Self Portrait as a Monk

Better known as a painter of historical scenes, David Wilkie Wynfield produced a series of photographic portraits of fellow artists in historical costume that possess many of the qualities that would come to characterize Julia Margaret Cameron’s work: close proximity to the subject, a slightly softened focus and shallow depth of field, careful attention to lighting, and the evocation of literary, biblical, or historical figures. “I have had one lesson from the great Amateur photographer Mr. Wynfield,” Cameron wrote. “To my feeling about his beautiful Photography I owed all my attempts and indeed consequently all my successes.”