Emerson spent a year aboard his boat, The Maid of the Mist, sailing on the Norfolk Broads with his servant, Jim. This photograph appeared as a frontispiece to his 1893 book, 'On English Lagoons' which was an account of that journey. Emerson argued that it was the photographer's task to discover scenes of real beauty. It is difficult to help being drawn into the peacefulness of this image in a way that Emerson described as 'the true secret of happiness'.
P. H. Emerson (American, 1856 - 1936)
Peter Henry Emerson was born in Cuba but aspired to live the life of an English country gentleman. Inheriting considerable private wealth, he gave up a career in medicine and from the mid-1880s pursued his two passions - photography and writing. He perceived the English countryside as the only cure against the harmful effects of urban industrialisation. His exquisite photographs of the countryside were incorporated in limited edition books or published as portfolios. For Emerson, the only people capable of preserving the countryside were artists and intellectuals like himself.
