What did Julia Margaret Cameron emphasize in her portrays?

W: Hey, Steve, got any plans for tonight?
M: Hi, Jane, er, no, I don’t think so. Why, got any suggestions?
W: In fact I do. I just got two tickets to the opening of an exhibit of reprints by Julia Margaret Cameron. I would have mentioned it earlier but I was on a waiting list for these tickets and I wasn’t sure I even get them.
M: An exhibit huh? I like such things. But I don’t know who Julia...
W: Margaret Cameron. She was a photographer in the 1800’s. She’s interesting to art historian in general and students of photography in particular, because she, how should I say, changes the aesthetics of photography.
M: What do you mean?
W: Well, her specialty was portraits, and instead of just making a factual record of details like most photographers did, you know, just capturing what a person looks like a dispassionate sort of way. She, like a portrait painter, was interested in capturing her subject’s personality.
M: Interesting. How did she do that?
W: She invented a number of techniques that affected the picture, like one of these things she did was blur images slightly by using a soft focus on a subject, that’s pretty common now.
M: Yeah, I’ve seen that, who did she photograph?
W: Famous people of her day. Alfred Lord Tenson, Henry, Charles Darvin, I don’t know who well, we’ll see the exhibition.
M: You really pick my curiosity. I’m going to enjoy this.