Civil War (1861-65)

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the third war in history to be caught on camera. The first two were the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) and the Crimean War (1854–1856). more...

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Photography profoundly changed the way wars were covered and viewed. Any grandeur and sweetness of an aftermath of a victorious battle, which was once up to a painter to portray, all of a sudden became uninterpretable. Losing its subjectivity, the true terror of war could not be hidden anymore. Americans for the first time saw the vividly horrific photographs of maimed and dying fellow Americans in agony slowly withering away on a battlefield far away from their homes. Astonishment and shock -- not toward the cruelty of war as much as to the newly innovated barbaric weapons of war -- left Americans bewildered. As newspapers did not yet have the technology or equipment for making half-tone blocks, magazines across the land published cadaverous pictorial representations of the worst of humanity. Those scenes of pillage and shame were captured by men like George Barnard, Mathew Brady and many more.

Background

In order to better comprehend Civil War photography, we have to look at the origins of photography itself. In 1827 on one sunny, warm day history was made when, after eight hours of industrious work, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce developed the first fixed image. However, it was Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre who simplified the process. After reducing the exposure time to less than thirty minutes, the first permanent photograph was made. This method became known as a daguerreotype. It eventually became popular, and by the 1850s seventy daguerreotype studios had been opened in New York. Just before the start of the Civil War, a cheaper and more practical system of photographing was developed by Henry Fox Talbot. It was the first system to use the positive-negative process, thus making it possible to have several copies of the same picture.

A basic camera is a combination of optics, mechanics and chemical processes. It does not need any electricity whatsoever to function. The lens is the optical part; it transmits light into the camera and forms an image. The mechanical components are typically the shutter and focus controls. The chemical factor is introduced by the plate on which an image is recorded. All put together, that is what makes photography possible. If it were not for these early pioneers of photography, our concept of 19th-century history would have been quite different. ====]]

Union photographers

Mathew Brady

Mathew B. Brady, a son of Irish immigrants, was born in 1823 in Warren County, New York. Brady can be viewed as the father of photojournalism. He was the most prominent photographer of the Civil War because of his commitment and mastery of his job. He mastered the art when he was in his 20s and spent his own money to take pictures of the war. In 1844, Brady opened a private studio in New York City displaying photographs of famous Americans. He himself said, "From the first, I regarded myself as under obligation to my country to preserve the faces of its historic men and mothers."

Read more at Wikipedia.org