Set against verdant backdrops, wearing floral headdresses, with long sweeping hair, Spartali Stillman was photographed in portraits which feel so fresh, so modern, they could have been taken today. First working a camera at the age of forty-eight, Cameron became one of the medium’s pioneers, and was instrumental in the development of portrait photography. (She brought to it a relaxed informality and intimacy, evidenced by her subjects’ expressions or the visible lines on their faces, whereas before figures often appeared stiff due to the subjects having to stand still for long periods of
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