Evelyn Jephson Cameron immigrated to the United States in 1891, drawn to the West—specifically eastern Montana—by the freedom of self-expression to be found in its landscape. Having first visited the badlands on a big-game expedition with her hunting partner, Ewen Cameron (1854-1915), E. J. Cameron was so taken with the chance to live unshackled by upper-class British expectations that she and Ewen returned two years later to settle on a ranch in the pine hills east of Miles City.
Concurrent with their enterprise to raise polo ponies for the British market, E. J. Cameron took in boarders to supplement their income. In 1894, their boarder, Mr. Adams, helped E. J. Cameron order her first camera, then taught her the rudiments of photographic exposure and composition in the few weeks leading up to his departure. Her second boarder, Mr. Cooley, built on that knowledge, demonstrating developing, printing, and toning. E. J. Cameron and Cooley fulfilled many commissions over the winter, traveling to local ranches to photograph families and their children.

J. Cameron approached the craft with the same penchant for detail that she applied to the economics of ranching: listing light conditions and exposure times (i.e., Bright sun. 1/2 sec.) in her meticulous diaries alongside the number of eggs collected and garden produce sold. E. J. Cameron may never have believed the impact her diaries and photographs elicited—fifty years after her death—when unearthed from her friend Janet Williams’ basement. Donna Lucey, photo editor and freelance writer, choreographed this discovery, then introduced E. J. Cameron to the world in her excellent biography, Photographing Montana, 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron (1990).
Although E. J. Cameron initially set-up shop in the Terry post office, she quickly realized the need to travel to her subjects. In composing her photographs—whether it be human or natural—she relied on her English education and experience with the fine arts, as well as natural talent and a capacity for patience. Montana painter and photographer Kristi Hager writes that “Cameron’s work stands out from other frontier photography because of its unique mixture of directness, structure, theater, and humor. Her horse-top portrait is a prime example of all four hallmarks working together to create an iconic image” (Montana’s Frontier Photographer, 2007).

In 1905, ten years into her practice, E. J. Cameron upgraded from a No. 5 Folding Kodet to a single-lens reflex camera, the Tourist Graflex. E. J. Cameron appreciated the flexibility of 5” X 7” glass plates because they provided exceptional detail as well as a broad tonal range. The Graflex suited her personality, giving her permission to take time to create the composition she envisioned. Picture-taking, after all, was how E. J. Cameron expressed herself: “her integration—transposed like the shadow of herself in her photographs—into this new place” (Lorna Milne, Photographer on the Western Prairie, 2017).
The Graflex and around 50 black and white photographs reproduced from E.J. Cameron’s glass-plate negatives are part of the 1990 traveling exhibit curated by the Montana Historical Society.

Both of the E. J. Cameron exhibits in Terry include photographs from Williams’ basement, which numbered some 3,000 prints and 1,800 negatives, as well as 35 years of diaries. Digitized select photographs and every diary are available on the Montana Historical Society digital collections website.