Realising
that the highly romanticised images of swan-necked Edwardian
beauties dressed in extravagant gowns and seated on
high-backed period chairs, clutching huge bouquets of
flowers, were no longer in favour with the fashionable
women of the day, she decided on an altogether more
realistic approach to her work, designed to bring out
the individual personality of her sitters. She began
experimenting with different poses, lighting systems,
backgrounds and paper, often using her family and friends
as willing subjects. Little by little, she evolved a
style of her own in which the sitter, placed against
a dark background but well lit, faced slightly away
from the camera. She also began using a variety of props
to balance her compositions. At the same time, in order
to promote the business, she began offering complimentary
sittings to well-known personalities - usually actresses
and ballerinas and, much more rarely, their male counterparts
- and her work soon began to appear in the glossy society
magazines which reflected the lifestyles and aspirations
of the café and theatre society of the day. Her
work also began to appear in the fashion magazines,
such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, which had recently
arrived from across the Atlantic, and it was this connection
which led in 1922 to her first important commission
- the official engagement photograph of Louis Mountbatten
and Edwina Ashley, later lst Earl and Countess Mountbatten
of Burma.
In
1920, she had married the journalist and aspiring playwright
Edgar Middleton. While they were still engaged, she
had offered to give up her career for him, but was greatly
relieved when he considered that it would be a great
mistake. This was perhaps just as well, since it was
only on their honeymoon that he surprised her with the
news that he could not bear the thought of children.
This upset her greatly, since she considered that marriage
was rather pointless without children, but it left her
free to channel her prodigious energy into her career,
for which posterity can only be profoundly grateful.
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