Crimean War 'Valley of Death'. 19th-century photograph of a dirt path in a ravine scattered with cannonballs. This photograph is one of those taken by British photographer Roger Fenton (1819-1869) who was documenting the Crimean War (1854-1856), where the French, British and Turks were fighting the Russians. Fenton returned from the Crimea with over 350 photographs. This one was taken in 1855, and was titled 'The valley of the shadow of death', a phrase that appears in Psalm 23 of the King James Bible. This ravine was referred to by British soldiers as 'The Valley of Death', as they came under constant fire here from the enemy.