Moran was a prominent landscape, architectural, astronomical and expedition photographer whose career began in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area during the 1860s.

Moran's photographs were images that balanced meticulous attention to detail with general atmospheric effects — techniques mirrored in his brother's paintings.

[7] Moran often included a human subject in his images, providing the viewer an easily relatable sense of scale.

The National Gallery of Art (US) said in 2016: "It is thought John Moran photographed "Wissahickon Creek near Philadelphia" (c. 1863) as an antidote to Civil War.

[7] The hospital, a major military facility, was built in 1862 on a lot of 27 acres, situated between Stenton, Germantown, Springfield and Abington avenues in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill.

Moran's exterior and interior views included photos of special medical wards that could be isolated for patients with infections and then novel centralized storage facilities for supplies.

[10] In addition to using photography as an artistic medium, Moran was recruited and hired as a photographer documenting scientific projects for the U.S.

[3] Moran documented the trip with numerous still photographs, including many stereographs which were widely reproduced and sold throughout the world.

Four times during every 243 years, Venus passes between the Sun and Earth allowing its silhouette to be observed by skilled and amateur astronomers around the world.

Even though clouds and intermittent rain covered the sky at his station at Barrack Square in Hobart Town, Tasmania, Moran and his team in Australia brought back over 300 photographic documents, including 125 images of the Transit of Venus.

Moran's photographs pre-dated rotogravure and halftone print reproduction, so his work was not able to be known by the public on a mass-market scale.

Later photographers like Alfred Stieglitz greatly benefitted from having their work printed in magazines, art books and other publications.

In 2010, Christie's New York auction house sold a Moran albumen silver print showing the demolition of the Bank of Pennsylvania.