Incredible war photography, then and now

Voice Over: These are the photographs they didn't want you to see.

During the Second World War, the war office couldn't risk sensitive details getting into enemy hands, so they were heavily censored.

Since the invention of Photography in the early 19th century, war photographers have risked their lives venturing into war zones in an attempt to document the reality of war with a camera.

Helen Mavin: Until the invention of Photography in the 1820s, the only way to report on war was through text and artworks such as sketches created in a hurry or paintings produced from memory. Nothing that offered the immediacy or some may argue the realism that photography could. Those who were creatively inclined, quickly realized photography's potential and the use of cameras in war zones has become increasingly important since then. There are now 11 million photographs in the Imperial War Museum's archive and the collection is growing every day. 

Voice over: These images have been created by a wide range of people, from civilians caught up in conflict, to commissioned war photographers and even service men and women trying to make sense of daily life on the front line. With the development of camera phones, in recent years, photographing the realities of war is more accessible than ever but it wasn't always that easy.

Helen Mavin: The first photographed war was the American Mexican war of 1846, shortly followed by the Crimean War. Roger Fenton was one of the first to experiment with early cameras and was soon commissioned to document the developing situation in Crimea. The American Civil War became the most photographed war of the 19th century.

The earliest photographers in this period used heavy, often cumbersome or fragile equipment such as tripods and glass plate negatives. Some photographers even took their own mobile studios and dark rooms onto the battlefields.

Voice over: By the time the first world war broke out in 1914, developments and technology meant that lighter, more portable and affordable equipment such as roll film was increasingly available.

This opened up the possibility of Photography as a hobby as well as a potential career and getting close to the action had never been easier.

Helen Mavin: The first Vest Pocket Kodak Camera was now on the market. Due to its portability and affordability these cameras grew in popularity and they became known as the Solder’s Camera.

Voice over: Around 5,500 of these cameras were sold in Britain in 1914 and this rose to 28,000 sales in 1915.

Helen Mavin: This model is an Autographic vest pocket camera. It included a stylus so that photographers could make a note or description of what they had photographed.

The lens collapses down so it fits into your pocket and you could quickly take it out to operate the camera by looking down in the viewfinder in portrait or switching the viewfinder to take landscape photographs.

Voice over: It wasn't just the technology that was changing. How we viewed and used these images also started to change.

Helen Mavin: Photographs started appearing in newspapers and early picture magazines.

Voice over: The war office had also spotted the potential of photography as an instrument of war.

Helen Mavin: Throughout the first world war, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Engineers used photography to understand the landscapes they were fighting in, producing thousands of aerial photographs and panoramic images on the ground. 

Voice over: Photo reconnaissance was often the only way to collect information behind enemy lines and the results helped to inform key military decisions. But first world war photographers were about to face a new challenge to their craft.

Helen Mavin: Fearful that unpopular or sensitive photographs might make their way into newspapers and compromise the war, the war office put restrictions in place.

Voice over: Unauthorised photography was banned and on 16th of March 1915 a war office instruction

was issued which aimed to ban cameras on fighting fronts. This was subsequently followed up with further rules. 

Helen Mavin: Not everyone abided by the rules, particularly away from the Western Front. Many amateur photographers risked punishment and continued to use their cameras, some even for commercial gain.

Voice over: One such photographer was Herbert Preston. While serving in the Royal field artillery, he persuaded his wife to send him his Kodak Brownie Automatic camera, which she did in a food parcel, packed between a ham and a fruit cake.

Herbert Preston was able to take many photographs of his colleagues and life on the Front. He was sending them back to his wife who sold them on to newspapers for a profit. Ernest Brooks, who had joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1915, was the very first official war photographer appointed to the admiralty.

Helen Mavin: Ernest Brooks was sent to the Dardanelles in April 1915 to cover the Gallipoli campaign. Later in March 1916 he was also appointed the first British official photographer in France, documenting the Battle of the Somme. Brooks created many panoramas and posed pictures but he also employed a distinctive use of silhouette.

Voice over: At least nine men were employed as professional photographers by the British government during the first world war, across home and fighting fronts, but olive Edis became Britain's first commissioned female photographer in 1919.

Helen Mavin: Edis worked out of her successful studios in London and Norfolk where she had built a reputation photographing many high-profile characters.

She was approached by the women's work subcommittee of the National War Museums, later to become the Imperial War museums, inviting her to France and Belgium to photograph women in service.

Voice over: The work went ahead in March 199 shortly after the end of the first world war. Edis travelled with three cameras and dozens of glass plates and created a lasting record of women's war work, in her own recognizable style.

Helen Mavin: She preferred to use natural light rather than a flash which presented a challenge as a lot of her photos were to be taken inside. To get around this obstacle, Edis would often position her subjects near to windows, where they could be bathed in natural light.

Voice over: As a woman, Edis was able to gain a more intimate access to her female subjects

than her male counterparts. We know from her diary that she searched for the beauty in everyday scenes. Her photographs captured the private moments of women, from getting their hair done and time spent in the maternity unit, to a sensitive picture of a woman tending a grave.

Possibly for the first time, a woman's perspective of war was being seen.

After the first world war, most photographers went back to their pre-war jobs in the press or wider photographic industry. When the Second World War broke out, photographers were again relied upon, but this time it was on a much larger scale.

Helen Mavin: The British government once again recruited press photographers prior to establishing specialist units such as the Army film and photographic unit and the RAF photographic unit, to keep up with the various demands for imagery from the war, in all theatres The Ministry of Information employed high-profile photographers such as Bill Brandt and Cecil Beaton, to photograph the war on the home front and abroad.

Voice over: As with the First World War, the British government tightly controlled what could be published in newspapers and magazines through censorship of photographs.

Helen Mavin: These wartime photographs, taken by photojournalists in the UK during the second world war, were all banned for one reason or another. Photographs passed for publication were marked in blue by sensors and those stopped from being published were marked in red.

Voice over: Street names had to be obscured and clock faces scratched out. The bureau didn't want certain details revealed to enemy agents.

Helen Mavin: The latter half of the 20th century saw major shifts in the relationship between war reportage and photojournalism, fuelled in part by technological developments and the establishment of photo magazines such as Life in the 1930s, and the creation of Magnum, an agency, formed by a group of celebrated photographers all profoundly influenced by their wartime experiences.

Voice over: Propaganda and image manipulation has become a potent weapon utilised by almost every nation, continuing through conflicts such as the Cold War, the Gulf War and Kosovo. Despite this, photographic evidence of conflicts can still provide the world with unflinching insights.

Helen Mavin: To this day, the Imperial War Museums continue to commission war artists to report on conflicts and to explore its causes, course and consequences.

This photograph is from a series by photographer Paul Seawright. In 2002 he was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum's artist commissions committee to travel to Afghanistan to produce work in response to the ongoing war. 

This work 'Mounds' is part of a series of works entitled 'Hidden', which picture the battle sites and minefields he encountered. The resulting photographs of minefields show a seemingly empty landscape, which in reality is both lethal and inaccessible, a consequence and legacy of the war. It has also been suggested that works in this series echo back to the 'Valley of the Shadow of Death' photographed by Roger Fenton In 1855.

Voice over: Throughout history photography has allowed those close to the action to document the visceral sensory and emotional experiences of war, from combat to medical innovation, friendship in the face of adversity, as well as war crimes and loss.

Helen Mavin: Photographs offer a visual insight into war and conflict, to those who have not personally experienced it. They have the power to document and reveal, can be used for intelligence and control and have the capacity to profoundly shape how events are seen and understood.

To the individuals that carry a camera, photography can provide a welcome distraction from the horrors of the battlefield or a means of mentally processing difficult experiences through their work.

These images bear witness to and provide evidence for the horrors of war.