Question

The following passage is adapted from an essay about the reception of early photography in the nineteenth century.

For decades, critics viewed the camera as a mere copying machine, a mechanical device devoid of artistic agency. Charles Baudelaire famously decried photography as the "mortal enemy" of art, warning that the mechanical reproduction of reality would corrupt the imaginative faculties of the human mind. Yet, in the hands of early practitioners like Julia Margaret Cameron, the camera was anything but a passive recording tool. Cameron deliberately threw her lenses out of focus, choosing to capture the soft, atmospheric essence of her subjects rather than their sharp, literal details. She did not seek to document reality; she sought to evoke the inner spirit of her sitters. By embracing what critics dismissed as technical flaws—slight smudges, blurriness, and long exposure shadows—Cameron demonstrated that the camera could be manipulated to express a deeply personal, subjective vision, thereby challenging the rigid boundary between science and fine art.

Based on the passage, which of the following best describes the author's attitude toward Julia Margaret Cameron's approach to photography?