1856 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC AND FINE ART JOURNAL, Vol. IX
Ver: Jan. 14, 2007
NOTES:
TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS:
--Italics have been retained from publications, which uses them for both titles as well as emphasis. To more easily locate image titles, I have continued this italicization when titles have been rendered in all capitols or put in quotes, however italics have NOT been used when the general subject of an image is mentioned.
--Photographer’s (or potential photographer’s) names have been bolded – see also below under “Names”
--Brackets [ ] are used to indicate supplied comments by the transcriber; parenthesis
( ) are used in the original sources. If the original source has used brackets, they have been transcribed as parenthesis to avoid confusion.
--Spelling and typos: Nineteenth-century spellings occasionally differs from currently accepted norms. In addition, British spellings also differ from American usage. Common examples are: “colour” vs. “color”; “centre” vs. “center” and the use of “s” for “z” as in “recognise” vs. “recognize. While great care has been exercised in transcribing the 19th-century journals exactly as printed, “spell check” automatically corrects many of these differences. An attempt has been made to recorrect these automatic changes, but no doubt some have slipped through. As for typographical errors, these have been checked although no doubt some have managed to slip through the editorial process. For matters of consequence, I will be happy to recheck the original sources if need be for specific references.
-- Technical articles: For the most part, articles discussing technical aspects of photography, products, etc. were not transcribed unless they are part of a larger article covering photographs. When technical descriptions are too lengthy to include, that has been noted. Exceptions have been made as the transcriber saw fit.
--Meetings of Societies: Names of officers, members attending or referenced, dates and locations of meetings have been given. The first and/or earliest meetings recorded have been transcribed in full. Beyond those early years, only if the reports are very short or discuss photographs, have the articles been copied in full; if administrative or technical in nature. Although not always possible due to time constraints on borrowed materials, when possible, I have included at least the dates of society meetings and any photographer’s names listed.
-- Related, contemporary journals: e.g., The Art-Journal, cover both photographer as well as painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.. As they frequently refer to the production of both the photographer and the painter as “pictures” it is not always possible to tell when photography is indicated. If there is doubt, these articles have been included and the names bolded, but the individuals may, in fact, not be photographers.
NAMES:
--All photographer’s names have been bolded for easy location. EXCEPTIONS: While it is likely that people working with photographic equipment and techniques are also photographers some discretion has been used and not all such names have been bolded. Names of honorary members of a photographic society are assumed to be photographers and thus bolded, when in fact, that may not be the case. Names mentioned in connection with meetings of non-photographic societies have not been bolded unless there is a known or suspected photographic association. A computer word search, however, will still enable the researcher to locate any references to specific names.
--Names: Given abbreviations for titles such as “M” for “Monsieur”, etc., it is not always possible to tell if an individual’s first name or title is being abbreviated. Thus, especially with non-English photographers, too much credence should not be put into an initial that could also serve as an abbreviated title.
--It is not always possible in lists of photographers to know when two separate photographers are partners or not, e.g., in a list, “Smith and Jones” sometimes alludes to two separate photographers and sometimes to one photographic company. Both names will be highlighted and indexed but a partnership may be wrongly assumed. Any information to the contrary would be appreciated.
NUMBERS:
--Numbers referenced in the various journals can refer to either the photographer’s image number, or an entry number in an exhibition catalog. When the number is obviously is obviously that of the photographer, it is included in the index under the photographer’s name, whereas exhibition numbers are not.
1856: P&FAJ, March, vol. IX, #3, p. 76-80:
Narative of a Photographic Trip to the Seat of War in the Crimea.
By Roger Fenton, Esq.
Permit me, before I commence the description of my labours in the Crimea, to thank you for the good wishes with which you accompanied me on my departure, and the kind welcome which I have received on my return. The knowledge that I was followed by the sympathy of the members of this Society, encouraged me often, when inclined to grow weary of my task, though I must also confess that it did not tend to tranquilize my nerves to think of the expectations which they might form as to the results of my labours.
I do not intent to-night to tell you merely about the modifications which were found to be necessary in our photographic work from the difference in climate, in intensity of light and elevation of temperature. These of course I shall have to speak of, with the hope that my experience, so laid before you, may call forth that of other members of the Society, some of whom I know have practiced the art in countries where the thermometer attains a higher point, and where the general character of the climate renders physical labour much more trying to the constitution than that of the Crimea.
I propose to give you a sketch of the preparations I made, of the difficulties I encountered, the way they were overcome, and of such incidents as struck me as most worthy of notice during my stay.
First, then, as to the preparations. I took with me a camera for portraits fitted with one of Ross’s 3-inch lenses, two cameras made by Bourquien, of Paris, of the bellows construction, and fitted with Ross’s 4-inch landscape lenses, and two smaller cameras made by Horne, and fitted with their lenses, but in place of which I subsequently employed a pair of Ross’s 3-inch lenses with which I had previously worked.
The stock of glass plates was, I think, 700, of three different sizes, fitted into grooved boxes, each of which contained about twenty-four plates; the boxes of glass were again packed in chests, so as to insure their security.
Several chests of chemicals, a small still with stove, three or four printing frames, gutta percha baths and dishes, and a few carpenters tools, formed the princpal [sic] part of
the photographic baggage.
I must not forget, however, what was to be the foundation of all my labours, the travelling dark room. The carriage, which has already had an existence chequered with many adventures by field and flood, began its career, so far as the present historian knows, in the service of a wind merchant at Canterbury.
When it entered into the service of Art, a fresh top was made for it, so as to convert it into a dark room; panes of yellow glass, with shutter, were fixed in the sides; a bed was constructed for it, which folded up in a very small space under the bench at the upper end; round the top were cisterns for distilled and ordinary water, and a shelf for books. On the sides were places for fixing the gutta percha baths, glass-dippers, knives, forks, and spoons. The kettle and cups hung from the roof. On the floor, under the trough for receiving waste water, was a frame with holes, in which were fitted the heavier bottles. This frame had at night to be lifted up and placed on the working bench with the cameras, to make room for the bed, the furniture of which was, during the day, contained in the box under the driving seat. In the beginning of the autumn of last year, having hired in York a strong horse (but one, as we afterwards discovered, of neglected education and of very irregular habits, which were displayed to the greatest extent, in
very strong relief, by my assistant, Mr. Sparling, who then made his first essay as a charioteer), we set forth on the road to Rivaulx Abbey in search of the picturesque.
From the experience obtained in this journey, which was very amusing, and not an unsuccessful one, several modifications were made in the construction of the carriage, and it finally assumed the shape in which it appears in the photograph taken of it on the day on which it traveled down the ravine called the Valley of the Shadow of Death: a picture due to the precaution of the driver on that day, who suggested that as there was a possibility of a stop being put in the same valley to the further travels of both the vehicle and its driver it would be showing a proper consideration for both to take a likeness of them before starting.
In addition to the purely photographic preparations were several boxes of preserved meats, wine and biscuits, harness for three horses, a tent, one of Price’s candle-stoves, a few tools, and a great many other smaller matters, likely to be useful, the whole being packed in thirty-six large chests, which took up so much space on Blackwall Pier as to make me think with rueful forebodings of the sort of resting place they were likely to find on the shores of Balaklava.
The vessel in which, by the kindness of the Duke of Newcastle and of Sir Morton Peto, my passage was provided, staying two days at Giberalter [sic], I took the opportunity of buying three horses at San Roque, where were collected a great number both of horses and mules, for the purpose of sale to the British governments.
Photographers, horses, and baggage, all arrived in due time safely at the entrance to the harbour of Balaklava, and after waiting for half a day outside in obedience to a signal saying that there was no room, the captain of the vessel got impatient, and the focus of his telescope happening to become deranged about the same time, he could no longer read the signal, and so steamed into the harbour, and through much bad language at last got elbowed into a birth near the head of the habour. Before this was accomplished, however, I went on shore, landing on a real stone jetty, and without getting knee-deep in mud, though on either side of the newly made rough stone road there was plenty of evidence of what a filthy swamp the street must have been.
Strolling through the place to reconnoiter, I found plenty to look at. The emptying of Noah’s ark could scarcely have been a stranger sight. Navvies and Croats were working together on the railway, loading wagons, emptying ballast, exchanging “bono Johnnies,” and evidently the best friends. Leaving the town we passed or were met by a constant stream of costumes on foot, or mounted on every variety of quadruped. Zouaves were loitering about with baggy breeches, Turks with baggier. Making some inquiries of a soldier of the 17th Light Dragoons near Kodikoi, there came past some troop horses led or mounted: “There,” said he, “is our regiment.” I counted them, thirteen in all. “You don’t mean to say that these are all?” [“]All that we can mount,” he replied. These horses were a sad spectacle: rough, lanky, their heads down, their tails worn to the stump, most of them showing great patches of bare skin, they seemed too far gone to be able to recover.
Soon came by a drove of mules ridden or led by Turks, Arabs, Maltese, and Blackies, and conducted by a Highland lad half drunk, mounted on a mule, with toes stuck out and mouth reaching from ear to ear. He grinned out in passing, “Here’s the Royal Highland Brigade.” Having delivered a few letters of introduction and obtained from Mr. Beattie engineer of the railway, permission to place my horses for a time in the railway stables, I returned to the ship, weary with excitement and with the anxiety which I felt as to how, in the midst of the chaos and confusion of Balaklava, I was to find any quiet spot in which to commence operations.
Looking back to these scenes, afterwards so fameliar [sic] as to excite no attention, I feel pleasure in remembering the oddness of the first sight of them, and hope that the Society will excuse me on this account for dwelling so long on what is not information about photography.
That same night, pacing the deck, indulging in a quiet cigar, and calming down our excitement by the influence of the solemn starlight and the still water, the harbour so silent that it was difficult to realize the fact that 150 vessels and thousands of men were crowded into that narrow space, we new comers were startled by repeated flashes of red light over the hills towards Sebastopol, and the heavy boom of artillery. As it went on at the rate of seventy shots per minute, nothing could persuade some of the party that it was not the grand attack, which we heard was just about to be made, and it was with difficulty they were dissuaded from setting off instantly, night though it was, to be present at the grand finale.
Having got the horses ashore, the next thing was to disembark the van, an operation which at first appeared to be as impossible as that of squaring the circle. There were at that time but two spots where anything bulky could be put on shore,--a stone jetty of rough construction, called the cattle-pier, and a stage laid to the shore from the ship ‘Mohawk,’ from which railway wagons were being discharged. To get to these a considerable part of the harbour would have to be traversed, but first of all it was necessary to obtain the use of a boat large enough to contain the vehicle, and next to get the boat when obtained alongside our vessel. After hunting about for two days, from the admiral to the captain of the port and the captains secratary [sic], and being sent by them with notes to the captains of Her Majesty’s vessels in the harbour, receiving from every one kind attention and promises of assistance, but finding always that the promised barge was loading with shells and would not be empty for two days, or that unluckily somebody else had just taken it without orders, or that the barge was there, but the men that belonged to it had just been ordered elsewhere, Is aw that, if I could get none but official assistance, Sebastopol would be taken probably vi et armis, but not by photography.
In this dilemma the master of the transport ‘Mohawk’ came to my aid. He had offered previously the use of his ship’s launch, to my aid. He had offered previously the use of his ship’s launch, but it was too small to contain the wagon. However, as there seemed no choice but either to fail or to run the risk of its upsetting in the harbour, I accepted the offer. As the vessels in the harbour were packed side by side like herrings in a barrel, there was no possibility of getting the boat alongside. It was taken to the head of the vessel, and the van being slung over into it, the wheels resting on the edges, it began its dangerous voyage.
Safely landed at last, after many hair-breadth escapes, it obtained a temporary resting-place on the part of the shore where the railway establishment was being formed, and in order to avoid wasting time in answering questions, my assistant began work by painting the title “photographic van” on its exterior. A day or two afterwards, while developing one of my first negatives, a conversation went on outside, which I give as a specimen of many similar ones. “Eh, Jem; what’s that?”—P H O, pho-to-graph.”—“Is that anything to do with ‘the line?’ ”—“No; they say there’s a chap in there taking pictures.”—“Is there?—then he shall take mine.” There came a knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer, a pull to open it.
The door being locked, there was another knock and another speech. “Here, you fellow, open the door and take my picture!”
The door was opened to inform the visitor that his wish could not be gratified. “What did you come for if you’re not going to take pictures? Come, I’ll have mine done, cost what it may. What’s to pay?”—“It can’t be done, my man, pay or no pay.” “Can’t it, though! I’ll go to Mr. Bettie and get an order for it.”
I took a few pictures in this spot in order to enjoy the pleasure of making a beginning, though there was yet much to do before it would be possible to commence in earnest.
It was necessary first to obtain some place in which to store the numerous boxes of materials which were lying in the ship’s hold. For this purpose nothing less than a hut would suffice, and to obtain one it was requisite to be provided with an order from head-quarters, and so I determined to ride up there and present a letter of introduction, with which by the kindness of His Royal Highness Prince Albert, I had been furnished, to the Commander-in-chief. But here an unexpected difficulty occurred. I had neglected to provide myself with saddle and bridle, thinking hat as so many horses had perished, there must be saddles in plenty at Balaklava. It was a mistake: everybody was in want of either a horse or a saddle and bridle, and my horses had not been twenty-four hours in their stable before I received for them offers of more than twice their cost. The scarcity of horses procured at last the loan of what was needed. One of the railway-officers lent me a saddle, with one girth and a bridle, on condition of a mount on one of my horses. On the third horse a nautical friend shipped himself, making a sailors blanket do the duty of a saddle, and rigging up an extempore bridle.
Half a mile out of the town, in scrambling up a rocky ascent, my one girth broke, and saddle and rider went rolling down the hill-side, receiving serious damage in the descent. Proceeding on to the cavalry camp I was fortunate enough to meet with a good Samaritan, Quarter-Master of the 4th Light Dragoons, who lent me a good English saddle, and so enabled me to go on to head-quarters and apply for the wooden hut. After making the application, and finding that no answer could be returned that day, I rode on to the camp, though in considerable pain, in order to get a glimpse of the town, and to find out the quarters of General Barnard, to whom I had letters. He was sitting in his tent with a delightful prospect of a lunch on the table, at which he bade us to be seated—no unwilling guests.
As I was very anxious to become as soon as possible acquainted with the scenes which the camera was afterwards to depict, he kindly rode with us to some of the principal points from which the best views of the tower were to be obtained, and afterwards invited me to come up at once to his quarters, and take a bed in one of his tents, an offer which it was perhaps fortunate I could not accept, since two days afterwards the bed was smashed by a round shot from the Russian batteries.
The General was going that afternoon with Sir R. England to the monastery, a distance of about six miles, and I did not like, when invited to be of the party, to loose the opportunity of seeing a spot so beautifully secluded, and so interesting from its classical site: though my aching ribs turned into painful pleasure what otherwise would have been a most delightful gallop over a fresh, breezy upland, intersected with sudden ravines, each with its little streamlet, and variegated with patches of brushwood and ridges of crumbling rock.
The next two days I was unable to move from pain, and had plenty of enforced leisure to think over all the precautions to ensure success that might have been adopted before leaving home.
When well enough to mount on horseback, I went up again to head-quarters, and obtained the order for the wooden hut; on presenting which at Balaklava to the proper official, I was told that the huts were all on board ship, but that if I would come again in about a week, there would be probably some on shore by that time. A week’s, perhaps a fortnight’s sun-light to be wasted! It was impossible to be satisfied with such an answer. I found at last that there were two huts on shore, appropriated, but not taken away from the store, and, after much trouble, got possession of one of them, and then went to Col. Harding, the commandant at Balaklava, to ask, for a site on which to erect it—a request which was instantly granted.
It took some trouble and time to transport this hut, plank by plank, from the other side of the harbour to its destination. The gang of Croats which Col. Harding had kindly furnished me with to level the ground, made themselves scarce the first time my back was turned, and never afterwards appeared, except doubtless on pay day, to receive their three shillings a-day. When the hut was up, and the heavy boxes transported safely to it, I was able to set to work seriously, and occupied myself for some time taking views in Balaklava and its neighbourhood, and in the cavalry camp beyond Kadikoi.
During this period till the beginning of spring, the light and temperature were everything that a photographer could desire. Without paying especial attention to the condition of the nitrate bath, I was able to take, with Ross’s 3-inch double lens, with a diaphragm of about an inch and a half, almost instantaneous pictures. With the single lens, a Ross’s 4-in., with an inch stop, from 10 to 20 seconds were sufficient. Towards the end of April, 3 seconds were frequently enough for the proper exposure of the negatives with the single lens; in some cases that was too much.
It is, however, with out present facilities, impossible to estimate the relative photographic value of solar light at different seasons, and in different countries, otherwise than approximatively [sic]. I am inclined to believe that the difference is much greater between the actinic power of light at different seasons in the same country, than it is in different countries in the same season. I have taken pictures in England in the spring, with a single lens, more rapidly than at any time in the Crimea. As the weather became hotter, and spring began to change into summer, the difficulty of getting successful pictures became in every way greater. First the actinic power of the light was less with the same collodion, and with the bath in apparently the same condition as in the spring, the time of exposure being gradually longer. As it got hotter still, it became very difficult to keep the nitrate bath in good working order. The consumption of nitrate of silver in making fresh baths was at this time very considerable.
As every photographer knows, a nitrate bath must be allowed to rest for some hours after any change has been made in its nature by the addition of either acid or alkali. These additions must also be so cautiously made, and with so many experiments, to see if the right point has been reached, that where time is an object, it is much better to make a new bath at once, and this we were generally obliged to do, and so the stock of nitrate fell short. This was one of the difficulties which I had foreseen no more than the trouble which the want of a saddle would occasion. It was more easy got over, for on application to the head of the medical corps, I was supplied with a sufficient quantity of fused nitrate of silver to go on with.
It was difficult too, in the great heats, to clean the glass plate properly; perhaps I should rather say, that when the heat was intense, impurities upon the glass, which in a lower temperature would have been of no detriment, became centres of chemical action and caused spots or streaks in the negative picture.
It was necessary in the hot weather to thin the collodion to a much greater extent than is usual in England; and even with this precaution it was hard to spread a film of collodion evenly over a large plate, the upper part of the film drying before the excess of liquid had run off at the lower corner of the plate. From the same cause the development of the pictures was more difficult, as the film often became nearly dry in the short time necessary to take the slide containing it to the camera and back again, and then of course the developing fluid would not, when poured on the plate, run at once all over it without stoppage. Some idea of the heat may be formed from the fact, that the door of the van being one day in the beginning of June left open, and the sun shining into it, a gutta-percha funnel, which was exposed to its rays, became blistered all over, as if it had been laid upon the heated bars of a fireplace.
I need not speak of the physical exhaustion which I experienced in working in my van at this period. Though it was painted of a light colour externally, it grew so hot towards noon s to burn the hand when touched. As soon as the door was closed to commence the preparation of a plate, perspiration started from every pore; and the sense of relief was great when it was possible to open the door and breathe even the hot air outside.
I should not forget to state that it was at this time that the plague of flies commenced. Before preparing a plate, the first thing to be done was to battle with them for the possession of the place; the necessary buffeting with handkerchiefs and towels having taken place, and the intruders being expelled, the moment the last one was out, the door had to be rapidly closed for fear of a fresh invasion, and then some time to be allowed for the dust thus raised to settle, before coating a plate.
Eventually I was obliged, in the month of June, to cease working after 10 o’clock in the morning. Without reference to the fatigue which would have resulted from work during the heat of the day, it would have been impossible, so far as portraits were concerned, to take any satisfactory ones after that hour, for the glare was so great from the sky and burnt-up ground, that no one could keep his eyes more than half open.
On one occasion at this time, and only on one, an appointment was made with me for an hour that was earlier than I liked. I had requested General Pelissier to allow me to take his likeness, and told him at the same time that the earlier he could come the better. He promised to come the next morning at half-past four, and kept his appointment pretty punctually.
There was little lost at this time by ceasing to take views, except such as consisted principally of foreground; for the distant hills, which during the spring were always distinctly marked, and which shone in the greatest variety of rich and lovely colour, gradually merged in the hot weather into one indistinct leaden mass, mixed up confusedly with the seething vapoury sky.
This difference between the beauty of atmospheric effects at different seasons is very remarkably illustrated in skirting the coasts of the Mediterranean or sailing among the islands of the Aegean, where the objects that meet the eye, being all at a considerable distance, are at one season clear and distinct in outline, with infinite variety of form, and glowing in the richest colour; while in the heat of the summer the details are all drowned in one dull misty mass, the extreme distances are invisible, and the glorious colours are shrouded in a uniform neutral coat of grey.
I am forgetting, however, that my van is all this time at Balaklava, while I am rambling into the Mediterranean. I am afraid it must be left there for the present, for I have already occupied too much of your time. I must pass over the efforts which were made to break in my Spanish horses to running in harness, and how the attempt failed; and how I moved up to the front with six artillery horses, and pitched my tent at headquarters, but finding it too small to hold all my family and stores, gave it up to Mr. Sparling, and had myself to be indebted for food and shelter to the hospitality of my friends,--now living in luxury and abundance, and now in want; occasionally sleeping in a general’s marquee, and sometimes on the bare ground.
At the end of May feeling my health somewhat impaired, I obtained leave to join the Kertch expedition, but returned to the camp in time to witness the attack on the Mamelon by the French, and the Quarries by our own troops. On the day of that battle,--having taken the portrait of General Pelissier, as already mentioned, at a very early hour, and the group of the three commanders-in-chief in council,--I was spending the afternoon with a brother-in-law and some friends in the 88th, with one of whom I had been intimate for several years. I was sitting in his tent with five officers of the regiment, being about to dine together, when Captain Layard brought orders for the formation of a column for the assault on the Redan, my brother-in-law being named as second in command of the storming party of 100 men, and our host as commander of the reserve. I shall never forget the sudden hush with which our previous mirth was quelled, nor the serious look which went round the group of brave men receiving that message, which as they knew was to some among them the summons to another world. I accompanied them till they reached the trenches.
There was a fine young man whose face is before me now, as then, when I saw him for the first and last time. He had begged to be allowed to join the storming party in the place of another officer, and his request had been as I think improperly granted. There was something inexpressibly painful to me in looking at the excitement and pleasure which his expression betrayed.
Having returned to a spot whence the principal attack could be seen, I remained there for several hours, not knowing how time passed, and, like the rest of the group, scarcely conscious of the shot and shell which were hissing over our heads, except on one occasion, when a spent-ball, which every body saw coming, passed through the thickest of the throng, killing one man who got confused in his efforts to avoid it. After everything seemed over and the rattle of musketry grew faint, I went back to the camp, and entering my brother-in-law’s tent, found him lying with a grape-shot hole in his arm. While sitting with him, to give him drink from time to time, I could hear in the next tent the moans of the commander of the storming party, who had been shot through the abdomen, till about midnight, when their cessation told that his sufferings were over. From time to time a wounded soldier coming up told us how things were going on in the Quarries. We could learn nothing of our friends, except that it was thought some of them were wounded. At last came up the report that one was killed, then another and another, and as fresh stragglers arrived, the rumour changed into certainty.
The handsome lad upon whom I had looked with such interest was missing, but was said to be lying close to the Redan.
With a heavy heart I rode back to my own quarters in the grey of the morning, meeting with litters on which were borne silently men with pale waxen faces and ghastly wounds. That afternoon I followed to the grave the bodies of three out of the five who had been met to spend the previous evening in social enjoyment.
A day or two afterwards, when dining with General Bosquet, and expressing to him the depression which these events had caused in my mind, I was much struck by his reply. “Ah,” said he, “no one but a soldier can know the misery of war: I have passed six and twenty years of my life in burying my most intimate friends.”
I had hoped to add to the collection of views which I had formed, photographs of the scenes since so ably depicted by Mr. Robertson, and with that view made everything ready for going into Sebastopol after the attack of the 18th of June, which all knew to be impending, and which everybody had settled was to succeed so surely, that those who had doubt s scarcely ventured to express them. When that attempt failed, and to the list of friends already sacrificed were added new names, I felt quite unequal to further exertion, and gladly embraced the first opportunity of coming away. Having lived for the previous month at head-quarters, which were in a very unhealthy condition, I had imbibed the poison of that outbreak of cholera to which Lord Raglan, General Estcourt, and so many others at head-quarters at that time fell victims, and which the depression consequent upon the losses of the 18th rendered them unable to resist.
Providentially I was able to get on board ship and outside the harbour before the disease came on. Recovering from that, and beginning to regain strength, a fever brought on by overwork and nervous excitement [sic], made me very glad to find myself at home lying silent and dreaming in the midst of dear familiar faces. So happily ended my photographic experience in the Crimea, with the renewed conviction that “there is no place like home.”