Famous Photographer #6: Roger Fenton

Many say that Roger Fenton's photography career was great but brief. He was a photographer for only twelve years. He is a founder of the Photographic Society in London and he photographed the British royal family. He made the first photographs of Russia and the Kremlin. The British Museum invited him to take pictures of their collections. The first large-scale photographic documentation of war was Fenton's photographs of Crimea in 1855. Fenton photographed many genres including landscapes, still lifes and architectural design. Even though Fenton exhibited and sold his own pictures, he grew disdainful of how commercialization of photography increased. He returned to law and gave up photography in 1862.