Peter Henry Emerson - Haymaking in Norfolk Broads

This plate is from Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads. The photograph recalls the painting The Sand Bargeman by Jozef Israëls, also on view in this gallery. It expresses a comparable resignation to the hard manual labour of rural life. The evening light is particularly well rendered. The Pictorialists later used effects like this to elevate their photographs to the status of art.

Peter Henry Emerson (8 April 1856 – 29 January 1936) was a British photographer, writer, and naturalist known for his photographs of the people and landscapes of East Anglia, England. He is also known for his book "Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art," published in 1889, which was a major influence on the development of the "naturalistic" or "pictorial" style of photography.

Emerson believed that photography should be used to capture the beauty of the natural world and the way people lived in it and focused on capturing candid and spontaneous moments. His photographs were characterized by their naturalness, simplicity, and use of light and shadow to create mood and atmosphere.