John Wade

A comprehensive history of the development and use of cameras in recording British military conflicts from the 1850s to the 1950s.

Books about war and the pictures that came out of conflict usually concentrate on the picture content. But behind every picture there is a camera—and that’s what this book is about. Profusely illustrated throughout with pictures of the cameras, rather than the pictures they took, it looks at one hundred years of conflict from the Crimean War to the Korean War. It begins in the days when a photographer needed to be more of a scientist than an artist, such were the difficulties of shooting and processing any photograph. It ends with the cameras whose compact dimensions, versatility and ease of use meant that photographers could largely forget the science and concentrate on the art. Some cameras simply recorded events. Others defined and changed the way those events proceeded. These were the cameras that went to war, and this is their story.

Praise for Cameras at War

“An amazing collection of superb photographs beginning with some from the Crimean War—coupled with a brilliant narrative that emphasizes the use of photography to record conflict. Where would we be without such evidentiary mementoes?” —Books Monthly (UK)