Early Views, 1854
Grandson of a wealthy industrialist, Roger Fenton was born in 1819 north of Manchester in Lancashire, England. In the early 1840s, he put aside his law studies to become an artist, studying painting in both Paris and London. In 1851, he took up photography and returned briefly to Paris to learn from the leading French photographer, Gustave Le Gray. Trained as a painter and committed to photography as an art, Le Gray had a lasting impact on Fenton's career.
Like Le Gray, Fenton sought to record "the
living triumphs or the decaying monuments of man's genius and
pride" in his photographs of architecture. But his early photographs
also depict what he regarded as more English subjects, such
as romantic landscapes that capitalized on the popularity of
picturesque travel. His compositions often incorporate figures—surrogates
for viewers—who walk amid the architectural ruins or
gaze into the depths of sublime vistas.