Photographic innovators at home in nineteenth-century Quebec and abroad, Charles and John Smeaton have flown beneath the radar in studies of the history of photography in Canada. Out of the Studio is the first comprehensive biographical study detailing the innovation and imagination of the Smeaton brothers' legacy of images in Canada and Europe.

John Osborne is distinguished research professor in the School for Studies in Art and Culture and the College of the Humanities at Carleton University. Peter Smeaton (1951-2021), great-grandson of John Smeaton, was a computer security expert, NHL off-ice official, and independent researcher.