On the 17th October, we visited Lacock Abbey to learn more about William Henry Fox Talbot and his relationship with photography. 

 

Talbot was born on the 11th February and died in September 17th 1877. He was a mathematician, botanist and chemist. He was well known for investigating and inventing photography. His process of creating a negative in the camera and from making multiple positive prints which was the way people printed throughout the nineteeth and twentieth century. 

 

Fox Talbot inherited Lacock Abbey when he was only months old. He only started living there when he was 27 years old. 

 

The idea of photography came about when Fox Talbot was on his honeymoon trying to draw which turned out to be disappointing attempts. Talbot then turned to science to figure out how he could use his knowledge for inventing something that people with no artistic talent could make images.

 

When Talbot returned to Lacock in 1834, he began his experiment, which would lead to a year later his first camera image. Many of Talbots early images were shadow photographs of plants. He saw a future for creating scientific images and enjoyed making this simple but effective plant imagery.