Roger Fenton’s 1855 photo “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” is the first famous photograph of war, depicting a barren road littered with cannonballs fired during the Crimean War. But there’s a second photo of the same road with no cannonballs, which has led photo historians, and, notably, American writer and filmmaker Susan Sontag, to claim that the famed photo is staged. Meaning, the photo with no cannonballs was taken first, and the photo with cannonballs was arranged and taken second.
Was this famous war photo staged? Errol Morris explains.
The obsessive journey to answer one question: Which of these photos was taken first?
Coleman Lowndes was a lead producer who has covered history, culture, and photography since joining the Vox video team in 2017.
American documentary film director Errol Morris went down a rabbit hole of interviews and photo analysis to determine if that order of the photos — with cannonballs off the road first, then on — is accurate, based solely on what’s present in the photographs themselves.
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