Britain in Focus: A Photographic History

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Eamonn McCabe explores the fascinating and remarkable story of British photography.

Series in which Eamonn McCabe celebrates Britain's greatest photographers, sees how science allowed their art to develop, and explores how they have captured our changing lives and country.

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Eamonn McCabe

John Das

Alastair Laurence

Nicole Larmour

Britain in Focus: A Photographic History: Series 1: Episode 1

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Episode 1

Series 1

BBC Four - Britain in Focus: A Photographic History, Series 1, Episode 1

Exploring how the new art of photography developed in 19th-century Britain.

Eamonn McCabe explores how science and technology allowed pioneering photographers like Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron to create a new art form.

Series in which Eamonn McCabe celebrates Britain's greatest photographers, sees how science allowed their art to develop, and explores how they have captured our changing lives and country. 

In the first of three programmes, Eamonn goes back to the 19th century to trace the astonishingly rapid rise of the photograph in British life. Eamonn explores the science behind early photography, and shows how innovative photographic techniques made possible the careers of pioneers like Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron. He sees how great figures of the age such as Queen Victoria and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were captured on camera, and revisits the Victorians' sense of wonder about the 'natural magic' of photography and the role it played in their lives.

Britain in Focus: A Photographic History: Series 1

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Eamonn McCabe explores the fascinating and remarkable story of British photography

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