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Vanessa Bell was an avid photographer taking snapshots of her family and friends from 1900 until the late 1940s. Her albums provide a unique visual record of the Bloomsbury Group. Whilst the two earliest albums depict the Stephens's family and friends in formal pose, often in photographers' studios, Vanessa Bell's photographs focus on those carefree moments, taken mostly outdoors and usually in the garden at Charleston Farmhouse. Initially, Bell both took and developed her own photographs, but later she made use of professional assistance. Her son Quentin Bell observed in 'Vanessa Bell's Family Album', "She gives us a record of family and friends and in fact uses the camera as most people use it if they are not professional photographers. The family album becomes an expression of sentiment and, to a very large extent, an expression of family affection".