Photographer and painter, born in Perth, Perth and Kinross, E Scotland, UK. In 1843 he was commissioned to paint a commemorative scene of the founding of the Free Church of Scotland, and in order to get accurate details of the many founders, decided to take photographs of them. In this he was helped by the Edinburgh chemist, Robert Adamson, who had experience of the calotype process. The results of their collaboration, some 1500 pictures, are considered to be the finest photographic portraits of the 19th-c.
The Scottish painter and arts activist David Octavius Hill (1802 – 1870) collaborated with the engineer and photographer Robert Adamson between 1843 and 1847 to pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland.
Early life
David Octavius Hill was born in 1802 in Perth. A year later Hill took on unpaid secretarial duties.
Free Church of Scotland
Hill was present at the Disruption Assembly in 1843 when over 450 ministers walked out of the Church of Scotland assembly and down to another assembly hall to found the Free Church of Scotland. He decided to record the dramatic scene with the encouragement of his friend Lord Cockburn and another spectator, the physicist Sir David Brewster who suggested using the new invention, photography, to get likenesses of all the ministers present. Brewster was himself experimenting with this technology which only dated back to 1839, and he introduced Hill to another enthusiast, Robert Adamson. Hill and Adamson took a series of photographs of those who had been present and of the setting.
Photography studio
Their collaboration, with Hill providing skill in composition and lighting, and Adamson considerable sensitivity and dexterity in handling the camera, proved extremely successful, and they soon broadened their subject matter. Adamson's studio, "Rock House", on Calton Hill in Edinburgh became the centre of their photographic experiments. Using the Calotype process, they produced a wide range of portraits depicting well-known Scottish luminaries of the time, including Hugh Miller, both in the studio and in outdoors settings, often amongst the elaborate tombs in Greyfriars Kirkyard,
They photographed local and Fife landscapes and urban scenes, including images of the Scott Monument under construction in Edinburgh. They produced several groundbreaking "action" photographs of soldiers and - perhaps their most famous photograph - two priests walking side by side.
Their partnership produced around 3000 prints, but was cut short after only four years due to the ill health and untimely death of Adamson in 1848. The calotypes faded under sunlight, so had to be kept in albums, and though Hill continued the studio for some months, he became less active and abandoned the studio, though he continued to sell prints of the photographs and to use them as an aid for composing paintings. In 1862 he remarried, to the sculptress Amelia Paton, and around that time took up photography again, but the results were more static and less successful than his collaboration with Hill. Annan produced fine reduced facsimiles of the painting for sale throughout the Free Church, and a group of subscribers raised £1,200 to purchase the painting for the church.
D. Hill is buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh - one of the finest Victorian cemeteries in Scotland.
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