Person    | Male  Born 28/3/1819  Died 8/8/1869

Roger Fenton

Categories: Photography

Photographer. Born in Heywood, near Rochdale, Lancashire. Trained and worked in law. In 1853 the Photographic Society of London was founded, with Fenton as its Honorary (unpaid) Secretary. In 1855 went to the Crimea War to take photographs. Died at home in Potter's Bar.

2017: Our friend and colleague, Ruth Richardson, has been researching Florence Nightingale as part of the campaign to save the Nightingale wards at the old Cleveland Street Hospital. Her researches have spilled over into the Crimea War and she has very kinldy provided the following text for Fenton:

Roger Fenton is the most famous of the photographers of the Crimea War. He went out at the request of Prince Albert, and was there for several months during the spring and summer of 1855. He was a landscape painter before he became a photographer, so he had a trained eye, and was an early figure in what became the Royal Photographic Society. He was alert to telling details, and the use of stillness and shadow. In the Crimea, he avoided anything upsetting, though we know from his letters home that he saw plenty. He preferred to work obliquely, as in his fine photograph of 'the Valley of the Shadow of Death', littered with spent cannonballs, The difficulties of carting cumbersome photographic equipment about the rugged terrain and of finding light-proof premises for developing his photographs from glass plate negatives were eventually overcome, and he became adept at creating makeshift studios. After sailing back with his glass negatives under difficulty, his extraordinary vistas and portraits were exhibited in London later that same year. The work involved in the taking and making of this exhibition was prodigious. Fenton also produced some of the most ravishing still life photographs from his Primrose Hill studio. A magnificent photographer who well deserves his blue plaque.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Roger Fenton

Commemorated ati

Roger Fenton

English Heritage Roger Fenton, 1819 - 1869, photographer, lived here.

Read More

Other Subjects

Sir Cecil Beaton

Sir Cecil Beaton

Photographer, painter, interior designer and designer for stage and screen. Born 21 Langland Gardens, Hampstead. Excelling in a number of art forms he had equally catholic tastes in his affairs, wi...

Person, Cinema, Craft / Design, Photography, Seriously Famous, Theatre

3 memorials
Norah Lyle-Smyth, Norah Smyth

Norah Lyle-Smyth, Norah Smyth

Painter, sculptor, photographer and suffragette. Born Norah Veronica Lyle-Smyth in Cheshire. She was befriended by Sylvia Pankhurst and accompanied her on a speaking tour around Europe. She finance...

Person, Art, Gender Issues, Photography, Politics & Administration, Sculpture, Ireland

2 memorials
Bert Hardy

Bert Hardy

Documentary and press photographer known for his work published in 'Picture Post' 1941-57. Born and grew up in Priory Buildings.   Photo Histories says Bert was "the first of seven children to carp...

Person, Journalism / Publishing, Photography

1 memorial
Mick Rock

Mick Rock

Michael David Rock was a photographer of rock acts in the 1970s. Born Hammersmith possibly (records differ) with the surname Rock which would give him a serious case of nominative determinism. Oth...

Person, Music / songs, Photography

1 memorial
Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge

Photographer and motion picture pioneer. Born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston upon Thames. He changed his name, probably inspired by the recent discovery in Kingston of a Saxon coronation stone...

Person, Cinema, Photography, USA

3 memorials