Emma Rayson was born in Birmingham in 1872. The daughter of a railway porter, Emma married George Barton, a solicitor and over the next few years had five children.

Emma took up photography in the early 1890s and became a member of the Birmingham Photographic Society. In 1903 the Royal Photographic Society awarded her a medal for her photograph, The Awakening. Her work appeared in exhibitions in Britain, Europe and the United States and became known for her experiments with the autochrome colour process. Emma Barton died on the Isle of Wight in 1938.