Oscar Rejlander
[Photographer, b. 1817, Sweden, d. 1875, London.]

 [Photography] is fair, open, and aboveboard. There is no sham about it—no pretensions to anything that is not desirable. And the world wouldn’t be without it, in all its branches—including the one I most practice, art-studies and details from the life. Though to me this branch of the art is unprofitable, yet it gives me pleasure. I live in it, if not by it. (1863) 
 But as there is no mind in the photographic picture, so according to some it cannot contain any new idea, pose, light, or expression capable of representing impressions produced on the human mind, and “not being the work of man” it must be, indirectly, the work of the devil... (1863) 
 I am tired of photography-for-the-public, particularly composite photographs, for there can be no gain and there is no honour, only cavil and misrepresentation. (1859) 
 The conception of a picture, the composition thereof, with the various expressions and postures of the figures, the arrangement of the draperies and costume, the distribution of light and shade, and the preserving it in one subordinate whole… require the same operations of mind, the same artistic treatment and careful manipulation, whether it be executed in crayon, grey-in-grey, paint of any description, or by photographic agency. (1858) 
 I believe photography will make painters better artists and more careful draughtsmen. You may test their figures by photography. In Titian’s Venus and Adonis, Venus has her head turned in a manner that no female could turn it and at the same time shows so much of her back. Her right leg also is too long. I have proved the correctness of this opinion by photography with variously shaped female models. (1863) 
 The same way a painter goes if he wishes to paint, a photographer must go if he wishes to make a composition photograph. The two go together; part here to meet again. Fine art consists of many parts, and a photographic composition commenced in this manner must contain many parts in common with art... (1863)