How far Mr. Job has been influenced by Turner’s “Liber Studiorum” it is impossible to say, but he certainly suggests this admirable inspiration in the tranquil setting Evening Calm (214), hanging next to Mr Hinton’s Under the Beech Trees. -A. C. R. Carter (1.)

In 1907, Charles Job, writing in London’s Photographic News, provided commentary along with a halftone reproduction of Evening Calm on why it was his favorite picture up until that time:

“Mr. Job is a member of the Linked Ring, but started photography in the wet-plate days, and has studied both the artistic and technical sides of photography very thoroughly. The result of this sound training is obvious in his work. Writing in reference to ” Evening Calm,” Mr. Job says :—
I DO not think this is generally considered my best picture, but I consider it so for the following reasons :—Simplicity of composition, a luminous atmosphere and a feeling of restfulness about it which the title I have given it carries out; it is also the only picture I have made with which I am still satisfied; it seems still to give me a real impression of the original picture as I saw it in nature.
The original picture, ¼-plate, was taken at Southwick, near Brighton, fifteen years ago. On printing, however, it did not fulfil my expectations, the size being too small to give due effect to the luminous quality of the picture. I accordingly put it by, and some years later, when I started making enlarged negatives, I was able to make a very successful enlargement from it, from which this picture is a print.” (2.)

-Charles Job

Charles Job: 1853-1930

Biography courtesy of and copyright Christian Peterson and included here with permission.

As a young man, Charles Job made drawings and wood carving, but then became fascinated with photography. As an adult, he worked in Sussex, England, as a stockbroker.

Job first exhibited in 1893 at the annual London exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), which granted him fellowship status (FRPS) only two years later. About this time, he served as the honorary treasurer and vice president of the camera club in Hove, outside of Brighton on the English Channel. And in 1900, he was elected to the Linked Ring Brotherhood, Englands most exclusive group of pictorialists.

Job photographed in Sussex and traveled with his camera to Brittany, Belgium, and Italy, where he was particularly drawn to waterways and herds of sheep. He often combined negatives, adding effective skies to his compositions, and produced his photographs as brown-toned carbon prints.

 Jobs work was widely exhibited and reproduced. From the 1890s through the 1920s, he showed in London, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paris, Brussels, Hamburg, Berlin, Florence, Turin, Vienna, and Amsterdam. Early on, his work was accepted in the United States, at the Camera Club of New York (1899), Philadelphia Photographic Salon (1899), and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis (1904). In the 1920s, it was seen repeatedly in Los Angeles and in 1928 in both San Francisco and Toronto. His images enjoyed a substantial and long-lasting presence in Britain’s premiere annual Photograms of the Year, appearing every year between 1895 and 1929, except for 1926. A. J. Anderson included one of Jobs rural images in his 1910 book The Artistic Side of Photography, as well as its sequel, The ABC of Artistic Photography.

During World War I, Job worked in Liverpool, but in 1922 he relocated to Richmond, Surrey. In 1928, the RPS gave him an honorary fellowship (Hon. FRPS), its highest achievement. Two years later, Charles Job was dead. (3.)

The Linked Ring

Charles Job was elected 30 October, 1900. His Pseudonym was Scrivener. There is no record of his severance from the Linked Ring. (4.)

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1. Excerpt: A.C. R. Carter: The Two Great Exhibitions. The Photographic Salon. From: Photograms of the Year 1900, p.133
2. My Best Picture and Why I Think So: in: The Photographic News-For Amateur Photographers: Edited by F.J. Mortimer, F.R.P.S.: London: Published by the Proprietors: March 22, 1907: p. 232
3.   Christian A. Peterson Pictorial Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Christian A. Peterson: Privately printed, 2012)
4.  The Linked Ring:The Secession in Photography 1892-1910, Margaret Harker: 1979, p. 184