On , J Harris Stone launched the first issue of a new weekly magazine ‘devoted to the interests of Photography and kindred arts and sciences’. , and in his first editorial he explained why. ‘Photography has, within the last few years, become so popular with amateurs, that at the present time their number vastly exceeds that of professional photographers.
Recruits of either sex – for here let us say that ladies make excellent manipulators – are daily being added to the rank of those practising this pleasing and truly fascinating art, which is not to be wondered at when one remembers that some of the most successful photographs that have ever been taken are the work of amateurs.’ Based a stone’s thrown from London’s Charing Cross Station, AP, as it quickly became known, was not the first weekly photo magazine to grace the newsstands. had been around since 1858 and had launched in 1854 as , changed its name in 1860 and turned weekly in 1864.
But AP was the only one specifically aimed at amateurs and it quickly gained a following. Under the editorship of its fourth editor, Alfred Horsley Hinton, who took over in 1893, . Hinton was very much the epitome of a Victorian gentleman, with his winged collar and magnificent turned-up moustache.
A passionate advocate for pictorialism, and widely regarded as the father of British landscape photography, Hinton was a founding member of the hugely influential , which argued for photography to be considered as an art form equal.