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Photography © The Estate of Roger FentonRoger Fenton (1819-1869) was a pioneering British photographer, one of the first war photographers.Fenton was the fourth of seven children by his father's first marriage. His father had 10 more children by his second wife.In 1838 Fenton went to University College London where he graduated in 1840 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, having studied English, mathematics, literature, and logic. Fenton visited the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in London in 1851 and was impressed by the photography on display there. He then visited Paris to learn the waxed paper calotype process, most likely from Gustave Le Gray, its inventor. In 1855 Fenton went to the Crimean War on assignment for the publisher Thomas Agnew to photograph the troops, with a photographic assistant Marcus Sparling and a servant and a large van of equipment. Despite high temperatures, breaking several ribs, and suffering from cholera, he managed to make over 350 usable large format negatives. An exhibition of 312 prints was soon on show in London. Sales were not as good as expected, possibly because the war had ended. According to Susan Sontag, in her work Regarding the Pain of Others Fenton was sent to the Crimean War as the first official war photographer at the insistence of Prince Albert. The photographs produced were to be used to offset the general aversion of the British people to an unpopular war, and to counteract the antiwar reporting of The Times. The photographs were to be converted into woodblocks and published in the less critical Illustrated London News and published in book form and displayed in a gallery. Fenton avoided making pictures of dead, injured or mutilated soldiers.Because of the not very photosensitive material of his time, he was only able to produce pictures of unmoving objects, mostly posed pictures. Fenton is considered the first war photographer for his work during the Crimean War, for which he used a mobile studio called a "photographic van". In recognition of the importance of his photography, Fenton's photos of the Crimean war were included in the collection, 100 Photos that Changed the World.------------------------ --------------------------------The song "Abdul Abulbul Amir" by Irish music hall performer Percy French was inspired by the Crimean War and reduces it to two fighters, the Turk Abdul and the Russian soldier Ivan Skavinsky Skivar, who duel over a triviality and both die, accomplishing nothing.please, visit his official websitehttp:/www.percyfrench.org

Channel: Education Uploaded: November 11, 2007 at 9:57 am Author: Cybelephotography

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