Photography History #11 – Roger Fenton: the road without a witness
A road runs between bare slopes. Small round objects lie in the foreground. The valley continues into the distance, but there is not a single person in view. No soldier, rider or battle. Only when we look more closely do the scattered objects begin to read as cannonballs. The road is empty of people, yet it no longer feels empty.
Roger Fenton made the photograph during the Crimean War in 1855. The image is known as The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Library of Congress holds a salted paper print showing cannonballs on the road and across the surrounding ground. A related Getty print has been dated to 23 April 1855.
The photograph speaks partly through what it leaves out. But the empty landscape cannot tell us everything that happened there before or after Fenton set up his camera.
A road that pulls the eye
Notice the shape of the road. Its two edges enter from the bottom of the frame and run towards the centre of the valley. As they narrow in perspective, they invite us to follow them as far as we can see. The composition has a clear direction, even though there is no moving subject.
The slopes on either side are low and almost bare. They offer little visual distraction, so our attention returns to the ground. Dark circles interrupt its pale surface. Some are large in the foreground; others become small marks in the distance. At first, they might pass for stones. The archival description identifies them as cannonballs.
There is no visible gun or person who fired them. No explosion appears in the frame. The photograph shows traces, not the moment of violence itself. The position of those objects, the exposed stretch of road and the distance between foreground and background do the visual work.
Why photograph the place instead of the battle?
Photography in the 1850s required an entirely different pace. Fenton worked with wet-collodion glass negatives. The plate had to be prepared shortly before exposure and developed while it was still wet. The process called for chemicals, glass plates and a darkroom close to the camera.
Fenton converted a former wine merchant's van into a travelling darkroom. The Science Museum Group preserves an image of that vehicle with his assistant Marcus Sparling seated outside it. This was not equipment that could easily be carried to a fast-moving encounter. Heat, dust, preparation and the need for processing all limited what Fenton could photograph.
Yet the technology does not explain every choice. The Library of Congress documents the commercial publishing venture behind the journey, together with royal and government support. Images of war had audiences, patrons and economic purposes. A camera's technical limits and the expectations surrounding publication shaped the resulting record together.
Two negatives, one valley
There is another reason to study this road carefully. Fenton produced two separate photographs of the same view. In one, cannonballs are scattered across the road. In the other, the roadway is much clearer, with the balls visible mainly along the sides. These are different exposures, not a later digital alteration of one photograph.
That difference has prompted a long debate. Were the cannonballs moved to make the scene more dramatic? Which exposure came first? Filmmaker Errol Morris examined the two images closely and proposed an order based on small changes visible on the slope. Other interpretations remain. The Musée d'Orsay, for example, has argued that deliberate rearrangement would have been unlikely given the danger at the location.
The existence of two versions is a documented fact. The intention behind any movement of objects is much harder to establish. Soldiers, assistants or other activity might have affected the road; a deliberate photographic arrangement is another possibility. Without direct evidence of an action and its motive, a plausible explanation should not be presented as a proven one.
What the title adds
The title The Valley of the Shadow of Death echoes a Biblical phrase. British soldiers used a related name for an area exposed to artillery fire. Even before we inspect the cannonballs, those words prepare us to read the landscape as a place of danger and loss.
The name can also cause confusion. The road shown in Fenton's photograph should not simply be equated with the valley of the famous Charge of the Light Brigade near Balaclava in 1854. Historical accounts distinguish the routes. A shared or similar name is not enough to identify a location.
Without the title, this could initially look like a barren landscape photograph. With it, the same shapes carry a different weight. That does not make the title false or manipulative. It shows why names, captions and provenance belong to a photograph's history rather than standing outside it.
What a photograph cannot settle
The negative does not tell us who fired a particular cannonball, at what time, or who last travelled along the road. Nor does it show a specific battle in progress. It records the visible state of a location at the time of exposure. The historical explanation must come from other evidence as well.
That distinction matters. A photographic trace can be precise without being complete. Letters, maps, reports and collection records allow us to compare what the image shows with the wider record. They can support a conclusion, but each source comes with its own limits and point of view.
The cannonballs are visible on the road. The history of the fighting continues outside the frame. Seeing one is not the same as knowing all of the other.
What would a crop change?
Imagine a tighter crop around the nearest objects. We might study their shapes more closely, but lose the road that now gives the image its long visual movement. The distance is important. It lets us experience the scale of a place without seeing anyone cross it.
Now imagine standing much farther away. The objects might disappear into the landscape and the result could seem like an ordinary view of a valley. Fenton's frame holds two scales together: the large place and the small, material traces within it.
A composition does not prove the historical story by itself. It does decide what the viewer can compare. The road's curve, the bare slopes and the scattered shapes form an argument about looking before any written explanation arrives.
What would we ask of a similar image today?
Images of war or disaster often draw attention through visible action. Yet an unoccupied street, a damaged room or an abandoned object can also carry evidence. Such scenes offer a different account of an event: one built from what remained rather than from what was caught in motion.
In the previous episode, Lewis Hine's portrait of Sadie Pfeifer showed the importance of a contemporary caption when we try to understand a person's working conditions. Fenton's photograph raises a related but different question. Instead of identifying one person, we must work out what an empty place can responsibly tell us.
Look once more along the road until it vanishes. We can say what appears within the frame. How much more do we need to check before we claim to know what happened there?
Sources and image rights
Library of Congress — The valley of the shadow of death, 1855: https://www.loc.gov/item/2001698869/: original collection record, physical process, image and rights statement.
Library of Congress — Fenton's Crimean War Photography: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/ftncnw/background.html: historical context of the commission and working conditions.
Royal Collection Trust — Valley of the Shadow of Death: https://albert.rct.uk/collections/photographs-collection/record-of-historical-events/valley-of-the-shadow-of-death: April 23, 1855 dating and object description.
Science Museum Group — Roger Fenton's Photographic Van: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8347153/roger-fentons-photographic-van: the mobile darkroom and Marcus Sparling.
J. Paul Getty Museum — All the Mighty World: Roger Fenton: https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/fenton/: historical and editorial context of the Crimean series.
Musée d'Orsay — The Valley of the Shadow of Death: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/valley-shadow-death-134407: an institutional view on the disputed staging claim.
Image rights: The Library of Congress identifies the Fenton Crimean War Photographs as public domain and free to reuse; the specific photograph carries the notice “No known restrictions on publication.” The intended single hero/cover/first image is the 1024×831 JPEG reproduced from the LOC's original print. No reconstructed or colourised scene is substituted for the source.