Roger Fenton's Influence On Photography

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Roger Fenton was a British photographer, and one of the earliest war photographers. Fenton studied law and painting in London and Paris, respectively, before becoming a photographer. Fenton was a photographer during the photography golden age, which was in the 1850’s, but his photography prime stretched out further into the early 60’s. He was one of the people who showed that photography can be a very skillful medium, where people have to play with the lighting and the composition in order to get the right photo, and exactly what they were looking for. He became widely known after taking photographs of the Crimean War. From there, his photographers also expressed architecture, landscape and all types of different genres of photo. He found Great Britain the perfect scene for photography when he was taking architectural pictures. …show more content…

The government approved of him photographing the War, as an attempt to reassure the public about how their side was doing. The war itself was an attempt by the British, French, Sardinians and Turks to fight off Russia from expanding its territory into the Ottoman Empire, and have the chaos spiral out of control. Fenton was especially successful in this scene because he was one of the first to do it. Before Fenton, very few people had been present at the sight of a battle to take pictures. Fenton was also responsible for founding the Royal Photographic Society. However, despite his major influence on the photography world, he gave up photography in 1862 after taking a final series of photographs. Fenton was one of the very few people who showed the world that photos are a very important medium, and should be taken