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International photographers have suffered to convey the world in their pictures

A group of great international photographers were able to achieve many pictures of distant countries that are difficult to reach. These pictures derive their importance from the hardships endured by these photographers who had to carry huge weights on their backs or on the backs of their animals to get ordinary pictures.
A tour of these photographers with a look at the present to compare our circumstances with theirs. .

Most people these days are accustomed to scenery taken from faraway countries. Because television and magazines do not stop supplying them with images from all over the world, everyone is now so accustomed to seeing tropical jungles, barren deserts and frozen waters.
However, scenes like this were unknown to the vast majority of people during the nineteenth century, and to satisfy the public's eagerness to know the real conditions of the world.
A new breed of photographer has emerged - the photographer who travels around the world.
Moreover, before the invention of the dag erreotype in 1839, there was a thriving trade in topographical drawings.
However, these popular prints were often very inaccurate, being based on little and almost less illustrative than the accounts of travellers, and the imagination of the artist.

As for photography, in comparison, it came as a miracle because of the resemblance it achieves to the real reality. Victorian audiences - the mid- and late-nineteenth century - were finally able to attain convincing realistic glimpses of places.
Far, sprawling, and strange peoples with the customs of these peoples.
Because seeing a picture of a place was the same thing as being in that place, said one commentator on daguerreotypebat Robert H. Vance:
When looking at these pictures, one of us can imagine himself perched among the hills and mines of California, amazed by the sparkling gold in front of him.

But, though the daguerreotype artists traveled all over the world, their work was not in itself capable of wide distribution, for the daguerreotype process produced only one positive image, and could not itself mass-produce the hand-drawn versions, with figures and details. Often, it was produced by the process of water-engraving (aquatint) and wood engraving, presenting a reality much more than the reality of the impressions of previous artists.

Early efforts tended to focus more on built structures and landscapes, since these were the best suited for the long exposures needed. While the first traveling photographers groaned under the weight of their equipment, they recorded the Egyptian pyramids, the primal west with its dramatic scenery, the Alhambra in Spain, and so on.
Europeans felt a special charm that drew them to East Africa, especially to those countries with which they had colonial or evangelical relations. The interests and attitudes of photographers and viewers of their work are often clearly reflected in the images they produce, making them unique documents.
One of the first books with photographic evidence that relied on calotypes was the book Egypt, Nubia, Palestine and Syria, published in 1852, containing pictures of Maxime de Camp, because this de Camp and Gustave Flaubert were sent with a mission to record documents of the Near East - travel at that time was fraught This is evidenced by the dangers that just before embarking on the journey, De Camp was surprised by Flobert crying, repeating .. I will not see my homeland again ». However, the two returned safely, and the book achieved an unparalleled success.

This, and with people becoming more accustomed to these things and therefore with the improvement in photographic equipment and the increased ease of use of this equipment, the traveling photographer began to take a closer look at people and their habits, so it was that cutting the nails of the feet in China, and women in Herrakesh, and the Indians in South America And the details of everyday village life in Russia all turned into themes that found their way into Victorian hallways.

And it happened that most of the photographers made stereo images as well as made larger images, and some of them carried a number of cameras to produce the same scene with different textures. Light box slides (Lantern Slides) also became very popular later, and for public lectures in particular.
Francis Frith was one of the first successful English traveling photographers.

The Times newspaper described his photographs of the Holy Land as: The most important post ever, . These debates were images appearing in the first supported Bible for the area in question to be seen in England on a large scale, and the first in pictures. Frith made three trips to Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and on his last trip in 1869, he went further up the Nile than any previous photographer had done - 1,500 miles on horse and camel.
Frith used the wet plate or collodion process, which was much more suitable for landscape and topographic works than the daguerreotype or the calotype.

Exposures were much shorter, and the glass negative produced an image with fine detail.
Most important of all, the process had economic energies that Frith exploited by later becoming the largest European publisher of photographic landscapes. He also established a very successful enterprise for the production of postcards.

The wet-plate process, however, had its ills for the traveling photographer, and some of these faults were sadly described by F. V. Dillenbogh, who accompanied Major John Wesley Boyle on his exploration of the Grand Canyon in 1871, when he said: “The camera in its strong case was a load Heavy to move up the rocks, but this hardship was negligible compared to the box of chemical compounds and canisters, and this in turn was more like the weight of a feather if compared to the imitation of the manual organ that served as a dark room. This was, as long as it was necessary to drag him into the black box, a distinct source of grief that overshadowed the expedition at altitudes from 500 to 3,000 feet.

However, these hardships did not succeed in discouraging a surprising number of photographers.
Photographers produced wonderful pictures under the worst conditions in remote corners of the world. In 1861, Frenchman Auguste Besson was the first to take photographs from the summit of Mt. Mont Blanc. The highest mountain in Europe. The mission needed 25 porters.
The plates were also to be rinsed with melted ice.
As for Samuel Bourne's expedition, which lasted nine months to the Himalayas, it required the use of sixty porters to transport equipment and supplies. In the year 1866, he photographed the Ragh waterway, the highest altitude - 18,645 feet - ever reached by wet plates .

As for William Henry Jackson, he was the first photographer of the unknown American West in his time. The eight government geological survey expeditions he accompanied between the years 1870 and 1877 gave him ample opportunities to make unique records of a virgin region. His writings detailed some of the dilemmas facing the wet-plate photographer, such as having to climb a mountain three times Before achieving a successful picture. On the first day it was very windy, and on the second day the silver bath materials began to leak, and only on the third attempt did everything go well. On another occasion his mule and equipment fell on his back, breaking most of his plates.

Equipment transport animals seemed to pose a particular dilemma. Samuel Bourne was subjected to a similar experience, as happened to Bowell on his trip to the Grand Canyon.” He talked about that and said: “The horse carrying the camera fell off a rock and landed on top of the camera, and there is no need to describe the result. There were also other difficulties, including temperatures that made the chemical compounds too hot to use, in addition to the difficulties of mosquitoes and the mountain cold.
It was the misfortune of one of the first wet-sheet photographers - Ridgway Glavar - to find him after his head was cut off, and his limbs were cut off at the hands of the Indians.
Although some European photographers used large-gauge plate—Frith made 16 by 20-inch views of the desert—the Americans pioneered the use of large-gauge plates.

The British Edward Muirridge was one of the other photographers who emerged in that era, and the American Carlton Watkins represented him, as the two seemed to work together as partners and then as opponents.

Muybridge is best known for his work on the movement of animals and humans, but topographical photography was a small but memorable part of his profession. He published more than 1,500 views, including 50 large-scale copies. It is noteworthy that Muybridge's first views included clouds, printed, from separate negatives to solve the problem of the spectacle of a snow-white sky caused by the extreme sensitivity of the first plates to blue light. Later he and Jackson succeeded in representing Both heaven and earth are satisfyingly negative.

As for Watkins, he went to California during the period of the gold rush, and thus won great appreciation at the Paris World's Fairs, in 1867 and 1868, for a 21 by 16-inch analogue he made of the newly discovered Yosemite Valley.

So were John Thompson and Phyllis A. Among the many photographers who recorded the life and customs of the people as well as the landscape of the countries they visited, he first worked in partnership with James Robertson, principal engraver of the Royal Mint in Constantinople, photographing Malta, Egypt and Athens.
Then Pitho continued his way to Japan, passing through India and China, where he produced some of his most important works. As for Thompson, he exaggerated the work of photography in many countries, including Cyprus, Cambodia and China. He produced many books of texts and photographs resulting from his travels, the most well known of which are his four volumes called China and its People.

And Timothy O'Sullivan, a photographer who witnessed the American Civil War, was one of the most experienced investigative photographers. He participated in many expeditions, including the Claren Kinks Geological Exploration Expedition in 1867. One of the valuable works he accomplished was his recording of the fleeting lifestyle of the Native Americans in their traditional habitats. It happened to these Indians in the nineties of the last century that they were taken to reserves in which they were confined, and the photographers later had to re-imagine what resembles their original habitats artificially.

The flourishing era of landscape photography and topography did not last for more than twenty years, the period from the sixties to the eighties of the nineteenth century. In either Europe or America. After this period, it happened that the advent of the dry plate process made the plate huge scales very expensive.
But it also made photography so much easier; With access to remote areas becoming more accessible, a growing number of photographers appeared, producing standardized images for tourists.

However, the appearance of the dry plate sparked another renaissance - the beginnings of actual photography at the hands of amateurs - and this was associated with the development of better means of transportation in the form of railways and steam ships. At the same time, while the possibilities were available among the eternal middle classes, it allowed them to travel and see the world for themselves. These nomadic photographers tended to record their self-existence in a particular area rather than the area itself.

Then was George Eastman's invention of the Kodak box in 1880, so photography while traveling became possible for anyone. Eastman himself commented on the success of his production, saying: “Anyone can now make a picture, he only needs enough intelligence to shoot a can correctly and press a button” ⏹