b. 1810; d.1896
William Lake Price was a painter who specialised in watercolours. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, and published several illustrated books.
In 1854 he began to take up photography, and soon became known as one of the leaders of a new art movement. Combination printing had been used by photographers to print clouds into an otherwise blank sky, but Price and others began to exploit this idea with the intention of creating compositions.
In 1855 he exhibited reconstructed historical scenes, one of which was described by Henry Peach Robinson as "the most important completely studied picture up to that time", another as "picture of the year."
The public welcomed his pictures, but there were also many critics. One wrote "...photographic rendering of historical or poetic subjects give at best only the impression of a scene on a stage."
He also took several stereoscopic pictures, and published a "Manual of Photographic Manipulation" (1858), a practical book which was revised some years later.
© Robert Leggat, 1999.