Emerson, P H

Emerson, P(eter) H(enry)

(born May 13, 1856, Cuba—died May 12, 1936, Falmouth, Eng.) English photographer. Trained as a physician, he began using photography in an anthropological study of East Anglia; the images were published in several books. A proponent of photography as a medium of artistic expression, he published a handbook, Naturalistic Photography (1889), in which he outlined his aesthetic system (“naturalism”), emphasizing that photographs should look like photographs rather than paintings. The book was so popular that he became known as one of the world's leading photographers, and his views influenced much of 20th-century photography.