Julia Margaret Cameron was seen as an unconventional and experimental photographer, her images have a solid place in the history of photography.
Most of Cameron's photographs are portraits. She used members of her family and friends as sitters and made photographs than concentrated on their faces.
This photograph, taken in April 1864, is a portrait of Alice and Elizabeth Keown kissing. For the title, The Double Star, the photographer refers to the religious poem by Horatius Bonar.
Physical description
Portrait of naked children kissing (Alice and Elizabeth Keown).
Place of Origin
Isle of Wight, England (photographed)
Date
April 1864 (photographed)
Artist/maker
Cameron, Julia Margaret, born 1815 - died 1879 (photographer)
Materials and Techniques
Albumen print from wet collodion glass negative
Marks and inscriptions
Registered Photograph Julia Margaret Cameron
The double Star
Children (two), study of.
Studies for painting
X 311 45158 Photographs by Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron, c.1864-75. "The double star."
Dimensions
Height: 25.3 cm image, Width: 20 cm image, Height: 33.5 cm mount, Width: 26.7 cm mount
Object history note
Provenance: gift of the artist, 27 September, 1865.
Historical context note
Julia Margaret Cameron career as a photographer began in 1863 when her daughter gave her a camera. Cameron began photographing everyone in sight. Because of the newness of photography as a practice, she was free to make her own rules and not be bound to convention. The kinds of images being made at the time did not interest Cameron. She was interested in capturing another kind of photographic truth. Not one dependent on accuracy of sharp detail, but one that depicted the emotional state of her sitter.
Cameron liked the soft focus portraits and the streak marks on her negatives, choosing to work with these irregularities, making them part of her pictures. Although her photographs lacked the sharpness that other photographers at the time aspired towards, they succeeded in conveying the emotional and spiritual aura of the sitter.
Although at the time Cameron was seen as an unconventional and experimental photographer, her images have a solid place in the history of photography.
Most of Cameron's photographs are portraits. She used members of her family as sitters and made photographs than concentrated on their faces. She was interested in conveying their natural beauty, often asking female sitters to let down their hair so as to show them in a way that they were not accustomed to presenting themselves. In addition to making stunning and evocative portraits both of male and female subjects, Cameron also staged tableaux and posed her sitters in situations that simulated allegorical paintings.
Descriptive line
Portrait of Alice and Elizabeth Keown 'The Double Star', albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative by Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-79), made in Freswater Bay, Isle of Wight, April 1864.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Julian Cox and Colin Ford, et al. Julia Margaret Cameron: the complete photographs. London : Thames and Hudson, 2003. Cat. no. 860
Exhibition History
Kiss This - The Kiss in Photography (Focal Point Gallery, Southend Central Library 01/03/1996-31/03/1996)
Techniques
Albumen process
Subjects depicted
Children; Childhood; Keown, Elizabeth (Topsy); Keown, Alice Jessie
Categories
Portraits; Children & Childhood; Photographs
Collection code
PDP
