Fenton, Roger

born 1819, Heywood, Eng.

died Aug. 8, 1869, London

British photographer.

In 1853 he helped found the Royal Photographic Society of London. In 1854 he was appointed the government's official photographer and sent to document the Crimean War. He shot some 360 photographs of the war; although they largely represent a glorified overview, showing very little of the real action or agony of war, they represent the first extensive photographic documentation of a war. On his return he exhibited successfully in London and Paris.

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▪ British photographer

born 1819, Heywood, near Rochdale, Lancashire, England

died August 8, 1869, London

      English photographer best known for his pictures of the Crimean War, which were the first extensive photographic documents of a war.

 Fenton studied painting and then law. Following a trip in 1851 to Paris, where he probably visited with the photographer Gustave Le Gray, he returned to England and was inspired to pursue photography. In the winter of 1855 his governmental connections as the founder (1853) and first honorary secretary of the Royal Photographic Society helped him gain an appointment as official photographer of the Crimean War. Fenton and his assistant, Marcus Sparling, arrived on the ship Hecla and set up their darkroom in a wagon. Using the wet-collodion photographic process of the times, they took approximately 360 photographs of the war. As an agent of the government, however, Fenton portrayed only the “acceptable” parts of the conflict. Even the disastrous charge of the Light Brigade—so movingly recounted by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron)'s poem of the same name—was depicted as glorious. Although little of the real action or agony of war was shown, the images were nevertheless the first to depict the more mundane aspects of modern warfare.

      Upon Fenton's return to England, his war images were successfully exhibited in London and Paris, and wood engravings of the particularly notable photographs were printed in the Illustrated London News. Fenton continued to photograph architecture and landscapes until 1862, when he retired from photography and returned to practicing law.

Additional Reading

Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, Roger Fenton: Photographer of the Crimean War (1954, reissued 1973); John Hannavy, Roger Fenton of Crimble Hall (1975); Hayward Gallery, Roger Fenton: Photographer of the 1850s (1988); Gordon Baldwin, Roger Fenton: Pasha and Bayadèré (1996).

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