Fenton · Crimean war · 1855

Roger Fenton (1819-1869) ~ Marcus Sparling was a fellow British photographer and assistant to Roger Fenton, here seated on Fenton’s photographic van in Crimea, 1855. | src internet archive

Roger Fenton’s Crimean War photographs represent one of the earliest systematic attempts to document a war through the medium of photography. Fenton, who spent fewer than four months in the Crimea (March 8 to June 26, 1855), produced 360 photographs under extremely trying conditions. While these photographs present a substantial documentary record of the participants and the landscape of the war, there are no actual combat scenes, nor are there any scenes of the devastating effects of war. | Quoted from Fenton’s Crimean War photographs [x] at the Library of Congress

Roger Fenton (1819-1869) ~ The Crimean war, 1855. Salted paper print. | src internet archive

William Agnew, of the publishing firm Thomas Agnew & Sons, must have proposed Fenton as the photographer for a commercial publishing venture to the Crimea sometime before a hurricane claimed the life of the official government photographer in the Crimea in November 1854, for during the fall of that year Fenton purchased a former wine merchant’s van and converted it to a mobile darkroom. He hired an assistant, and traveled the English countryside testing the suitability of the van. In February 1855 Fenton set sail for the Crimea aboard the Hecla, traveling under royal patronage and with the assistance of the British government.

While Fenton was in the Crimea he had ample opportunity to photograph the horrors of war. He had several friends and acquaintances, including his brother-in-law, Edmund Maynard, who were casualties of combat. But Fenton shied away from views that would have portrayed the war in a negative (or realistic) light for several reasons, among them, the limitations of photographic techniques available at the time (Fenton was actually using state-of-the-art processes, but lengthy exposure time prohibited scenes of action); inhospitable environmental conditions (extreme heat during the spring and summer months Fenton was in the Crimea); and political and commercial concerns (he had the support of the Royal family and the British government, and the financial backing of a publisher who hoped to issue sets of photos for sale).

Roger Fenton (1819-1869) ~ The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Crimean war, 1855. | src Library of Congress

Whether there was an explicit directive from the British government to refrain from photographing views that could be deemed detrimental to the government’s management of the war effort, perhaps in exchange for permission to travel and photograph in the war zone, or whether there was merely an implicit understanding between the government, the publisher, and the photographer is not known. Fenton photographed the leading figures of the allied armies, documented the care and quality of camp life of the British soldiers, as well as scenes in and around Balaklava, and on the plateau before Sevastopol, but refrained from images of combat or its aftermath. This tactic may have given him access to information and views that were otherwise off-limits to artists and war correspondents, like William Howard Russell, who were critical of the British government’s leadership and military officers’ handling of the war. In any case, while personally witnessing the horror of war, Fenton chose not to portray it.

Fenton made plans to photograph Sevastopol following the June 18th assault on the Malakoff and the Redan, the Russian’s primary defense works before the city. When the assault failed, he decided it was time to return to England. He sold the van, packed up his equipment, and by June 26th, ill with cholera, sailed out of the harbor at Balaklava. Fenton was, therefore, not present for the fall of Sevastopol (Sept. 9th) nor its subsequent destruction, which was recorded photographically by James Robertson. While Russia retained control of the Crimea, the Allied armies achieved their primary objective, the destruction of Russian naval power in the Black Sea.

Roger Fenton (1819-1869) ~ The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Crimean war, 1855. | src Library of Congress

Fenton’s Crimean War photographs offer a wonderful record of a moment in time. They are documentary in the sense that they constitute a reality in a way only intimated by painting or wood engraving. They might also be considered the first instance of the use of photography for the purposes of propaganda, although they do not seem to have been exploited to this end. Clearly they were intended to present a particular view of the British government’s conduct of the war. However, by the time they were exhibited Sevastopol had fallen and the tide of war had turned.

The Library of Congress purchased 263 of Fenton’s salted paper and albumen prints (…) including his most well-known photograph, “Valley of the Shadow of Death”. | Quoted from Fenton’s Crimean War photographs [x] at the Library of Congress

Roger Fenton (1819-1869) ~ The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Crimean war, April 23, 1855. | src Getty museum

…in coming to a ravine called the valley of death, the sight passed all imagination: round shot and shell lay like a stream at the bottom of the hollow all the way down, you could not walk without treading upon them…
─ Roger Fenton

Fenton’s most famous photograph is also one of the most well-known images of war. Across a desolate and featureless landscape, not a single figure can be found. The landscape is inhabited only by cannonballs ─so plentiful that they first appear to be rocks─ that stand in for the human casualties on the battlefield. The sense of emptiness and unease is heightened by the visual uncertainty created by the changing scale of the road and the sloping sides of the ravine.

Borrowing from the Twenty-third Psalm of the Bible, the Valley of Death was named by British soldiers who came under constant shelling there. Fenton traveled to the dangerous ravine twice, and on his second visit he made two exposures. Fenton wrote that he had intended to move in closer at the site. But danger forced him to retreat back up the road, where he created this image.

Roger Fenton (1819-1869) ~ Marcus Sparling was a fellow British photographer and assistant to Roger Fenton, here seated on Fenton’s photographic van in Crimea, 1855. Salted paper print. | src Library of Congress

Colored Daguerreotype (1850s)

colored daguerreotype 1850s
Finnish stereo view, colorized daguerreotype of a woman pumping milk into a bowl. 1850s | src Helsinki Photos
Finnish framed stereo image, daguerreotype. The girl is pouring milk into a bowl. 1850s | src Helsinki Photos
Finnish framed stereo image, daguerreotype. The girl is pouring milk into a bowl. 1850s | src Helsinki Photos
Finnish stereo view, colorized daguerreotype of a woman pumping milk into a bowl. 1850s | src Helsinki Photos

Inondations à Lyon – 1856

Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: [Inondations de Lyon (1856) : vue de la montée des eaux sur le quai Saint-Antoine et le quai des Célestins], 1856-05-19. | src Actu.fr
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: La rive gauche de la Saône, la Presqu’Île, est sous les eaux dès le 18 mai. [Inondations de Lyon (1856) : vue de la montée des eaux sur le quai Saint-Antoine et le quai des Célestins]. | src Actu.fr
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: [Inondations de Lyon (1856) : vue de la montée des eaux sur le quai Saint-Antoine et le quai des Célestins]. 1856-05-19 | src Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: [Inondations de Lyon (1856) : vue de la montée des eaux sur le quai Saint-Antoine et le quai des Célestins]. 1856-05-19 | src Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: La rive gauche de la Saône. Inondations à Lyon, 18-05-1856; épreuve sur papier salé. Scanned from publication.
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: La rive gauche de la Saône. Inondations à Lyon, 18-05-1856; épreuve sur papier salé. | Scanned from publication.
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: [Inondations de Lyon (1856) : vue du quai Saint-Antoine, du quai des Célestins et du quai Tilsitt]; 1856-05-18. | src Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon
Louis Froissart (1815-1860) :: [Inondations de Lyon (1856) : vue du quai Saint-Antoine, du quai des Célestins et du quai Tilsitt]; 1856-05-18. | src Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon

Nudes on colored daguerreotypes

Félix-Jacques Moulin ~ Nude woman, colored daguerreotype, between ca. 1851-1854. Scanned from book. Retrieved from wikimedia commons
Félix-Jacques Moulin ~ Nude woman, colored daguerreotype, between ca. 1851-1854. Scanned from book | src wikimedia
Félix-Jacques Moulin ~ [Les baigneuses : étude de nus dans une composition picturale], 1851-55; daguerréotype coloriée | src BnF

see all related post with photographs by Félix-Jacques Moulin clicking on the category or tag or just clicking here

Félix-Jacques Moulin ~ [Female nude standing with back to full-length mirror], 1851-53. Daguerreotype, hand-colored | src Google Arts

Félix-Jacques Antoine Moulin (1802 – 1875) was a French photographer.
In 1849, Moulin opened a photographer’s studio at 31 bis rue du Faubourg Montmartre and started producing daguerreotypes of young girls aged 14 to 16. In 1851, Moulin’s work was confiscated, and he was sentenced to one month imprisonment for the “obscene” character of his works, “so obscene that even to pronounce the titles would violate public morality” according to court records.
After his release, Moulin continued his activities more discreetly. He taught photography, sold photographic equipment, and had a backdoor installed to his studio to dodge further legal problems. His works gained esteem from critics.
In 1856, Moulin made a photographic trip to Algeria, with a tonne of equipment, backed and financed by the French government, which allowed it to gain benefit from the structures of colonialism. There, he met technical difficulties due to variations in humidity, work in the open, and the quality of water, but managed nonetheless to extensively document the benefit of French colonies in Northern Africa. | quoted from Google Arts & Culture, here

La photographie érotique

Female Nude. Attributed to Félix Jacques Moulin (French, 1802 - 1875); 1856; Albumen silver print. From «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photographie
Female Nude. Attributed to Félix Jacques Moulin (French, 1802 – 1875); 1856; Albumen silver print. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie
Anonyme, Académie, vers 1845, daguerréotype. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photographie
Anonyme, Académie, vers 1845, daguerréotype. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie
Anonyme, Nu, vers 1848, daguerréotype (stereo). From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photograp
Anonyme, Nu, vers 1848, daguerréotype (stereo). From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie
Two Women Embracing. Unknown French maker; about 1848; Daguerreotype, hand-colored. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l'œil de la photographie
Two Women Embracing. Unknown French maker; about 1848; Daguerreotype, hand-colored. From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src l’œil de la photographie

The title is intriguing: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique». (“Reconsidering erotic photography”).
The text itself is brilliant and of great intelligence.

In this 1987 essay, historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau traces avenues for exploring a history of erotic and pornographic photographic production, a history hitherto repressed and absent from narratives. Thus opening the door to a feminist and revised history of the photographic medium, she shows how much this imagery has been abundant and present almost from the origins of photography. In “Reconsidering erotic photography”, Abigail Solomon-Godeau analyzes the ways in which naked bodies are presented in several photographic images from the 1840s-1850s, whether academic nudes or images intended for other types of visual consumption, and questions the specificity of photographic representation as opposed to other mediums. Supporting feminist theories, she raises the question of how these images are viewed, and the ambiguity of their designation, between eroticism and pornography. At the heart of this pioneering essay in the history of photography, she defends the need to write the history of these often set aside productions.

Reconsidérer la photographie érotique.
Notes pour un projet de sauvetage historique

Abigail Solomon-Godeau
Éléonore Challine (éd. et trad.),
Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2022
quoted from l’œil de la photographie

The Niagara Falls, ca. 1855

Platt D. Babbitt :: [Niagara Falls], ca. 1855. Daguerreotype in leather case. | src MFAH · Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Platt D. Babbitt (American, active 1840s–70s) :: The Niagara Falls, ca. 1850. Daguerreotype | src The Met
Platt D. Babbitt (American, active 1840s–70s) :: The Niagara Falls, ca. 1850. Daguerreotype in leather case | src The Met
Platt D. Babbitt (American, 1823 – 1879) :: [Scene at Niagara Falls]; about 1855. Daguerreotype.

In the 1800s Prospect Point at Niagara Falls was a popular destination for travelers in search of a transcendent encounter with nature. The falls were revered as a sacred place that was recognized by the Catholic Church in 1861 as a “pilgrim shrine,” where the faithful could contemplate the landscape as an example of divine majesty.

Platt D. Babbitt would customarily set up his camera in an open-sided pavilion and photograph groups of tourists admiring the falls without their knowledge, as he appears to have done here. Later he would sell the unsuspecting subjects their daguerreotype likenesses alongside the natural wonder. | quoted from Getty Museum

Platt D. Babbitt :: [Scene at Niagara Falls], ca. 1855. Daguerreotype | src Getty Museum Collection

Two well-dressed couples are seen from behind as they stand on the shore downstream from the falls, gazing at its majestic splendor. The silhouetted forms–women wearing full skirts and bonnets and carrying umbrellas and men in stovepipe hats–are sharply outlined against the patch of shore and expansive, white foam. | quoted from Getty Museum

Platt D. Babbitt :: Photograph shows men in morning coats and top hats standing at the side of Niagara Falls [ca. 1854]
Platt D. Babbitt :: [Niagara Falls] [ca. 1854] whole-plate ambrotype on case | src Library of Congress
Photograph shows men in morning coats and top hats standing at the side of Niagara Falls.

Nudes 1850s by Felix Moulin

Félix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin :: Nude, ca. 1850. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Rubel Collection (The Met)
Félix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin ~ Nude, ca. 1850. Salted paper print from paper negative. | src The Rubel Collection at The Met
Female Nude, 1856 (Albumen silver print). Attributed to Félix-Jacques Moulin (French, 1802 – 1875)
From: Abigail Solomon-Godeau: «Reconsidérer la photographie érotique» | src ODLP ~ l’œil de la photographie

Cyanotypes of Algae, 1843

‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions’ by Anna Atkins (1799-1871) Part 1 of Fox Talbot’s own copy, sewn in original blue wrapper. Atkins published a collection of cyanotype photograms of algae, in installments over ten years from 1843 to 1853. | src Science and Media Museum