The 92nd Gordon Highlanders were stationed at Edinburgh Castle between July 1845 and April 1846, having returned from the West Indies and before their move to Ireland, and later the Ionian Islands and Gibraltar. At the time, Hill was making preparations for his painting ‘Edinburgh Old and New’, now also in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. His famous partnership with photographer Robert Adamson originated from the idea of creating photographic studies for large paintings, and in 1846 Hill returned to this idea. Their series of calotypes of the Gordon Highlanders also includes some of the members of the Drums & Pipes, whose role it was to lead the troops into battle and keep up morale.
Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821 - 1848)
Robert Adamson was one of the first professional photographers, setting up in business in Edinburgh in March 1843. He had aspired to be an engineer but his health was too poor. His brother, John, who was involved in the early experiments with photography in St Andrews, taught him the calotype process. Shortly after opening his studio on Calton Hill, Robert met the painter David Octavius Hill. They worked together for a few weeks on studies for a grand painting of the Free Church of Scotland before entering into partnership to explore the possibilities of photography. Despite Adamson's early death, the two produced some of the most impressive works taken in the medium and greatly influenced later practice in the art.
David Octavius Hill (Scottish, 1802 - 1870)
A painter and a lithographer by training, David Octavius Hill is best remembered for the beauty of the calotypes he and Robert Adamson produced together. Hill was a sociable and kind-hearted man who did much to support the arts in Scotland and between 1830 and 1836 he was the unpaid Secretary of the newly established Royal Scottish Academy. After Adamson's death, Hill's attempt to start a new partnership with the photographer Alexander MacGlashan around 1860 failed. Hill is to this day revered as one of the first in the trade who transformed photography into an art form.
