After receiving a camera as a gift from her daughter, Julia Margaret Cameron began her career in photography at the age of forty-eight. She produced most of her work from her home at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. Many of her models were family members, (including her husband and grandson), her domestic servants as well as local residents.
She also photographed the intellectuals and leaders within her own circle of family and friends which included the portrait painter George Frederick Watts, the astronomer Sir John Herschel, and the Poet Laureate of England Alfred, Lord Tennyson.