Lady Hawarden was married in 1845 and followed her husband to live in Dundrum, Ireland from 1857. It was at this estate that she began experimenting with photography including producing albumen prints and wet collodion on glass negatives, as well as using stereoscopic and view cameras. In 1859 they moved back to London where Lady Hawarden turned the first floor of their South Kensington home into a photographic studio. Her photographs were exhibited in 1863 at the Photographic Society of London and later by the Royal Photographic Society. She was elected to the Photographic Society of London in the same year and won a silver medal for best contribution by an amateur.