A devoted mother, a devout Christian, and the wife of a high colonial official in India twenty years her senior, Julia Margaret Cameron began her photographic career when she was nearly fifty years old. She was extremely well-read and a friend of the writers Thomas Carlyle, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to mention only a few. Whenever she could, Cameron imposed upon her famous acquaintances, family, and servants to pose for her, insisting they endure excruciatingly long sessions before her camera. Her soft-focus style, the result of intuition more than design, suited her all-pervasive love for the ideal and for beauty.