Who took the earliest battlefield photography in the history of photography?

1On September 9th, 855, Roger Fenton, an early British photographer, and his assistant braved heavy artillery fire to shoot the tragic scene of the destruction of Sebastian fortress, and completed the photo report of the Crimean War.

In this three-month war, Fenton shot 360 glass plates. These photos reflecting the war scenes became the earliest battlefield photos in the history of photography.

Roger Fenton (18 19 ~ 1869) was a full-time photographer in the British Museum and the first secretary of the Royal Photographic Society. He is a famous landscape photographer. Later, with the support of publishers and the consent of the British government, he went to Crimea to take "realistic photos" of the war. He rented a carriage, together with two assistants, took five cameras and a lot of photographic materials and took pictures with the advanced collodion wet printing method at that time. Fenton and his assistants eat, live and work in the carriage. In order to take pictures, carriages often shuttle through the battlefield and become the target of artillery fire.

At that time, the exposure time of taking pictures needed 10- 15 seconds. It is technically impossible to photograph moving objects within such a long exposure time. Therefore, most of Fenton's photos are still about battlefield replenishment scenes, front-line situations before or after the war, and photos of officers carefully manipulated in military camps. Fenton's photos were exhibited in film exhibitions in London and Paris, and were sold in albums by publishers who funded his filming.

Seven years after filming the Crimean War, Fenton suddenly quit photography and became a lawyer, and never took a photo again.

As far as realistic photography in the battlefield is concerned, Fenton is the first photographer, but he is not the photographer who shoots the most. Compared with Fenton's shooting of the Crimean War, Brady's realistic photography of the battlefield during the American Civil War is much larger.

Mathew Brady (1823 ~1896), a famous American portrait photographer, is the founder of Daguerre-style small gallery in America. He is convinced that only the camera is the highest recorder of history. During the American Civil War (186 1 ~ 1865), he entrusted the photo studio business in new york and Washington with a loan of $65,438+million to lead a "battlefield photography team" composed of 19 photographers to the battlefield to shoot various battles at the front. In four years, they filmed almost all the scenes of the war, and * * * obtained about 7,000 negatives, all of which were signed "Brady photos".

Brady's content is broader than Fenton's. They not only photographed the portraits of officers, camp life, outdoor kitchens, military stores, and fortifications such as bunkers, foxholes, breast walls and barbed wire, but also photographed the devastated Fort Sangster, the roofless buildings in Charleston and the soldiers killed on the battlefield in Gettysburg. The desolate scenes of these abandoned battlefields and the images of the great destructive power caused by the war are rare in Fenton's photos.

Some of these realistic battlefield photos were printed by hand and published in many newspapers at that time. Brady also selected some photos and published a set of wartime portraits in the name of outstanding Americans. Now, these photos are collected in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and become valuable historical documents in the United States.

The main members of Brady's photography team are Timothy Henryo 'Sullivan (1840 ~1882) and Alexander Gardner (1821~1882).