Roger Hicks considers…

‘Railway construction yard, Balaklava,’ 1855

- Roger Fenton

It’s a strange medium, photography. At one extreme, snapshots may be no more than feeble reminders of memories far stronger than any photographic record could be, though in all fairness even indifferent snapshots can often reinvigorate memories recent or ancient with a visceral immediacy. At the other extreme, a great photograph can be the highest of High Art: a perfect summary of some eternal and indispensable aspect of the human condition. Then again, the same could be said of any medium: writing can range from What We Did On Our Holidays to the most sublime poem, novel or word-painting.

In some ways, though, photographs between the extremes can have more dimensions than we might reasonably expect. In reportage in particular, a picture such as this can be like a memory of something we never experienced and never co