Animals

When Samuel Butler took up photography it was a relatively new medium, and unlike painting it was free from expectations and conventions. He called his photographs ‘snap-shots’, a term that neatly sums up his informal attitude to the camera and its purpose. He had a unique way of viewing the details of everyday life that his better-known photographer-contemporaries, such as Zola and Strindberg, tended to overlook. Out and about on his travels, he often photographed animals - sometimes showing an understanding of the roles they played in other people’s work and lives, and sometimes just documenting the comic situations in which he found them.

Created by Samuel Butler Project at St John's College, Cambridge