A lifeless body lying on soft earth with jagged rocks protruding from it, while light bleeding frames the shot of the rifle just above the man's upper torso, is The photograph I chose for this review article A Sniper's Last Sleep is an image taken during one. of, if not the most, important periods in American history A Sharpshooter's Last Sleep is part of the Incidents of War series printed and partially photographed by Alexander Gardner. Civil War. Best known for his portraits of Abraham Lincoln, he was born in October 1821, in Scotland, to an educated family. According to NWE, Gardner's interest in photography peaked in 1851 after seeing that of. Mathew Brady. He worked on the American Civil War, sent it down the wormhole that is photography, moved to the United States in 1856 and began working for Brady until 1862. Say no to the plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should”. The Civil War begins, a war where the North fights to maintain the union and for the freedom of the slaves, while the North fights for Northern succession and the retention of the slaves. Gardner separated from Brady a year before the war officially began and began following General Ambrose Burnside, as well as General Joseph Hooker throughout various battles according to the New World Encyclopedia. According to the Museum of Modern Art, a sniper's last sleep was shot during the Battle of Gettysburg, leaving an estimated fifty-one thousand dead. Alexander Gardener was an expert in the wet plate process and invented imperial photography, involving a 17 x 21 inch albumen silver print (NWE). When looking at A Sharpshooter Last Sleep, the yellowish tint gives an idea of ​​the albumen printing method used. The lighting appears to be afternoon sun, as I don't see any shadows cast on the side of an object, rather it appears that the shadow is cast downwards. Gardner also appears to have used a shallow depth of field. Finely as foreground, background, camera left and right or slightly blurred, creating a blur vignette. This focuses the viewer's attention on the focal point emanating between the lifeless body's head and its rifle. The ISO speed of wet collodion according to Fstoppers is around 5, which pushes for slightly longer exposure times. The shutter speed for a wet collodion process is slow by today's standards, but in the era of daguerreotypes, the shutter speed is fast. The fact that Gardner was photographing a lifeless body gives him the freedom of a longer exposure time, because the subject will not move. I think because of the longer exposure time and the way the plate was attached to the camera. The image shows traces of light leak at the edges, as well as degradation. Which I find very appealing, a vignette created by time, of which no two impressions are intended to be the same. I think Gardner has a great sense of composition since he placed the lifeless body on a third. The gun acts as a sort of barrier that prevents the viewer from looking away. The rocks just above the lifeless body are placed on the upper thirds and are shaped like an arrow pointing towards the body. Which is also true for all the other debris in the shot, the rock on the right of the camera pushes towards the central rock which then points down, towards the left of the camera, the horizontal rocks do the same. When we look at the way in which the.