John McCosh or John MacCosh or James McCosh (Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, 5 March 1805 – 18 January[1] / 16 March[2] 1885) was a Scottish army surgeon who made documentary photographs whilst serving in India and Burma.[1][3] His photographs during the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848–1849) of people and places associated with the British rule in India (for which he is best known), and of the Second Burmese War (1852–1853),[4][5] count as sufficient grounds, some historians maintain, to recognise him as the first war photographer known by name.[4][6] McCosh wrote a number of books on medicine and photography, as well as books of poetry. John McCosh took the earliest known photographs of Sikhs and their ruler, Duleep Singh.[7]
Roddy Simpson has written of McCosh's photographs that "Given the circumstances, these images are a considerable achievement and, regardless of artistic merit, are historically very important".[8] Taylor and Schaaf have written that "McCosh fashioned compositions that were exceptional for the period"[3]: 123 and that unlike his contemporaries "in his hands, photography was not merely a pastime but became the means of recording history."[3]: 123
- ^ a b "John McCosh". University of St Andrews. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
- ^ a b c Roger Taylor; Larry John Schaaf (2007). Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 121–124. ISBN 978-0300124057.
- ^ a b Mary Warner Marien (2006). Photography: A Cultural History. London: Laurence King Publishing. p. 49. ISBN 978-1856694933.
- ^ Marwil, Jonathan (6 June 2000). "Photography at War". History Today. Retrieved 1 October 2015.
- ^ Kari Andén-Papadopoulos (2011). Amateur Images and Global News. Intellect Books. p. 45. ISBN 9781841506005.
- ^ Edwards, Elizabeth; Ravilious, Ella (21 November 2022). What Photographs Do: The making and remaking of museum cultures. UCL Press. pp. 142–143. ISBN 9781800082984.
- ^ Roddy Simpson (2012). The Photography of Victorian Scotland. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748654642.