Exhibit:

The Exhibition of the Photographic Pictures taken in The Crimea by Roger Fenton, Esq.

Preview of images

Title page, Roger Fenton collection of photographs
. “The Council of War," Crimean War Photograph by Roger Fenton
“The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” by Roger Fenton
Photograph of Cornet Henry John Wilkin, by Roger Fenton (1855)
“A View of Balaklava from the Top of Guards Hill," Photograph by Roger Fenton (c. 1855)
"The Artist's Van," by Roger Fenton (c. 1855) "The Artist's Van," Illustrated London News
"Roger Fenton," by Hugh Welch Diamond (photogalvanograph, 1868)

Part of Group:

The Exhibition of the Photographic Pictures taken in The Crimea by Roger Fenton, Esq.

1855 was the year of the first public exhibitions of what we now would call “war photography,” or “war photojournalism.” The first of the series formally opened on 20 September at the Water Colour Society in Pall Mall, London’s East End, taking advantage of public interest in the Crimean War, the expressed patronage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and curiosity about the still relatively new art, or science of photography. There was debate at the time about to which photography belonged, art or science. Visitors observed, read about and discussed over three hundred “Photographic Pictures taken in The Crimea,” by Roger Fenton (1819-1869), a well-known photographer, and his assistant, “during the spring and summer of the present year” (Exhibition of the Photographic Pictures taken in The Crimea, passim). Sometimes referred to as the “Photographic Images from the Seat of War in the Crimea,” they went on public display in several venues in major British cities as the War and the above controversies continued to rage.

Images in this Exhibit

Title Page, Photographs Taken Under the Patronage of Her Majesty the Queen in Crimea by Roger Fenton, Esq.
Title page, Roger Fenton collection of photographs

Roger Fenton’s photographs were published by Agnew and Sons of Manchester in five portfolios under the title, Photographs Taken Under the Patronage of Her Majesty the Queen in Crimea by Roger Fenton, Esq. Portfolio groupings were: “Incidents in Camp Life,” “Historical Portrait Gallery,” “Views of the Camps,” and panoramas of Sebastopol and Balaclava (Gernsheim, The Rise of Photography, 1850-1888 92-95). It was not unusual for contemporaries to gossip that the exhibitions were part of a strategy to advertise and sell these photographic albums....
“The Council of War held at Lord Raglan’s Headquarters on the Morning of the Successful Attack on the Mamelon"
. “The Council of War," Crimean War Photograph by Roger Fenton

That image is Number 270, or “The Council of War held at Lord Raglan’s Headquarters on the Morning of the Successful Attack on the Mamelon” in Roger Fenton's collection of Crimean War photographs. The official Catalogue noted that this and the other images were “intended to illustrate faithfully the Scenery of the Camps; to display prominent incidents of Military Life, as well as to perpetuate the Portraits of those distinguished Officers” (3). The immediate context was “the ever Memorable Siege of Sebastopol” and the figures included English, French and Ottoman Turkish commanders...
“The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” by Roger Fenton
“The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” by Roger Fenton

Roger Fenton could very well have argued consistently with his previous writings and talks that a field with cannon balls invites the “disposition of mind” to imagine horrors as well as nobility (“Abstract” 52). Ironically, he might be far more modern than his critics claim of him and also his images, including number 218, the famous “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” No drama other than with association, but for contemporaries that was a powerful association, one which would leave the viewer of the camera’s work with, in Fenton’s terms expressed in 1852, “the exercise of judgment, the...
Photograph of Cornet Henry John Wilkin, by Roger Fenton (1855)
Photograph of Cornet Henry John Wilkin, by Roger Fenton (1855)

Photograph of Cornet Henry John Wilkin, by Roger Fenton (1855). Wilkin survived the Charge of the Light Brigade. 

Medium: photographic print : salted paper ; 19 x 17 cm.

Call Number/Physical Location: PH - Fenton (R.), no. 10 (A size) [P&P], Library of Congress

Source Collection: Fenton, Roger, 1819-1869. Roger Fenton Crimean War photograph collection

Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Digital Id: cph 3g09124 //...
“A View of Balaklava from the Top of Guards Hill," Photograph by Roger Fenton (c. 1855)
“A View of Balaklava from the Top of Guards Hill," Photograph by Roger Fenton (c. 1855)

Roger Fenton knew his art, subjects and audiences. Many of his landscapes and still-lives were praised for their beauty, suggesting a relationship between photography and at least the profound goals of the Fine Arts.[i] That was also the case with how some responded to his Crimean War photographs. The Journal’s contributor concluded that “many of the pictures are excellent as photographs,” and appreciation of craftsmanship, and “some are very beautiful,” an appreciation of their aesthetics. Among those was No. 277, “A View of...
"The Artist's Van," by Roger Fenton (c. 1855)
"The Artist's Van," by Roger Fenton (c. 1855) "The Artist's Van," Illustrated London News

Roger Fenton required a great deal of “baggage” to complete his photographic work, including during the months between March and June 1855 thirty-six large chests of equipment and his horse-drawn photographic van. That vehicle was not always easy to move about and could get quite heated from both the developing fluids and the outside temperature (Gernsheim, Masterpieces of Victorian Photography 100-101 and Fenton, “Narrative of a Photographic Trip” 289). The press and periodicals noticed Fenton’s van. Some at the time claimed that the Russians thought it was an ammunition Van, and...
"Roger Fenton," by Hugh Welch Diamond (photogalvanograph, 1868)
"Roger Fenton," by Hugh Welch Diamond (photogalvanograph, 1868)

Best known for his series of photographs taken in the field during the Crimean War. He first studied painting but went on to qualify as a solicitor in 1847, practising Law until 1864 but with photography increasingly consuming his time. The publisher Thomas Agnew commissioned Fenton to photograph the Crimean War in 1855 because of his recent experiments with Collodion, the most suitable process then available. He made over 306 photographs of individual portraits and scenes which were sold individually and in bound sets...