In the 1850s, he was in the Crimea during the war with Russia, where he turned his hand to photography as well as painting. He was one of about fifteen photographers, including Felice Beato, Roger Fenton and James Robertson, who photographed soldiers, barracks, camp life and battlefields and were the first to record a major war on film. Later, he returned to Constantinople where he made photographs of the landscape, monuments and the people.