Julia Margaret Cameron was a nineteenth-century British photographer. She was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, in 1815, and started taking pictures at 48 years old after receiving her first camera from one of her children. She was a self-taught photographic experimenter who pioneered many techniques, including intentionally shooting out of focus and damaging negatives. She divided her subjects into the categories “Portraits,” “Madonna groups,” and “Fancy Subjects for Pictorial Effect.” Her work ranged from portraits of luminaries such as Alfred Tennyson and Sir John Herschel to allegorical, dramatic portrayals of family members and ordinary women on the Isle of Wight. She died in Ceylon in 1879.