Camera technology, its limitations and its impact on the work of the Army Film and Photographic Unit, 1941-1945

Abstract

Created as part of a wider strategy to tackle the ‘morale crisis’ that the British Army believed itself to be experiencing between 1940-1942, the Army Film and Photographic Unit was intended to counter German propaganda by producing images of battle, and it was hoped, British military success. Doing so however, proved easier said than done. Using the testimony of the men behind the camera, this article examines the limitations that technology imposed on the unit’s work. It concludes by exploring the solutions the cameramen employed including shooting images of prisoners and of the dead and the production of staged material.