Peter

Honfessions 1887 enry Emerson C

By Samantha, Nikita, Rebecca and Rosie

Peter Henry Emerson was born in Cuba in 1856 but was raised in the United States before moving to an English school at the age of 13. He liked to photograph natural seIngs and was inspired by naturalisJc French painJngs. Emerson was a scienJst, naturalist, physician and arJst. He burst on to the scene as an outspoken criJc of Robinsons pictorial eect in Photography. The photo Confessions is a plaJnum print, and was taken in 1887 in East Anglia. It was featured in his 1887 book Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads.

This photograph shows an old woman and a young girl, most likely mother and daughter, washing dishes in a sherman's cobbled yard. The scene is emulaJng everyday life of working class culture. At the Jme everyone was moving to the city for the prospect of work. Emerson was aUempJng to photographically preserve a way of life threatened by modernizaJon. Therefore Emerson tried to portray countryside in a posiJve way, however this photograph doesnt show the true reality of disease, starvaJon and food shortages amongst the working class.

Emerson was not above asking the subject to change and equip themselves in a less pretenJous manor. He usually oered beer or a couple of coins to induce his subjects to pose. Emerson believed in a true representaJon and democraJc approach to photography but this is quesJonable from looking at his work. He expresses a biased view in this photograph on country life.

This photograph was taken using natural light where the shade oers equal tonal range. The soZ light creates a warm and calming mood. The compressed prospecJve forces the viewer to see the gures in the foreground as the main focus. A maximum depth of eld is a characterisJc Emerson likes to have within his work. The subjects are washing dishes which would be stereotypical of women's roles at the Jme the photograph was taken. At this Jme, a marriage was seen as a career for a woman, at a Jme when there were few rights for them.