‘Sebastopol would be taken probably vi et armis, but not by photography’
—Roger Fenton, Narrative of a Photographic Trip to the Seat of War in the Crimea (1856)

Cannons on the streets, paintings in museums, and other visual markers of the Crimean War periodically appear and draw my attention while walking through various Western European cities (fig. 1). As a Ukrainian living through the current war, encountering these traces is a strange experience. They clearly refer to a significant historical event that links specific places to the history of my country, yet there is a striking lack of knowledge and understanding regarding the contemporary Russian invasion of Ukraine, particularly the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and the ongoing violence towards its Indigenous population.

Figure 1. The Crimean War cannon, spotted in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, 2025

While working with a research group on the visible and invisible layers of occupation—understood here as intersecting and overlapping forms of economic, affective, infrastructural, educational, and other practices—I have become increasingly interested in how these layers are also historically and visually accumulated. How might these two seemingly distinct wars, the Crimean War of the 19th century and the current war, be related, if at all? And if a connection exists, in what ways might the visual remnants of the past illuminate elements of our current moment?

I am particularly interested in Crimea as a space shaped by the intersections of various empires, a characteristic that also broadly defines Ukrainian history. This includes how visual representations have historically portrayed Crimea’s Indigenous populations, particularly the Crimean Tatars, and how these portrayals reflected their roles and positions in broader geopolitical narratives.

I recall a lecture by Crimean Tatar photographer Emine Ziyatdin, in which she shared stories from her family following the 1944 deportation.¹ She spoke of how, for decades, Crimean Tatars were only permitted to visit Crimea as tourists. When they did return, they often found the land unrecognisable, transformed into a resort or sanatorium for colonial tourism and stripped of visible signs of Crimean Tatar life. A similar process occurs in occupied Crimea today: the illegal persecution of Crimean Tatar activists, the enforcement of Christianisation, Russification, and the epistemological erasure of Indigenous presence. This erasure is evident, for instance, in the production of photo books such as Crimea 1944, which features Valery Faminsky’s photographs of Crimea after its de-occupation in 1944. The book omits any mention of Crimean Tatars who fought in the Red Army while simultaneously ignoring the tragic reality of their forced deportation and genocide that occurred in the same year.

In following these fragments of recurring historical violence, this essay seeks to determine whether a continuity can be drawn back to the Crimean War. It begins by examining the war’s visual representations as a point of departure for understanding how both Western and Russian imaginaries constructed Crimea as an exoticised territory situated at the intersection of economic and military ambition. At the same time, Russian imperialism extracted resources from the Crimean land and oppressed its Indigenous communities in service of its broader imperial project. These practices will be examined through visual sources, most notably photography, as the Crimean War was among the first major conflicts to be extensively documented through this emerging technology. The essay aims to analyse how this early visual legacy continues to shape both Western ignorance toward Crimea and contemporary Russian occupation politics.

The primary focus of this text lies in the photographic practices of figures such as Roger Fenton, James Robertson, Felice Beato, and others. However, I also expand the scope to include various other media, such as lithographs and sketches, in order to explore how the development and intersection of these mediums contributed to the representation of a new type of modern warfare. Additionally, I engage closely with primary sources from the photographers themselves, particularly Roger Fenton’s private correspondence with his wife and publisher, as well as his published notes in the Journal of the Photographic Society of London. While a substantial historiographical tradition exists around the visual representation of the Crimean War, largely from British and French perspectives, there is a notable absence of attention to the Indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula, whose land and lives were deeply impacted and disrupted during the war.

Crimean War and its Visual Culture

The Crimean War, lasting approximately two and a half years (October 1853 to February 1856), involved the Russian Empire on one side and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, British Empire, French Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont on the other. Crimean Tatars, among other Indigenous groups, found themselves in a position that parallels the broader Ukrainian experience of dual colonisation.² The war itself, which ended with an Allied victory and the signing of the Treaty of Paris, was sparked by religious and imperial conflicts, particularly those pertaining to the defence of Orthodox Christians and wider geopolitical control of the Near East.³ While segments of the local population participated on both Russian and Allied sides, their role has largely been overlooked in historical accounts.

Prior to the war, the Russian annexation and the dissolution of the Crimean Khanate had already stripped Indigenous communities, such as the Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchak Jews, of their statehood and cultural autonomy. This period marked the beginning of the enforced Christianisation by the Russian state and an influx of settlers to the peninsula.⁴ The Russian imperial regime pursued policies aimed at suppressing Muslim architecture, literature, and culture, displacing Indigenous populations, and renaming towns and villages as part of a broader campaign of erasure.⁵ It is crucial to note that the Crimean Peninsula was historically home to a multicultural population, not only Tatars, Karaites, and Krymchaks, but also various communities of Greeks, Armenians, and others.

Strategically located, Crimea was contested by both Russian and Ottoman Empires. However, at the outbreak of war, the interests of the local population were of little concern to the major imperial powers. For Britain and France, Crimea served primarily as a site for military manoeuvres and geopolitical assertion. Yet, the war was not solely a display of imperial power; it was also an epistemological event, one that facilitated the accumulation of visual and discursive knowledge about distant territories, subsequently disseminated in the metropoles of the empires.

Alongside the rapid popularisation of photographic technology for both scientific and personal purposes, states increasingly utilised photography for visualisation and the administration of territories, particularly in colonial contexts. Interestingly, despite the presence of photographic studios and practitioners within the Russian Empire, there were no official photographic observers documenting the war from the Russian side. This absence may be attributed to technological limitations, as well as concerns over photography’s capacity to reveal inconvenient truths.

In contrast, the British government actively supported photographic documentation. Commissioned by print dealer William Agnew, photographer Roger Fenton was dispatched to Crimea with the support of the Royal Family.⁶ Multiple motivations likely underpinned this support: photography served propagandistic aims, helping to portray the British army in a favourable light; it also fulfilled commercial ambitions, producing images that could be exhibited and sold as ‘marketable mementoes’.⁷ After Fenton’s departure, his work was continued by James Robertson and his assistant Felice Beato. While the French government did not send official photographers, several unaffiliated figures, including Jean-Charles Langlois, produced photographic documentation. Painters such as Henri Durand-Brager also used photography as a tool to support their artistic practice, and sketch artists like Constantin Guys introduced new visual qualities to press reporting.⁸

Within the British and French art scenes of the mid-19th century, Orientalist and picturesque aesthetics dominated visual culture.⁹ In Victorian Britain, a highly moralised visual regime dictated not only artistic style but also the subjects deemed appropriate for representation. Meanwhile, in France and beyond, Orientalist perspectives shaped artistic and visual media, informing how the ‘Other’, including the peoples and landscapes of Crimea, was represented. In this context, Crimea and its inhabitants were frequently exoticised, rendered through imperial lenses that stripped the land and its communities of their complexity and agency.

Figure 2. The ruins of the ancient city of Chersonesos, after Bossoli, print by Jonathan Needham, 1856, lithograph printed in colour.

One example of the Orientalist view of Crimea can be found in the work of Swiss-born Italian painter Carlo Bossoli, who, at one point in his life, resided in Odesa. Many of Bossoli’s depictions align with the broader Orientalist tradition, particularly through their connection to the aesthetic category of the picturesque. The picturesque, in this context, involved the creation of idealised scenes—serene and often static images, that presented the landscape and its inhabitants as exotic and fundamentally distant. A recurring motif within this tradition was the ruin, which carried connotations of cultural decline or disappearance (fig. 2). In Orientalist renderings, ruins often symbolised societies perceived to be on the brink of extinction, reinforcing colonial narratives of inevitability and imperial rescue or dominance.¹⁰

Figure 3. Dance of Tartars, after Bossoli, London: Day & Son, 1856, lithograph printed in colour.

At the same time, the depiction of local Indigenous peoples was often presented through a mode of ‘documentary realism’ or ethnographic naturalism. Drawing directly on Linda Nochlin’s framework, these images may be understood as operating through several intertwined forms of absence.¹¹ First is the absence of history: these scenes often depict tranquil, timeless settings, devoid of any indication of historical or political events, particularly violence or upheaval.¹² Second is the absence of art: the high degree of realism in such works blurs the line between artistic interpretation and documentary objectivity, presenting the image as a neutral, factual record rather than a subjective construction.¹³ Third is the absence of Europeans or non-native actors, which effectively isolates the Indigenous figures from the colonial context that was shaping their lives.¹⁴ Yet this visualisation does not fully evade colonial signifiers, as Bossoli himself stated that ‘Massandra—one of the estate properties of Prince Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov’ was chosen as a setting, thus serving as a backdrop to the colonial spectacle.¹⁵

All the above-mentioned characteristics apply to Bossoli’s work (fig. 3), which, while rich in ethnographic detail, such as costume and customs of Crimean Tatars, fails to represent the complex and often violent historical conditions they were experiencing, particularly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These omissions contribute to a broader imperial narrative that aestheticises and depoliticises Indigenous presence. It is worth noting that Bossoli’s prints gained significant popularity during the Crimean War, at a time when Western attention to the peninsula intensified.

The Limits of Representation in Crimean War Photography

With this context in mind, it is important to recognise that early photographic technologies, upon their emergence, often followed many of the visual conventions established by then-current media. Roger Fenton, who travelled to Crimea in 1855 (from March 8 to June 26), previously trained as a history painter.¹⁶ His artistic background, combined with his Protestant upbringing, shaped a visual approach aligned with the moral and aesthetic expectations of Victorian society.¹⁷ Fenton worked with the wet collodion process, likely chosen for its reproducibility—an essential factor for the subsequent mass production and commercial distribution of photographic prints.

Roger Fenton produced 360 photographs during his time in Crimea in 1855. His subjects included British and allied troops, individual military portraits, Crimean landscapes, and scenes of military fortifications and camps.¹⁸ In accordance with Victorian sensibilities, which deemed the visual representation of death, blood, and other graphic elements of war as inappropriate or distasteful, Fenton deliberately avoided such content.¹⁹ As a result, his images, much like picturesque Orientalist landscapes, tend to omit any explicit signs of violence or suffering.

As Jennifer Green-Lewis argues, these visual depictions are marked by a flattening of war’s complexities: ‘(…) in which complex and untidy issues of war, diplomacy, and human suffering were flattened into images whose affiliations were as pictorial as they were political’.²⁰ The aesthetic conventions of the picturesque, combined with the political aims of propaganda and public reassurance, shaped Fenton’s framing of war into a palatable and almost serene visual language.

Figure 4. The Ordnance Wharf, Balaklava, Roger Fenton, 1855, salted paper print.

Yet, despite the calm surface of these images, subtle indicators of power and ongoing conflict emerge. As Mike Weaver notes in his analysis of one particular scene, the British Royal Navy is portrayed not in motion but at rest, anchored and resolute, thus visually asserting British dominance over the landscape.²¹ The photograph in question (fig. 4), set at the Ordnance Wharf, a hub for military supplies, includes rows of cannonballs prominently arranged in the foreground. These same cannonballs appear in Fenton’s most iconic image, The Valley of the Shadow of Death (1855), widely regarded as emblematic of the Crimean War (fig. 5). Notably, the photograph was staged: Fenton had to wait for the cessation of fighting in order to move safely through the area and, according to some accounts, arranged the cannonballs on the road to dramatise the intensity of the battle.²²

Figure 5. The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Roger Fenton, 1855, salted paper print.

Despite the proximity to violence and devastation, Fenton’s images remain almost entirely devoid of local civilian life. Just as the photographs strip away overt signs of violence, they also erase the everyday presence of the Indigenous populations inhabiting the peninsula. This aesthetic and representational choice effectively minimises the war’s destructive impact on local communities and their environments.

The reality, however, was far more brutal. Fenton’s private correspondence with his wife, Grace, reveals scenes of destruction, looting, and violence that are conspicuously absent from his photographic archive. In one letter, he recounts witnessing the aftermath of an Allied raid on the town of Yenikale:

‘The army halted on some heights on the other side of who was said to be the town of Yenikalé tho’ nothing was to be seen of it from where we were, except some Tartar cottages, whose inhabitants had to look on quietly while the soldiers French, Turks, & English went in and helped themselves to every thing they wanted. There were 4 windmills just behind these cottages, built of wood[.] In ten minutes these were in ruins & nothing left but the stone bases on why they were built. (…) Going out of the fort I came to the town itself who lies under the cliff & up its sides. There was a terrible scene. French, Turks, & I am sorry to say a few Highlanders were breaking into the houses, smashing the windows, dragging out everything portable, & breaking what they cd not carry away’.²³

Fenton also mentioned witnessing slaughtered animals,²⁴ ruined villages,²⁵ and widespread pillaging—none of which appear in his official photographic body of work. The absence of such imagery reinforces the political and ideological function of photography at the time: to sanitise war, uphold imperial narratives, and present Crimea as a site of military discipline rather than humanitarian disaster. All of this, needless to say, was not without commercial motivation in mind.

Within the entirety of Fenton’s Crimean War collection, only a single image includes members of the local population: an albumen print titled Tartar Labourers (1855). The photograph (fig. 6) shows a group of Crimean Tatar workers in traditional attire engaged in clearing or maintenance work. The caption on the Library of Congress website suggests that they are repairing a roadway in Balaklava.²⁶ Among them works a Scottish soldier, distinguishable by his tartan trousers and military cap. The power dynamic within the scene remains ambiguous: what, for instance, is the relationship between the Scottish worker and the Crimean Tatar workers? The Scottish figure’s pose is also somewhat unusual; although he holds a shovel, he isn’t holding it in the usual way one would when using it. By contrast, most of the Crimean Tatar figures are depicted seated, a compositional choice that may elicit familiar Orientalist tropes portraying Indigenous peoples as indolent. A travelogue by the British writer Andrew Swinton, published in 1816, offers insight into how Crimean Tatar communities were imagined in the West. Swinton describes them as ‘ingenious people, but their lazy habits, and vagrant life have naturally given them all the attendant vices’, a description that reflects the stereotypes circulating in Britain at the time.²⁷

Figure 6. Tartar labourers, Roger Fenton, 1855, albumen print.

This lone visual reference to Indigenous presence in the war zone shows the marginalisation of local populations in both the visual and historical record. Rather than engaging with the lived experiences or hardships of the Crimean Tatars, Fenton’s depiction renders them as anonymous labourers, relegated to the background of imperial operations.

There is little concrete information available about the individuals depicted in Tartar Labourers (1855). Most of their faces are either blurred or obscured by shadow, such as the man on the far left, indicating that they were not posing for the camera, but rather engaged in their work. This suggests the image was taken candidly, capturing the labour rather than the identity of its subjects. A visible sign reading ‘STORE 14th REGIMENT’ provides further context, revealing that these individuals were working for the Allied forces.

Although no personal description or commentary by Fenton accompanies this photograph, brief labels on various museum websites typically identify ‘Tartars’ as the Indigenous inhabitants of Crimea. Their communities were frequently employed by French or British troops in logistical or maintenance roles yet were simultaneously accused of collaboration by the Russian authorities.²⁸ As a result of political persecution and wartime displacement, many Crimean Tatars later migrated from the peninsula.²⁹

The term ‘Tartar’ itself originates from the Western toponym ‘Tartary’, a broad and imprecise designation historically used to describe the lands inhabited by various Turkic and Mongolic peoples, including the Tatars.³⁰ The etymology of ‘Tartary’ is notably entangled with the Greek ‘Tartarus’, a mythological abyss in the underworld, suggesting a long-standing Western conflation of the unknown with the threatening or infernal. This etymological confusion brings out both the Orientalist framing of the Crimean Tatars and the broader failure to distinguish among culturally and historically distinct populations.

Fenton himself does not appear particularly invested in accurately representing the local peoples he encountered. His letters reveal a frequent conflation of different ethnic groups, often grouping together Croats, Montenegrins, Zouaves, Tartars, and Turks with little differentiation. As Helen Groth observes, ‘Fenton’s reflections on the character of the Croats, Montenegrins, Zouaves, Tartars, and Turks he photographed also reflect a lack of curiosity and indifference to the cultures he encountered, other than in terms of how they reflected on the English military enterprise’.³¹ In this sense, the image of the Crimean Tatar labourers, like much of Fenton’s visual archive, functions less as an ethnographic record and more as a marginal footnote within a larger imperial narrative.

The fate of the Crimean Tatars during the Crimean War is comprehensively addressed by Mara Kozelsky in her article ‘Casualties of Conflict: Crimean Tatars during the Crimean War’. Within the broader context of prior Russian colonisation, marked by the annexation of the Crimean Khanate, enforced Christianisation, and the loss of Tatar sovereignty, the Crimean Tatars emerged as a perceived threat to the Russian imperial project. Situated at the geographical and ideological margins of the empire and frequently involved in acts of resistance, Crimean Tatars were quickly accused of sabotage and collaboration with enemy forces. Kozelsky explains that the vast majority of Indigenous Crimean communities were too impoverished to flee the warzone and became trapped between competing military forces.³² Exploited for their labour, livestock, and other resources, they simultaneously faced neglect, if not outright hostility, from the Russian state, even when they made formal appeals for assistance.³³

As a result of widespread destruction, poverty, and displacement, Crimean Tatars were subjected to intensifying pressure from the Russian imperial authorities, who articulated a vision of Crimea as a bastion of Orthodox Christianity. This ideological project translated into tangible violence and displacement: Tatars were hunted and forcibly relocated. As Kozelsky writes, ‘Following the war, Tatars left in a mass emigration³⁴ of up to 200,000 in a large wave that began as a slow trickle in the mid-1850s and peaked between 1860 and 1863’.³⁵

This historical moment resonates painfully with the contemporary situation in Russian-occupied Crimea. Since the 2014 illegal annexation by the Russian Federation, Crimean Tatars have again been subjected to systemic persecution: individuals were imprisoned on fabricated charges of terrorism, their families were placed under constant surveillance and pressure.³⁶ Simultaneously, Russia undertook illegal archaeological and construction projects that contribute to the destruction of cultural and historical heritage, particularly Muslim heritage, while promoting a narrative of Crimea as inherently tied to the Christian ‘Russian world’.³⁷ In this way, the Crimean War can be seen as part of a continuum of imperial violence, linking 19th-century military occupation with the Stalinist deportations of 1944 and the ongoing colonial policies of the Russian Federation. Yet, as noted earlier, the visual record of the Crimean War, especially in photography, fails to reflect this continuity or the destruction imposed on the local Indigenous population by successive imperial regimes.

The photographs taken by Fenton’s successors, James Robertson and Felice Beato, offer further insight into the architectural and landscape transformations wrought by both Russian and Allied forces during the war. In particular, their images of Sevastopol (originally Aqyar) highlight the Russian imperial presence (fig. 7). The appearance of neoclassical, geometric buildings—markers of order and imperial authority, reflects the broader ideological imposition of Russian modernity onto a historically diverse and multicultural region.³⁸ Sevastopol was reclassified as a key naval base, a designation still promoted by Russian authorities today, further entrenching its strategic and symbolic significance within imperial narratives. Notably absent from the visual archive of the Crimean War is Bakhchysarai, the former capital of the Crimean Khanate and a central cultural and political symbol of Crimean Tatar statehood.

Figure 7. Sevastopol from the Redan, James Robertson, 1855-1856, salted paper print.

In contrast, photographs of Balaklava, taken by both Robertson/Beato and Fenton, do not offer such explicit semiotic cues. The built environment captured in these images includes numerous temporary or ambiguous structures, many of which are difficult to identify. It is known that Allied forces used Balaklava as a military port and constructed temporary facilities, but it remains unclear which buildings, if any, originally belonged to the local civilian population. One particularly revealing image (fig. 8) shows an unfinished Russian Orthodox church—suggestive of the ongoing Christianisation of the region and the Russian state’s desire to overwrite existing cultural and religious landscapes.

Figure 8. The Russian Church and Town of Balaklava, Roger Fenton, 1855, salted paper print.

As Crimea was transformed into a sanatorium and recreational space for various imperial and later Soviet political elites, its representation, as well as its natural and social environment, was drastically altered. A review of photographs from Crimea during the 20th century reveals images from children’s summer camps, beach scenes, and monuments—typical tourist representations, as well as postcards depicting iconic Crimean views.³⁹

From Historic Imagery to Contemporary Realities

Since the beginning of the Russian occupation of the peninsula in 2014, there have been numerous attempts to impose a distinct imperial visual narrative. This narrative, drawn from the 19th century and the era of the Crimean War, frames Crimea as a center of Russian statehood and the unity of the Russian people. It frequently references the ancient city of Chersonesus, where the Kyivan ruler Volodymyr Velykyi was allegedly baptised. By appropriating this episode from Ukrainian history and overlaying their own agenda onto a place with which Russians historically had no direct connection, the occupying authorities are actively reshaping the narrative. Simultaneously, numerous exhibitions, both amateur and professional, are being held across Russia and in occupied territories. A notable trend is the organisation of such exhibitions in distant Russian cities that are home to various Indigenous groups, such as Chuvashia.⁴⁰ In this way, the Russian state seeks to weave a narrative that links disparate and remote regions into an artificial colonial vision of a unified ‘Great Russia’.

One example of the imagery promoted in these exhibitions closely resembles the idyllic and picturesque landscapes popular in the XIX century. Interestingly, even the names of some locations retain their origins from the Russian Empire (fig. 9). For instance, the settlement of Novy Svet (‘New World’) derives its name from a visit by Nicholas II to Crimea and carries connotations similar to those used by European colonisers when naming lands unfamiliar to them. This practice diverts attention away from the area’s own rich history and culture, framing it instead as a space ‘discovered’ by a supposedly superior civilization, ready to impose a new order of life.

These picturesque images typically portray serene landscapes or idyllic scenes, as seen in Figure 9, foregrounding the ‘raw’ or ‘untouched’ nature of the peninsula. Much like 19th-century representations, they conspicuously omit any signs of violence or the dramatic changes the region has undergone during the years of occupation. Although Russian narratives sometimes instrumentalise images of war, particularly of destroyed buildings, this is more common in areas of recent fights. In contrast, for Crimea, which was illegally annexed in 2014, the dominant visual narrative seeks to present the region as having joined Russia of its own ‘free will’, emphasising idealised portrayals of everyday life.

Figure 9. Screenshot from the travelcrimea website[^41] showing the photographs submitted for the exhibition Crimea in My Heart in moscow.

However, the visual narratives presented by Ukrainian photographers and Crimean locals offer a stark contrast. These works often capture signs of violence and unrest directly, or more subtly convey the slow violence and pervasive fear of occupation. One such example is the work of Yulia Po, a Crimean photographer who engaged with various footage from the initial moments of the 2014 occupation. Her work pinpoints the role of the so-called ‘green men’—an ambiguous term used to describe the ‘unverified’ military forces present in Crimea at the time. In reality, these men were members of the Russian army who did little to conceal their identity. Nevertheless, the use of neutral language allowed the Russian regime’s involvement to remain obscured from the international community for a considerable period.

Figure 10. Little Green Man (A Diary), Yulia Po, 2014.

The artist’s caption and the bright green colour over the helicopter disrupt what might otherwise be an idealised landscape (fig. 10). Yulia writes: ‘A Russian attack helicopter patrols the coast by Beliaus in South-Western Crimea. When I hear the word “sea,” I think of this location. This was where I learned to swim. This was where many generations of my family grew up. I would tell the sand from this coast from any other. Now, it is only reachable through my memories. Ukraine. March 2014’.⁴¹ Yulia’s intimate memories of her life, and their connection to the depicted location, are now ruptured by the violent invasion of ‘green men’ and their military vehicles.

Another acute example is the work of the abovementioned Crimean Tatar photographer and researcher Emine Ziyatdin, who was documenting everyday life in Crimea before the full-scale invasion began. As in many of Ziyatdin’s photographs, the focus is on the private lives of Crimean Tatars, capturing the intimate moments of a close-knit community struggling under yet another period of destructive political climate. While some of her photographs do not depict overt violence, this is not due to censorship or a desire to create idealised images. On the contrary, these seemingly calm images often evoke a deep sense of anxiety and discomfort. For example, one photograph (fig. 11) presents a view of Bakhchisarai, the former capital of the Crimean Khanate, central to Crimean Tatar statehood, on a grey winter day. The landscape appears frozen in silence, as if awaiting an impending threat.⁴² Ziyatdin adopts a bird’s-eye perspective, a visual technique historically associated with imperial oversight and surveillance, but she uses it to accentuate the connection between the natural and built environments and to highlight the site’s significance for the identity formation of the Crimean Tatar community.

Figure 11. The view of Bakhchisarai, Crimea, Emine Ziyatdin, December 7th, 2016.

The work of the Kharkiv photographer Vladyslav Krasnoschok is distinctive in that he documents Crimea from a different, though geographically close, vantage point: Zmiinyi (Snake) Island in the Black Sea. Together with Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom have defended the island since 2022, Krasnoschok produces work that resembles a visual diary. He works with analogue photography and prefers to control the entire process, from shooting to developing and printing. This practice grants him recognisable aesthetic, characterised by deep contrast and deliberate colouristic choices.

Krasnoschok also places particular importance on the materiality of film negatives, which he sees as offering a verifiable record of what he photographs, in contrast to easily altered digital images.⁴³ For him, this material quality lends his work the potential to function as documentary evidence in situations involving allegations of Russian war crimes. At the same time, his images from Zmiinyi Island evoke the unsettling qualities of the Ukrainian landscape, exposed not only through overt elements such as barbed wire but also through the stark visual tension between land and water (fig. 12). Vladyslav writes, ‘Everything on Zmiiny reminds of the Crimea and responds with a deep torturous longing. And at the same time, a fragile hope. The hope that the Russian fleet and aviation will turn to rust and ash will be overgrown with thistles and shrubs, as here in Zmiyne, where a burned Russian helicopter and dozens of burnt-out combat vehicles already lie. And that each of us will still be able to inhale the same smell — salt and iodine, bitter wormwood and dry herbs, hot stone and freedom — that the wind already carries over the sea’.⁴⁴

Figure 12. Crimea Island, Vladyslav Krasnoshchok, 2025.

As the war and occupation continue, and the repression and persecution of Crimean Tatars accelerate at a terrifying pace, I wish to conclude this essay with the thought with which I began. As Fenton notes in his writing, Sevastopol would likely be taken by armies, but not by photography. This idea arises from an understanding of photography as an unruly medium, one that consistently eludes full control by either chemical or optical laws, and from the notion that the land itself resists being captured. In his notes published in the Journal of the Photographic Society of London, Fenton laments the challenges posed by the Crimean climate, particularly the impact of summer light on photographic clarity:

‘There was little lost at this time by ceasing to take views, except such as consisted principally of foreground; for the distant hills, which during the spring were always distinctly marked, and which shone in the greatest variety of rich and lovely colour, gradually merged in - the hot weather into one indistinct leaden mass, mixed up confusedly with the seething vapoury sky. Whatever is to be done by photography in these climates must be done either before the beginning of June or after the middle of September..(…)’.⁴⁵

The excessive light and summer haze interfered with the chemical processes of the wet collodion method, blurring the image and disrupting the technological drive to fix and categorise the land. This passage offers a rare instance in which the limitations of the medium intersect with the natural environment, momentarily resisting the colonial impulse to document and visually possess the territory. The final image (fig. 13) shows a panorama of Sevastopol, in which half of the frame is almost entirely submerged in darkness. The narrow band of sea and sky stretching across the remaining half reveals no precise details. Yet the stories behind this darkness range widely—from occupation and violence to everyday life, from the human to the more-than-human, from resistance and backlash to silence. This example of the land resisting imposed visuality may suggest the next step in our engagement with visual materials, from centuries past to the present: to remain attentive to our visual environment, and to search for meaning in absences and in those traces where there appears to be nothing to see.

Figure 13. Distant view of Sebastopol with the Mamelon & Malakoff Tower, the lines of Gordon’s Battery in the middle distance, Roger Fenton, 1855, salted paper print.