Masons at Work
Photography Studio Hill and Adamson British, Scottish
David Octavius Hill British, Scottish
Robert Adamson British, Scottish
Not on view
Hill posed the figures-masons carving a griffin for the elaborate two-hundred-foot-high neo-Gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott-so naturally that the illusion of instantaneity is altogether convincing. It is precisely this looseness of formal structure and departure from painted convention that makes photographs such as this and Officer of the 92nd Gordon Highlanders so remarkable just five years into the history of the medium.