Robert Adamson (photographer)

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Robert Adamson, (April 26, 1821 – January 14, 1848) was a Scottish pioneer photographer.

Adamson was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, he was hired in 1843 by David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), a painter of romantic Scottish landscapes. He was commissioned to make a group portrait of the 470 clergymen who founded the Free Church of Scotland. Hill required calotypes from which he would paint. Distinguished persons from many fields came to be photographed by the partners. Together they made more than 1,000 portraits and numerous views of Edinburgh between 1843 and 1848, until Adamson died at the age of 26. Hill returned to painting and the partners' great work was not rediscovered until 1872.