Archive Farms The Patrick Montgomery Collection, Object No. 2009.165
Notes: Signature with number 12 scratched into the negative. The Khyber Pass looking toward Ali Musjid. This pass is the most important mountain pass connecting Pakistan with Afghanistan. Strong print with rounded corners at top. Together with William Baker, the Irishman John Burke documented the Second Anglo-Afghan War between 1878 - 1880. The team worked under tough conditions, carrying fragile wet-plates and mixing chemicals in high altitudes and extreme temperatures. The images here have a certain solitude, common to early war photography such as photographs by Roger Fenton of the Crimean War, which, due to long exposure times and difficult transport of photographic equipment, were usually taken after the fighting was over.
