Major Crawford, Major Wright, Capt. St. George, and Capt. Bortingham of the Leith Fort Artillery
Photography Studio Hill and Adamson British, Scottish
David Octavius Hill British, Scottish
Robert Adamson British, Scottish
Not on view
The Scottish painter-photographer team of Hill and Adamson, among the first practitioners to be recognized as artists in the new medium, exploited the paper negative's tendency to soften details and to exaggerate light and shadow in dramatic chiarascuro effects, imparting a Rembrandtesque quality that was much admired.
On occasion Hill and Adamson ventured into full-blown genre, costuming and staging literary scenes reminiscent of popular tableaux vivants, but in other cases, such as this one, they found authentically engaging subjects in contemporary life. As Leith Fort was no longer in use by the 1840s, the artists probably imported the four artillerymen from a nearby post for this snapshotlike study in jauntiness.
