Julia Margaret Cameron

“What is focus and who has a right to say what focus is the legitimate focus?”

“My first successes in my out-of-focus pictures were a fluke. That is to say, that when focusing and coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful, I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insisted upon.”

“When I have had such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavoured to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man.”

“My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and the Ideal and sacrificing nothing of Truth.”

“A sacred gift has been given to my keeping.”

“From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour... it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.”

“I longed to arrest all the beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.”