Group of Afredees
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1879
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see a black-and-white photo of Afghan soldiers standing in a loose line, rifles slung over their shoulders. Burke took these pictures during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, but he wasn’t British—he was Irish. He was one of the first photographers to work in Afghanistan, and his images are some of the earliest records of the conflict. Since cameras then were slow, he couldn’t shoot battles, so he focused on people and places instead. If you want to see more early war photography, look up *John Burke (Irish, 1845–1915)*.
