An early example of documentary photography is the record of war, which brought home to people some grim realities which shattered their fantasies. Photographers of note include James Robertson, who covered the siege of Sebastopol, and Roger Fenton, who covered the Crimean war, though the latter is more adequately described as a public relations exercise for the government of the day.

Even as far back as 1839 the use of photography in this area was being talked about. Amongst the many uses of the Daguerreotype, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac argued, was its capacity to render a landscape precisely. He cited one particular kind of landscape to make his point:

... as three or four minutes are sufficient for execution, a field of battle, with its successive phases, can be drawn with a degree of perfection that could be obtained by no other means.

So from the beginning of photography, it was being seen as a means of depicting war scenes. The American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing in 1863 stated:

`It is well enough for some Baron Gros or Horace Vernet to please an imperial master with fanciful portraits.... (but) war and battles should have truth for their delineator', and photography would be more suitable for this.

One of the great names is that of Mathew Brady who, with a large team of photographers, covered the American Civil War. One member of his team was Timothy O'Sullivan, whose picture "Harvest of Death", taken at Gettysburg on 4th July 1863 ranks amongst the most famous of early historical photographs.

To some extent it is difficult to avoid seeing pictures showing the ravages of war; indeed to some extent we have become almost immune to it. To many people of the time, however, war would be something that was conducted in far-off lands, and therefore would conjure up pictures of heroism and romanticism. Writing in the Atlanta Monthly magazine, Oliver Wendell Holmes showed how photography injected a feeling of grim reality into the situation, as he surveyed pictures taken by Brady's team:

"Let him who wishes to know what war is look at this series of illustrations. These wrecks of manhood thrown together in careless heaps or ranged in ghastly rows for burial were alive but yesterday...

Many people would not look through this series. Many, having seen it and dreamed of its horrors, would lock it up..that it might not thrill or revolt those whose souls sickens at such sights. It was so nearly like visiting the battlefield...that all the emotions excited by the actual sight..came back to us. (It) gives us....some conception of what a repulsive, brutal, sickening, hideous thing it is, this dashing together of two frantic mobs to which we give the name of armies..."

What effect might this have upon those who saw the photographs? Artists could romanticise the event; photographs told the truth (Well, did they?! Not necessarily!) One beneficial effect might have been to become more aware of the ordinary soldier, and his plight. In 1855 a telling cartoon in Punch, a British journal, depicted two soldiers in rags. The caption underneath the cartoon reads:

"Well Jack! Here's good news from Home. We're to have a Medal."
That's very kind. Maybe one of these days we'll have a coat to stick it on?"

Whilst touching upon "true" photographs, there were many "war" photographs whose takers never went near any scene of conflict. These include Nadar in France, Cundall and Howlett, whose "Crimean Braves" photographs were finished before the troops set sail!

There was also a certain amount of embellishment that seems to have been readily accepted in those days.

Relatively unknown is John Maccosh, an army surgeon who may have the distinction of being Britain's first war photographer. He began to take photographs in 1844, whilst stationed in the Himalayas, and took photographs during a Sikh War (1848) and the second Burma war (1852).

In the American Civil War a balloon was used to find the enemy's positions, notably for reconnaissance during the seig of Richamond, Virginia: on 1st June 1862 the balloonists climbed to 1,300 feet, and with the aid of telegraphy were able to report the exact position and movement of the enemy.

An unusual application of photography in war was the use of carrier pigeons during the siege of Paris, when minute photographed messages were attached to their tails.

Even at the turn of the century the forces were ambivalent about war photography. IN an article in Amateur Photograpgher (Jan 4 1901) H. C. Shelley suggests "You have to find out your general before beginning operations." And referring to his attempts to photograph Sir Redvers Buller:

"...the general went up to the captain's bridge to watch the oncoming boat. I crept after him, camera in hand, and in a flash the exposure was made. But he heard the click of the shutter and, turning round, and grasping the situation at a glance, he grimly thtreatened to have me placed in irons if I repeated the operation."

Many war photographs are held in the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London.


By Dr. Robert Leggat