
The Fetters of Winter,
Marsh Leaves,
1895,
Peter Henry Emerson, The Royal Photograhic Society Collection
at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television

Art photographers, like artists, were actively seeking marshes, wide expanses of water, and big blank skies. They were attracted to overlooked or almost empty landscapes, often seen in winter or autumn or at dawn or dusk. When they took photographs, they were looking for signs of emptiness, or rather solitude, in a crowded country. Those images of emptiness were not signs of a bleak outlook but of their individual and adventurous spirits.
