Sir Galahad and the Pale Nun

Wrinkled and unhemmed, the homemade costumes worn here would have also been used for amateur theatricals. The Cameron family enjoyed this popular Victorian pastime, reenacting stories, plays, and poems for one another. This image features an enactment from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Cameron— Tennyson’s neighbor and friend—made several photographic illustrations for the poet’s work.

Though criticized by other photographers for inattention to detail and lack of technical mastery of her photographic craft, Cameron was a perfectionist in her artistic vision. Writing about the Idylls illustrations she lamented, “I have taken 245 photographs to get these 12 successes.”