Mathew B. Brady

At the beginning of the civil war, Matthew Brady received himself and his staff (permission to travel with the military) at different times (including Alexander Gardner, George Bernard, John Ricky and Timothy O'Sullivan). He is Brady & Co. All pictures including himself and others in the name of the publication. Like most photographers during the war, Brady rarely shoots the actual battle. Tiresome camera equipment and slow exposure time makes it difficult to capture movement. Instead, they focus on the military portraits and camping life scenes as a result of the fight. Brady's experience as a photographer in the studio may give hints to the drama of The Sick Soldier [Smithsonian American Art Museum]. A picture of a northern soldier helped by other soldiers gave collective trauma to American families in the mid-nineteenth century, the majority of them lost loved ones and friends like Samuel Wilkerson.

Mary · A · Foresta America photo shoot: 1st century (Washington DC: National Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution Publishing Bureau, 1996)

Mathew B. Brady (May 18, 1822 - January 15, 1896) was one of the earliest photographers in American history and was known for his civil war scenes. He studied under the guidance of inventor Samuel F. B. Morse who pioneered silver salt photography in the United States. Brady opened his own studio in New York in 1844 and photographed celebrities such as Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln. At the beginning of the civil war he used the mobile studio and the darkroom, and vivid battlefield pictures vividly brought back the war reality to the public. Thousands of war scenes and portraits of generals and politicians on both sides of the conflict were captured, but most of them were taken by his assistant, not by Brady himself.

Matthew B. Brady was one of the first photographers in the United States and was the owner of a successful photo studio and photographed celebrities, the president, and especially his domestic civil war scenes. From 1860 to 1864, his studio created over 30 portraits of President Abraham Lincoln. These are well thought out and introspective images when the president worked for two years and the civil war was one year. President Lincoln understands the power of these portraits, uses his photos as his advantage, and acknowledged that the speech of Brady and the Cooper Alliance made me the president of the United States.