Writer, artist and intrepid explorer, Jenny Balfour Paul, explores the transition from sketching to photography in Imperial India.

Julia Margaret Cameron was born in Calcutta in 1815, the fourth daughter to an official at the East India Company. She was educated in France before returning to India where she met and married husband Charles Camerom in 1838. They remained in Calcutta for a further 10 years at the same time Thomas Machell was writing about and sketching the indigo industry and daily life in Bengal and Calcutta, the heart of British Indian trade and future Raj.

Jenny Balfour Paul’s highly acclaimed book, ‘Deeper than Indigo’, explores Thomas Machell’s vivid depiction of Indian life through his journals and drawings. In this evening talk, Jenny Balfour Paul will present a selection of Machells’ evocative sketches that provide fascinating insights into the life in India when Cameron lived there. Jenny Balfour Paul also sheds light on a period when sketches and paintings were giving way to early portrait photography- a medium that was immerse Cameron in later life at Freshwater Isle of Wight.

Although entry is free donations are welcome and refreshments are available.