Early British photography was rooted in the experimentation of Henry Talbot, John Herschel and their extended family, scientific and artistic networks, and the French daguerreotype process. Talbot’s announcement of his photogenic drawing process in 1839, and calotype process in 1841, Herschel’s cyanotype in 1842, and the commercialisation of the daguerreotype from 1841 saw amateur and professional photography flourish. These processes were overtaken by collodion from the early 1850s.

This conference explores the contributions of Talbot and Herschel and their circles, wider themes in early photography, and the continuing legacy of this period with contemporary artists.

This paper explores the collaborative nature of John Herschel and Mary Somerville’s photographic conversations. It does so by turning to art practice and processes of reenactment, and addresses two questions: how does a repositioning of Somerville as a photographer (in this instance, through her 1835 and 1845 experiments) change the way we think about the history of the medium? And how can photographic art practice contribute to the task of locating Somerville in the early history of photography?