Cameron showed an interest in photography in the late 1850s and there are indications that she experimented with making photographs in the early 1860s. Around 1863, her daughter and her son-in-law gave her her first camera (a sliding-box camera) as a Christmas present. The gift was meant to provide a diversion while her husband was in Ceylon tending to his coffee plantations. Of the gift, her daughter stated "It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater."