Background
Roger Fenton was born in 1819 in Heywood, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
Roger Fenton was born in 1819 in Heywood, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
He received an MA from University College, London.
A solicitor from 1852 to 1854, Fenton worked as a professional photographer (1854-62), then returned to the practice of law. During his years as a photographer, he was commissioned to photograph the construction of a suspension bridge over the Dnieper River, in Russia (1852), to portray domestic scenes of the royal family, to record art treasures of the British Museum, and (with royal sanction) to photograph the Crimean War under the commission of publisher Thomas Agnew (1855). Wood engravings from some of the 300 to 400 images he shot during the war were published in The Illustrated London News.
Working with several different cameras (including a stereoscopic one) and using both calotypes and collodion wet-plates, he produced salt prints, albumen prints, photogalvanographics and carbon prints.
Fenton was in the Photographic Club in 1847 and co-founded the Photographic Society (later RPS) in 1853, serving as its secretary that year.