Julia Margaret Cameron was one of the most original British photographers of the nineteenth century, and produced some of the most immediate and powerful portraits executed in any medium. The Pre-Raphaelite painters inspired her work, and her photographs are frequently allegorical, representing religious, antique, and literary themes.

Ambitious from the start, she considered herself an artist who made photographs rather than a mere photographer. Spontaneous and intuitive, Cameron was more interested in capturing the essence of her subject than in mastering a perfect camera technique. Her pictures were innovative for their expressive use of soft-focus and for their large scale and close-up perspective, which influenced the vision of generations of photographers who came after her.