is a blurring of the boundaries between photography, painting, and printmaking. This reminds us that the cultural value of a work depends on the way an artist engages with materials and processes.