In 1863, Julia Margaret Cameron was 48 years old when she began making sage-like portraits with a spiritual quality. Her images, which met mixed responses, were considered bold for the times she lived in. “I believe that… my first successes in my out-of-focus pictures were a fluke. That is to say, that when focusing and coming to something which, to my eye, was very beautiful, I stopped there instead of screwing on the lens to the more definite focus which all other photographers insist upon.”