Skip to content

The photographs edited 150 years before Photoshop

Vanessa Pearce
BBC News, West Midlands
Getty Images A young woman wearing white robes lies on a bed covered in sheets suspended in the dark space which surrounds herGetty Images
Henry Peach Robinson used his combination printing technique to produce an illustration of the Shakespearean verse "She never told her love" - a study in unrequited love

A photographer who pioneered techniques to create detailed images by combining multiple negatives is being celebrated 170 years after he set up his first studio.

Henry Peach Robinson was one of the most famous characters of his age, said photographic historian Michael Pritchard, with his work winning awards and selling widely.

"He really showed photographers at that time that photography could be art," he added.

Born in Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1830, Robinson studied drawing and painting while working in a bookshop in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire and he opened his first portrait studio in the town in 1855.

He is being remembered by the town's photographic society, with his story also highlighted in a book by a local history group.

"By 1857 he was winning medals and awards for his art photography and that carried on right the way through to the 1890s," explained Mr Pritchard, a former chief executive of the Royal Photographic Society.

Getty Images An elderly man sits in a parlour reading a book while a female figure looks on. She looks to be mending some socks. The pair are surrounded by objects relating to rural life in Victorian times, including a stool, kitchen equipment, buckets and baskets Getty Images
The photographer showcased rural life in his work When the Days Work is Done, using multiple layers of negatives to produce the light and dark in the piece

Robinson used "combination printing", he said, creating a single image from multiple negatives.

Using this technique allowed independent control of different parts of the scenes in the finished images.

Getty Images A sepia coloured photograph showing a group of women and children on a stony beach surrounded by baskets. They wear long skirts and dark tops, two of them with hats on.Getty Images
Robinson was also a founding member of the Birmingham Photographic Society

"It's something we do today in Photoshop relatively easily but in the late 1850s and mid-19th Century it was a pretty groundbreaking technique," said Mr Pritchard.

"He became an absolute master of it and this was how he was able to create absolutely groundbreaking and stunning pictures."

Getty Images A young woman is seen on her death bed with two female members of her family, one at the foot and one at the head of her bed. A man stares out of a window in the background. Getty Images
The photographer combined five separate negatives to produce the single image of Fading Away, showing the death of a young woman surrounded by her family

In one of the earliest examples of his "pictorial" photography, Fading Away, Robinson combined five separate negatives to produce a scene showing a dying girl surrounded by her family.

The image became incredibly popular despite Robinson's technique and subject matter, which was considered too morbid by some.

"As ever with that sort of genre photography of the time, there's a deeper story around it and you know all sorts of issues around how the Victorians pictured death," Mr Pritchard said.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds a copy of the image and it said on its website that the photo appealed to Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who bought a print and issued a standing order for every major composite photograph Robinson would make.

Leamington History Group A sepia image of Leamington Spa's Upper Parade pictured in 1861. Rows of terraced buildings stand along a road with wrought iron lamp-posts in front of them.Leamington History Group
In 1855, Robinson took a lease at 15 Upper Parade, Leamington Spa, where he built a studio in the garden and opened it to the public

The photographer was also a founding member of the Birmingham Photographic Society and produced a number of books.

"In terms of his importance for photography, I think he's probably a little bit forgotten these days but at the time he was still seen as a very influential figure and someone that had made a massive impact on photography," added Mr Pritchard.

Leamington History Group A bearded man wearing a top coat, ruffle-neck shirt and bow-tie looks towards the camera. He is carrying a long-handled pipeLeamington History Group
Henry Peach Robinson's story will be highlighted in a Leamington History Group publication, Creative Leamington, set to be published later this year

In 1864, when he was 34, Robinson was forced to give up his Leamington studio due to ill health from being exposed to the toxic chemicals used at the time in photography.

He moved to London and continued to work until his death in 1901 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

"He was one of life's interesting characters," said Peter Chappell, the outgoing chair of the Leamington Photographic Society.

"He was entrepreneurial, he was commercial but at the same time he was artistic and he was promoting photography as an art form," he added.

The society recently marked the 170-year anniversary by inviting celebrity photographer Rankin to the town for an event, which attracted more than 150 people.

"That link about the world's top portrait photographer of the 1800s living and working in Leamington Spa and we got the world's top portrait photographer of current times actually coming to the town - that binds the whole story together," added the outgoing vice chair Mark Godfrey.

Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.

More on this story
Related internet links