Rejlander similarly used photography to emulate the grandeur of history painting and tableau vivant traditions, staging elaborate allegorical and literary scenes with theatrical costuming that mirror Cameron's Arthurian ambitions. Both photographers sought to elevate the medium beyond documentary purposes into fine art through carefully posed figurative compositions.

Robinson championed pictorialist photography that borrowed compositional strategies from academic painting, creating staged narrative scenes with literary and classical subjects very much in keeping with Cameron's theatrical portrait style. His use of albumen prints and his belief that photography deserved recognition as high art directly parallels the aesthetic ambitions visible in King Arthur.