b.1829; d.1887
Annan was a Scottish portrait photographer who started practising in 1857. He bought a hansom cab, converting it into a darkroom so that he would go on location photographing buildings and art treasures. He is remembered for his photographs of the explorer Sir David Livingstone (1864) and other contemporaries. What is noticeable is the absence of "props" and stereotyped poses which were in vogue at the time.
Annan also took some fine pictures of the slum areas of Glasgow for the Glasgow Improvement Trust; they are not purely record photographs but portray vividly the people in those areas.
When he died, his sons James Craig Annan and John ran the business.
© Robert Leggat, 1999.