Valley of the Shadow of Death

[Spasm]

Gents

The following two photos were taken by Roger Fenton in 1855 in the Crimea. They are of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" - not the Charge of the Light Brigade valley but another that the Russians regularly shelled to ensure no troops gathered there.

Roger Fenton, famous for his Crimean War photos, visited the valley on his dark-room-in-a-wagon. The valley was shelled continously, even during his visit so he moved his tripod to a "safer" area to take these. There have been long discussions on which photograph was taken first. The one with "scattered" cannon balls on the road is the more famous with most agreeing that this is the later staged photo.

I tend to agree simply given the even spread of the cannon balls on the road - wouldn't they clump up? Others do not as Fenton himself said that the cannon balls were gathered during the day by gunners to fire back at the Russians - there do seem to be less cannon balls in the ditches in the "cleared" picture. If the balls were collected to spread on the road wouldn't there then be less in the ditches rather than more?

Interested to know what you think? (Just as a note = Filmaker and writer Errol Morris visited the actual site and came to his own conclusions, eventually)

[Rayjin]

From studying both photo's side by side, the one with the cannon balls on the road was taken first. There are four area's I have circled in red where cannon balls are missing in the second photo, but appear in the first when balls are on the road. I have also circled in green a missing rock in second picture. (and that's just in the foreground)

If the second photo had been taken first, then all those that I have marked would still be there in the first photo.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Rayjin

[Spasm]

Well spotted Rayjin,

Although nearly all the experts and historians agree that Fenton "manipulated" the picture to get a more dramatic scene - the pictures seem to show that cannon balls were removed from both the roadway and the gulleys. I've had a closer look and have replicated your circles and added more areas where balls are missing.

However, maybe the "extra" cannon balls were collected from outside the view of the camera and added to both roadway and gulley? Maybe we'll never know

[Rayjin]

There is some evidence that this is one of the transport roads to the trenches and that the road had to be cleared for the passage of supplies. I have read somewhere that artillerymen would pick up russian cannon balls of the right calibre and reuse them (sort of returning the compliment you might say).

[Mervyn Mitton]

Unless they had rolled down the hill and ended up in the ditch, it seems strange to me that they are not spread

more evenly. The other thing I think is strange is that there is no sign of impact - either on the road or from those in the ditch.

Perhaps they emptied a few loads of balls into the ditch to allow them to be picked-up and placed for the picture ?