Henry Peach Robinson

Henry Peach Robinson British, 1830-1901Considered the founder of the pictorialist school of photography, Henry Peach Robinson is both a highly regarded and a controversial figure in the history of the medium. Born in Ludlow, Shropshire, Robinson began his career as a painter and became interested in photography in 1852. In 1857 he opened a portrait studio. A leading exponent of photography as a fine art, Robinson is best known for his composite photographs. Constructed through a process of design similar to painting, these images were produced by first assembling several individual photographs and then rephotographing them into a final composition.

I think that most of his work is very mono toned and simple. He is a photograph type of artist. In 1856, with Rejlander, he was a founding member of the Birmingham Photographic Society. In 1864, at the age of thirty-four, Robinson was forced to give up his studio due to ill-health from exposure to toxic photographic chemicals.