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David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson 1821-1848 were the first in the world to realise the artistic possibilities of the new medium of photography. See Hill & Adamson – a Brief History
Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson were partners in the earliest days of photography, their earliest known photograph being dated August 1843. Photographers of the day were either artistically inclined or had a strong scientific background, and this partnership was an ideal combination: Adamson was mainly responsible for the more mechanistic aspects of the process (exposure, development and printing), and Hill for the direction, posing and lighting. That, at least, is the way Hill saw it, though it is likely that Adamson, too, had an artistic bent.
Hill and Adamson
Hill had first met Adamson to discuss the use of photography in assisting his painting commemorating the formation, in May 1843, of the Free Church of Scotland, and was thinking of wider applications of such natural studies for painters. Before this, he had painted in the village of Newhaven, and his earlier work expresses a concern for the immediate translation of experience which offers a parallel to photography. In 1835 he exhibited three paintings at the Royal Scottish Academy: The Peacock Inn: Sketch at Newhaven; Evening: Scene on the Beach at Newhaven—Painted on the Spot; Sketch of an Oyster Boat Painted on Newhaven Beac
