There can't be anyone who hasn't taken a photograph and hardly anyone who doesn't own a camera, or maybe two or maybe even three.

But when photography was in its infancy in the early 19th century, cameras were a rarity and ownership a sign of serious interest. So to own ten, as Clementina eventually did, would suggest involvement that went beyond the ordinary.

And this was the Victorian age too with its manners and strict conventions on ladylike behaviour, so it's all the more remarkable that she managed to produce work of such high quality in such difficult circumstances. It wasn't a passing fancy, either, it was the real thing.

You couldn't just pop round to the chemists and get your snaps processed, you had to do it all yourself using such nasty substances as sulphuric acid and potassium cyanide.

It wasn't for the faint-hearted. And as if this wasn't difficulty enough, you also had to get your subjects to stand stock still in order to keep them in focus and get the right exposure.

This necessary pause in the action is a feature of much early photography.

People stop what they are doing and stare obediently at the camera - people do the same thing today even though they don't need to. Old habits die hard.

Clementina avoided that all too familiar wooden-tops look by getting her subjects to do something they'd have to pause to do, like looking in a mirror.

None of her subjects were allowed to stare at the camera. Women gaze pensively at their reflections instead or recline on that quintessentially Victorian piece of furniture, the chaise longue, and muse about life and poetry.

This as near as we get to natural observation and the modern idea of intimate portraiture, but it's hard to escape the sense of a staged scenario. The concept was too new and the equipment too cumbersome for true observation to take place but the work comes remarkably close at times.

The show ends with a set of prints that deal with the artificiality of the situation by embracing it full on.

She kits her children out in her more sumptuous cast-offs, which includes the odd tiara, and gets them to ham it up on and around the sofa.

It's a great way to end a show.

She alas, died young as did two of the ten children she managed to have while doing all this.

She was a remarkable woman. It's a remarkable show.

Peter McCarthy