The cannon 'Mons Meg' at Edinburgh Castle, and a private in the 2nd battalion of Royal Scots who garrisoned the Castle in 1846

David Octavius Hill was a Scottish painter and pioneering photographer who, from the 1840s onward, created some of the earliest portrait photographs in collaboration with chemist Robert Adamson. Working in calotype, a paper-based photographic process, Hill and Adamson produced approximately 3,000 images in their Edinburgh studio before Adamson's death in 1848. Hill's subsequent career combined painting with continued photographic practice, establishing him as a foundational figure in early photographic portraiture. His work demonstrates the artistic possibilities of photography at a moment when the medium was still contested as a legitimate art form.

Perth, UK