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Photography, Combat

Combat photography is a wartime documentation method designed to capture close and personal images of soldiers engaged in warfare. These images document battle scenes, the aftermath of combat, and the lives of soldiers in the war zone. This entry discusses the history of combat photography, examining how evolving technologies and the advent of the Internet affected the way war is documented.

Early History

The roots of combat photography trace back to the mid-1800s, when an anonymous photographer took a series of daguerreotypes (an early form of photographs) to document the Mexican-American War.

Early on, the technological limitations of bulky, slow photographic equipment meant that photographers were unable to capture moving images and, instead, would take still images of the battlefield after fighting had ceased. Original combat photographs ...

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