204 years ago today, Roger Fenton was born

Roger Fenton was a British photographer, noted as one of the first war photographers. Fenton was born into a Lancashire merchant family. After graduating from London with an Arts degree, he became interested in painting and later developed a keen interest in the new technology of photography after seeing early examples at The Great Exhibition in 1851. Within a year, he began exhibiting his own photographs. He became a leading British photographer and instrumental in founding the Photographic Society. In 1854, he was commissioned to document events occurring in Crimea, where he became one of a small group of photographers to produce images of the final stages of the Crimean War.