ABSTRACT
Early photographic technology necessitated long exposure times, making landscape an ideal subject. A growing tourism industry created a demand for photography that helped to establish its place in 19th-century life. From its inception, photography fulfilled the need of governments, scientists and anthropologists for accurate visual representations of the world. Linnaeus Tripe's images of India and Burma made in the 1850s for the British East India Company are an exemplar. In the 1860s, John Thomson's travels across Siam, Cambodia and China produced one of the most extensive accounts of any region, and serve as prototypical anthropological records. Developments in photography also coincided with the growth of the mass tourism industry. New markets formed around souvenirs for tourists, and volumes aimed at the 'armchair traveller'. In many cases the aesthetic of these images was tailored to the 19th-century affinity for the Romantic, sublime and picturesque.
