Photographic pioneer

David Octavius Hill (1802-1870). One of the early pioneers of photography in Scotland, most notably in his collaboration with Robert Adamson. Hill started as a painter, but was introduced to photography following the famous "Disruption Assembly" of 1843 when over 450 ministers walked out of the Church of Scotland assembly and moved to another hall where they founded the Free Church of Scotland. Having witnessed the events, Hill wanted to capture it in a painting and the physicist Sir David Brewster, who had also been present, suggested to Hill that he make use of the new invention of photography to collect likenesses of all the ministers present. Brewster had been experimenting with photographic processes, invented only a few years earlier in 1839. Brewster introduced Hill to another enthusiast, Robert Adamson and the two men, Hill and Adamson, took a series of photographs of everyone who had been at the Assembly and of the room where it had taken place.

The collaboration was very successful, with Hill bringing skill in composition and lighting, and Adamson considerable sensitivity and dexterity in handling the camera. Adamson's studio, "Rock House", on Calton Hill in the middle of Edinburgh, became the centre of their photographic experiments using the calotype process. They produced a wide range of portraits depicting well-known Scottish figures of the time, as well as ordinary working people, particularly the fishermen and fishwives of Newhaven. They also photographed local and Fife landscapes and urban scenes, including images of the Scott Monument under construction.

The 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 1866 he finally finished the Disruption picture (a massive 5 feet x 12 feet) to wide acclaim, even though many of the participants had died in the intervening years.

This bust on his grave in Dean Cemetery was sculpted by his second wife, Amelia Robertson Paton (1820-1904), who lies buried alongside him.

Information from Wikipedia