Portraits of Victorian Geniuses by Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was born in Calcutta in 1815, spent her childhood and youth there, married, and then moved to London. At the age of 48, Margaret received an unexpected gift from her daughter - a camera - and plunged into the still new art of photography with joyful enthusiasm.

The first heroes of her filming were family members, neighbors and servants. Margaret Cameron had a unique style, her photographs were distinguished by sullen shadows, informal and thoughtful poses, and even a little blur. During her short career as a photographer (12 years), she took about 900 photographs, capturing the titans of her time and the Victorian intelligentsia - from the poet Alfred Tennyson to Charles Darwin. Often, those she photographed appeared as religious or mystical figures.

(Total 16 photos)

Source: mashable.com

Writer Thomas Carlyle.

Writer James Spedding.

Writer Anthony Trollope, 1864.

Julia Margaret Cameron's husband, lawyer Charles Cameron, as a wise old man, 1870.

Astronomer and physicist John Herschel.

Playwright and poet Henry Taylor, 1864.

Poet Alfred Tennyson, 1885

Charles Darwin, 1870s.

Portrait of Julia Jackson, niece of Julia Margaret. Julia Jackson will later have a daughter, Virginia Woolf.

Julia Jackson, mother of Virginia Woolf.

Astronomer and physicist John Herschel.

Adolphus Liddell, 1867

Portrait of the photographer's niece as an old woman.

Young plantation worker, Ceylon, circa 1875.

Portrait of a young Italian, possibly Alessandro Colorossi. Cameron's only photograph of a professional model.

The photo was created based on the fifth book of Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1859). In the photo, Cameron recreates the moment when Merlin (her husband Charles) is substituted under the spell of the sorceress Vivienne (Agnes Mangles). Mangles later wrote that Charles simply could not get into a theatrical pose without grimacing with laughter, ruining many of the negatives.