This documentary short is a portrait of Canadian photographer
William Notman. Photography was still in its infancy when he
opened his first studio in Montreal in the late 1850s. He
rapidly turned his art, and a budding technology, into a highly
successful business. Within 5 years he was appointed
Photographer to the Queen. Not content with doing mere
portraiture, he saw photography as a means of documenting
history. With the use of props in his studio, composite
photographs, and calling on his background as a trained artist,
Notman immortalized the people and places of Canada.