1355
of his personal archive is not known; the Huntington
Library and Art Gallery, California holds 27 seascapes
that were found within Lady Annie Brassey’s travel
albums and were acquired in 1923, and the J.Paul Getty
Museum holds 35 seascapes—31 of which were col-
lected by Sam Wagstaff in the late 1970s.
Gael Newton
Biography
Archibald Henry Plantagenet Stuart-Wortley was born
on 26 July 1832 in Wortley, Yorkshire. He fi rst took up
photography in Africa in 1853 while in the army and
began exhibiting portraits and dramatic ‘instantaneous’
seascapes in 1862 the same year he was elected as a
member Photographic Society of London later serving
on the council and as Vice-President on and off until
- He contributed papers to the Photographic News
and The Photographic Journal. In 1864 Stuart-Wortley
formed the United Photographers Association, a com-
mercial franchise liquidated in 1867and from 1871–74
marketed his own plates through his Uranium Dry Plate
Company. He is recognised as the author of one of a
number of “dry” collodion processes in the 1860s and
70s. Simultaneously with his photographic work, he
held several paid positions. He died in London 30 April - Stuart-Wortley is best known aesthetically for his
large “moonlit” seascapes with poetic titles. A series of
his nature studies published by James Sheldon, London
in 1869 and proved popular with artists. His 1882 book
Tahiti: A Series of Photographs...with letterpress by
Lady Brassey was illustrated with collotypes from im-
ages made in 1880.
See also: Sutton, Thomas; Dry Plate Negatives: Non-
Gelatine, Including Dry Collodion; Photographic
Notes (1856–1867) and Photographic News (1858–
1908); Dallmeyer, John Henry & Thomas Ross; Le
Gray, Gustave; Abney, William de Wiveleslie; and
Hawarden, Viscountess Clementina Elphinstone.
Further Reading
DiGiulio, Katherine, Natural Variations: Photographs by Colonel
Stuart-Wortley, San Marino, California: Henry E. Huntington
Library and Art Gallery, 1994 (exhibition catalogue).
Fluckinger, Roy, The Formative Decades: Photography in Great
Britain 1839–1920, Austin, Texas: Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center and Archer M. Huntington Gallery, Univer-
sity of Texas Press, 1985.
Jacobson, Ken & Jenny, Étude D’Après Nature: 19th Century
Photographs in relation to Art, Petches Bridge, Essex, Eng-
land, 1996 (catalogue).
Jacobson, Ken, The Lovely Sea-View: A Study of the Marine
Photographs Published by Gustave Le Gray, 1856–1858,
Petches Bridge, Essex, 2001.
Stuart-Wortley, Lieut.-Col, “On Photography in Connection
with Art,” The Photographic Journal, no.138 (October 15,
1863): 365–368.
Stuart -Wortley, Colonel Henry, Tahiti: A series of photographs
taken by Colonel Stuart-Wortley with letterpress by Lady
Brassey, London: S. Low Marston Searle and Rivington,
1882
Tower, John, The Silver Sunbeam, New York: Joseph H. Ladd,
1864.
Titterington, Christopher, “Llewellyn and Instantaneity,” The
V&A Album 4, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986,
pp.139–145.
Wagstaff, Sam, A Book of Photographs, New York: Gray Press,
1978.STUDIO DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
(1840–1900)
George Cruikshank’s 1842 cartoon showing Richard
Beard making a daguerreotype at the Royal Polytech-
nic Institution in London is believed to be the earliest
illustration of a photographic studio. The cartoon was
created as an illustration to accompany S. L. Blanchard’s
poem “The New School of Portrait-painting.” In that
woodcut we see a surprisingly sophisticated studio
design, considering that portrait photography had only
recently been introduced, and that Beard’s studio was
the world’s fi rst.
Daylight was the exposing light source, supplied
through a glass ceiling. A system of calico blinds could
be drawn or opened to control the direction and intensity
of the light. The subject sat on a raised dais, with a move-
able screen overhead—to reduce glare on the top of the
head. The dais could be moved at will around the circular
walls of the studio, to ensure that the subject was lit as
well as prevailing daylight conditions permitted.
Cameras were fi xed on a platform suspended from
rails around the walls of the studio, ensuring that the
camera to subject distance remained fi xed, eliminating
the need for the camera to be focussed before each
exposure. In the Cruikshank cartoon, two cameras—pre-
sumably offering two different plate sizes—can be seen
on the platform while the photographer, standing on a
set of steps, times the exposure.
With exposures running into minutes on dull days,
and still very long even in the brightest of light, the
subject was held in place with a head clamp.
Top lighting on its own was found to result in deep
shadowed eyes unless refl ectors were used to direct more
light directly into the subject’s face. A more satisfactory
answer was a studio where side lighting light could also
be introduced—the top fl oor of a building with large
windows as well as skylights being one of the options.
The alternative was a large greenhouse-like glasshouse
structure, fi tted with screens and blinds.
That basic idea of a glasshouse studio where light
could be controlled by blinds remained the guiding
principle of studio design for several years. In today’s
studio, the photographer starts off in a black room with