Henry White olman Hunt wrote of his determination to work directly from the object, "not merely for the charm of mere finish, but as means of studying more deeply Nature's principles of design". Ford Madox Brown recorded, more lyrically, his "love of the mere look of things". No early photographer came nearer to the Pre-Raphaelite obsession with direct visual perception than Henry White. Little is known about White except that he was a London solicitor who was prominent as an amateur photographer for a decade or so after 1854. Besides a profound affiliation with Pre-Raphaelite work. White's landscape studies anticipate the rigorous avant-garde vision of the 1920's and 30's, particularly the close-up studies of natural artefacts.