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How did Roger Fenton document the Crimean War despite the limits of wet-collodion photography?

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Alfred Stieglitz: Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child) — History of photography *Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child)*, autochrome photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907; in the Art Institute of Chicago.

To document the Crimean War, Roger Fenton overcame the significant technical constraints of the wet-collodion process by utilizing a mobile darkroom.1

Because the wet-collodion method required glass plates to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed while still wet—as the film became waterproof and impenetrable to chemicals once dry—Fenton and his assistant, Marcus Sparling, transported their equipment in a specially outfitted wagon. This portable darkroom allowed them to prepare and process their plates on-site, enabling the production of approximately 360 photographs.12

While this process was valued for its exceptional clarity and detail, it was cumbersome and necessitated immediate development. Consequently, Fenton’s work focused on the more mundane, static aspects of the conflict rather than the immediate action of the battlefield, as the long exposure times and the logistical demands of the wet-plate process made capturing dynamic combat scenes impractical.231