About this artwork

These portraits are some of the earliest photographs of working men and women. In the 1840s, when photography was in its infancy, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson established a studio in Edinburgh. Regularly visiting the nearby fishing village of Newhaven, then just outside the city, they made upwards of 130 studies of the fishermen and their families. They intended to publish these photographs in a book – a plan which was prevented by Robert Adamson’s early death in 1848.

Published March 2022

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David Octavius Hill

David Octavius Hill