"architect by training, a painter by inclination and a photographer by necessity"

This is how the great English photographer Edwin Smith (1912-1971) described himself. Relatively ignored in his own day, and described in his Times obituary by John Hadfield as "likely to command increasing attention when some of his currently famous contemporaries are forgotten", Smith is now getting some well deserved attention (see the excellent Evocations of Place: the photography of Edwin Smith).
In an age when photography was not seen as a branch of the arts, Smith was a reluctant photographer: even stating on his marriage certificate that his occupation was 'painter', which in a way it was, as he painted everyday, as well as producing high quality woodcuts and endpaper designs. However, Smith was more than a mere jobbing camareaman: whether in Ashington, London or photographing parish churches, Smith's camera captured the essential 'genius loci' of place, infusing his photographs with a richness of tone rarely seen in black and white images. You can also see in Smith's photographs both a timelessness and a shift into post-war modernity in much the same way as in the paintings of Nash, Piper and the Neo-Romantics.
Smith, and his second wife Olive Cook, moved to Saffron Walden in the 1960s where they were part of the artistic circle that had formed around Edward Bawden (who shared with Smith a love of cats). After Smiths death in 1971, Olive Cook was a great champion for her husband's art, and was instrumental in establishing the marvellous Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden. She also gave one of Smith's cameras to James Ravilious, whose own work echoes the sensitivity and subtleties of Edwin Smith's.

Sources:
Robert Elwall (2007) Evocations of Place: the photography of Edwin Smith, Merrell, London
Marina Vaizey (May 2006) 'Smith, Edwin George Herbert (1912-1971)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; Online edn.
John Hadfield (4 Jan. 1972) 'Mr Edwin Smith Painter and Photographer', (Obituaries), The Times, London, p. 12