Here Fenton focuses on the impact of war through the melancholy sight of the cemetery. His inclusion of a single, contemplative figure was a common artistic motif at the time, but it encourages the viewer to adopt a similarly contemplative mood. Fenton left the Crimea on 22 June 1855, and so missed the final fall of Sevastopol to the allies. He arrived back in Britain on 11 July 1855. The following month he travelled to Osborne House to show his photographs to Queen Victoria.