The first to put the new invention to a pictorial use was a Scottish artist, David Octavius Hill, who, having been present at the meeting at which the disruption of the Scottish Churches occurred, conceived the idea of painting the historic scene. It involved the inclusion of some hundreds of figures. To get sittings and draw all these portraits would have meant a year or two of labour and many might be dead before he could secure their likenesses. His friend, Sir David Brewster, an eminent scientist of the day, told him of the newly invented photography and at the same time introduced a young student of science, Robert Adamson of St. Andrews, to attend to the technical manipulations. For three years he worked at it and produced that series of por traits of Scottish notabilities that are amongst the greatest, as they are the earliest, masterpieces of the photographic art. An album containing fifty of the original prints of these was issued in 1848 and is now in the possession of the R.P.S.' In 1846 Hill returned to his painting, became secretary of the Scottish Academy of Arts and died in 1870 so completely unknown to fame as a photographer that not a single photographic paper chronicled the event. Although references to his pictures occur earlier (Photographic Journal, 1854, vol. I., p. 177, also 1864, vol. Ix., p. 63), it was not until James Craig Annan began to interest himself in Hill's work in the early nineties and published a series of photogravure plates from the original paper negatives, that he really became known.
It was Hill's artistry and not his photography that achieved greatness and it is well to bear this in mind when pictorial pho tography is twitted with not having done anything finer than Hill did so many years ago. Such a reproach is no more just than would be a similar one to the artists of today for not ex celling Titian and Raphael and Michelangelo. The "Girl in a Flowered Gown" is an example of the work of Hill.
Little is known of any of Hill's contemporaries. Dr. White of Aberdeen used photography for pictorial purposes and a collection of his landscapes was shown at the R.P.S. in December 1922 (Photo. Journal, vol. LXIII., p. 5) but the process was as yet so imperfect that the long exposures and lack of colour sensitive ness of the negative material made photography chiefly a record ing medium for the scientist, whence arose the tradition of sharp uniform definition that distinguished its practice until the advent of Mrs. Cameron in
Albumen Paper and Collodion.—The introduction of albumen paper in 1848 and of the collodion process of Scott Archer in 185o marked the next progression. Picture making was a serious business in those days when the negatives were made the full size of the finished print and had to be sensitized and de veloped in the field and when enlarging was as yet unknown. Already in the winter of 1851 there was a small group in London meeting regularly and by 1852 this had grown to such an extent that it was felt the time was ripe for a photographic society.