Ernest Brooks (photographer)
Ernest Brooks was a British photographer, best known for his war photography from the First World War. He was the first official photographer to be appointed by the British military, and produced several thousand images between 1915 and 1918, more than a tenth of all British official photographs taken during the war. His work was often posed and formal, but several of his less conventional images are marked by a distinctive use of silhouette. Before and immediately after the war he worked as an official photographer to the Royal Family, but was dismissed from this appointment and stripped of his official honours in 1925, for reasons that were not officially made public.
Brooks on the Western Front, 1917
A front-line combat photograph: soldiers of the Wiltshire Regiment going "over the top" on 7 August 1916, during the Battle of the Somme.
Wounded British soldiers and German prisoners heading to the rear during the Battle of Bazentin Ridge (part of the battle of the Somme), 19 July 1916.
Image taken by Brooks during the Battle of Broodseinde, showing a group of soldiers of the 8th East Yorkshire Regiment moving up to the front, silhouetted against the skyline.
The Battle of Broodseinde was fought on 4 October 1917 near Ypres in Belgium, at the east end of the Gheluvelt plateau, by the British Second and Fifth armies against the German 4th Army. The battle was the most successful Allied attack of the Third Battle of Ypres. Using bite-and-hold tactics, with objectives limited to what could be held against German counter-attacks, the British devastated the German defence, prompted a crisis among the German commanders and caused a severe loss of morale in the 4th Army. Preparations were made by the Germans for local withdrawals and planning began for a greater withdrawal, which would entail the abandonment by the Germans of the Belgian coast, one of the strategic aims of the Flanders Offensive.
German artillery piece captured by the 45th Australian Battalion
The British front line and the German defences in the area east of Ypres, mid-1917
Anglo-French objectives, 4 October 1917
Men of the 8th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment going up to the line near Frezenberg. Photo by Ernest Brooks