Photography in the Victorian era

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http://www.viralnova.com/post-mortem-victorian-photographs/2/
The dead girl in the middle is more in focus than her parents. 

Photography in the Victorian era



Book reference 
Jean-Claude Lemagny And Andrè Rouillè (1987). A History of Pgitography. UK: Cambridge University Press. 15-17.

David Company (2012). Photography The Whole Story. United States: Prestel Publishing. 49-59.
Websites


At the end of eighteenth century photography entered the scene and it was most popular in the more advanced countries, politically and economically, France and Britain. Photography played an important part in society as it was used for evidence and was said to be 'part of the truth', a physical trace of evidence. 
Queen Victoria was the first British monarch to be captured on camera but when she took the throne in 1837, the first photographs were just being taken, and this was the time where technology developed and photos became more professional and
popular.

Photography was used to document scientific experiments and demonstrations such as hypnotism.
The Victoria Era was an abnormal era in human history having said that most mortem photography was very common in the 19th century.
Photographing the dead was a tradition in the Victoria era because of the child and infant mortality rate, photographing them dead was a way of memorialising the lost family members and saying goodbye for the last time. Post mortem photos most of the times were the only times people were photographed.
To show religion a cross would be involved in the photo and placed in the hands of the person being photographed, flowers were also used as props. To give the deceased a little life, eyes and pupils would be drawn on and they would be posed in life like positions.
Women played an important part in the early years of photography, they were creative and determined. Julia Margaret Cameron, Lady Hawarden and Anna Atkins were well educated. Even though they weren't professional photographers they helped to transform the world of art in the Victorian era.


'The two women posed with a chair' 1850.

I love this photo because of its detail. The lighting
shows different tones but all focused on grey. The
chair is almost black with white on the outline but its the lighting on the face that i love. The light is hitting all the right parts of the face such as the forehead chin nose underneath the eyes which adds a glow to the two girls even though the photo is in black and white. The quality of the photo and alongside with the way they are dressed suggests that they are wealthy.

There was a focus on the face as the light is very flattering and its mellow. The hairstyle was before the changes in hair and at the start of 'daguerreotypy' although it was in the 1850's where the over the ears loose curly hairstyles came in.