Lewis Carroll and Photography
Lewis Carroll became interested in photography in the infancy of this scientific art form. He was a man of infinite patience and one who paid attention to the smallest detail. These qualities were mandatory to be a photographer in the 1850’s. The wet collodion process was demanding indeed. It is thought that he gave up photography when the dry developing process came to the fore, because he felt it made photography so easy that almost anyone could do it (like the introduction of digital photography in our own time?). He is considered one of the best amateur photographers of his time, particularly in his images of Victorian children, but he also photographed friends, family, fellow scholars, and noted figures of his day, including Alfred Lord Tennyson, and members of the Rossetti family.
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Photography by Carroll
- Photos at HRC University of Texas at Austin
- Skeffington Hume Dodgson with fishing gear, August 1856
- Dido, a dog belonging to Carroll’s brother Wilfred Dodgson, ca 1857
- Mary and Charlotte Webster and Margaret Gatey, ca 1857
- Margaret Anne and Henrietta Mary Lutwidge playing chess, ca 1859
- Photos of Alice Liddell plus many others. Thanks to J. David Sapir at the University of Virginia.
- Photographs from the Princeton University collection . This is a great collection of Dodgson’s photographs. Keep clicking on the small images until you get to the large image.
- Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund
Books About Carroll’s Photography
- Selected Bibliography
- Lewis Carroll, Photographer by Helmut Gernsheim (the first major critical appreciation)
- Reflections in a Looking-Glass: A Centennial Celebration of Lewis Carroll, Photographer by Morton Cohen
- Lewis Carroll, Photographer by Edward Wakeling & Roger Taylor
- Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll by Douglas R. Nickel
- An article in the NY Times about Nickel’s book and Carroll’s photography
Photographs/Images of Carroll
- Various Images of Carroll, including a humorous pen and ink self-portrait
Related Photography Items
- Carroll’s wet collodion photographic outfit
- Photo of photographic equipment – Carroll would have travelled with all of this.
- Polixeni Papapetrou’s photos of her daughter after Carroll:A playful article on the sale of Carroll’s photographs
- Category: Photographs of Children by Lewis Carroll
- A gallery of fairytale images by Diana Elliott
Carroll’s Own Humorous View of Photography
- A Photographer’s Day Out (An amusing essay; look under “Bruno’s Revenge and Other Stories”)
