Photographs
The First World War was a turning point in the history of war photography. Developments in technology meant that for the first time, it was possible for professional and amateur photographers to take their cameras to the battlefield, record what they saw and see their photographs published in newspapers, magazines and books.
However, taking photographs in wartime was fraught with risk and difficulty.
‘Photography, once regarded as the most instantaneous of all arts…has also proved to be one of the most permanent recorders. The events and the men may pass, but the photographic plates remain … as an indelible record. Five, or ten, or twenty-five years from now, they will be shown to us and our sons, and will link the decades together in a way unimagined by our ancestors.’
Lord Beaverbrook, Minister for Information
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A British soldier pays his |
A shell bursts within two yards of the photographer, Zonnebeke, 23 September 1917 |
In spite of the risks, hundreds of thousands of photographs were taken throughout the world during the First World War. Official, commercial and amateur photographers all documented and interpreted events and the impact of the war on lives.
Although few photographers realised the significance of their work at the time, their efforts resulted in a legacy of images which is vital to our understanding of the First World War today, and which, in numerous instances, are iconic works of art.
‘War photography either creates or attracts to itself an especial breed of men - men who are either so engrossed in their craft, or so constituted mentally and physically that the riskiness of their work has very little effect on them - and is certainly no deterrent.’
Basil Clarke, Official War Correspondent, writing in ‘The War Illustrated’, 7 July 1917
Very few official photographers were appointed prior to 1916, and British and Empire official photographers were few in comparison to the numbers employed by Germany and France.
The names of individual photographers employed by the press and photographic firms were rarely published during the First World War. Some of the significant photographic businesses that covered the war included Mrs Albert Broom, Central Press and Sport & General. |
Lieutenant Ernest Brooks (left), the first British official photographer of the First World War on the Western Front in 1916. Lieutenant Brooks covered Gallipoli, the Battle of the Somme and other key events on the Western and Italian Fronts.
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Christina Broom (right), Britain's first woman freelance press photographer, promotes her photographic business at the Women’s War Work Exhibition in London, 1916.
With no official or commercial photographers present, the snapshots taken by T E Lawrence and other soldiers represent the only photographic record of the desert campaign. |
Explore Photographs
Key events in photography 1914 - 1919
Wounded Indian soldiers convalescing in the grounds of the Brighton Pavilion
Field bacteriologist examines specimens through a microscope
Portrait of a German prisoner during the Battle of Menin Road Ridge
Two women manufacturing shell cases at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich
Royal Air Force Handley Page O/400 bombers at Coudekerque Airfield, Dunkirk, France
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