The book sheds light on how photography can alter our image of explorers and their expeditions.
New book explores relationship between photography, exploration, science and culture
In his new book Photography and Exploration, James Ryan, Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Geography at the University of Exeter, investigates the significant role of photography within modern practices of exploration.
He examines an array of photographs across several expeditions and considers how explorers have often employed images as a means of scientific advancement and of territorial conquest.
Ryan argues that, because exploration has long been bound up with the construction of national and imperial identity, expeditionary photographs have often been used to promote claims to power – especially by the West.
Published by Reaktion Books, the richly illustrated volume addresses such expeditions as the first ascent of Mount Everest and the first explorations of the North and South Poles to shed light on the ever-connected relationship between photography and culture.
Dr James Ryan said: “I wanted to probe the veracity of exploration photography and discuss its significance in a society that uses photographic images in both science and art. The book takes readers back to the world of the early 1800s, when explorers sailed the globe without cameras, and forward to our modern society where I ask if modern exploration could ever be conceivable without photography.”
In Photography and Exploration, Ryan’s insights shed light on how photography has altered our image of explorers, their expeditions and the worlds they witnessed. His work asks us to question how we perceive the world around us as the cultural interpretation and symbolic meaning of photographs develop with time.
Ryan’s previous books include Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire (Reaktion, 1997); he is the co-editor of New Spaces of Exploration: Geographies of Discovery in the Twentieth Century (2010).
As a historical and cultural geographer, Ryan’s research interests lie in the geographies of colonialism and post-colonialism, visual culture and geography; and the history of geographical knowledge and science.
Date: 28 June 2013
