Since its invention, photography has been linked to cartography in practical, technological, and theoretical ways. Even before the details of the daguerreotype process were announced, François Arago, addressing the French Chamber of Deputies on 6 July 1839, alluded to ‘certain ideas, for the rapid method of investigation, which the topographer could borrow from the photographic process’. Various applications to mapping followed as landscape, oblique, and aerial photography were used to inventorize and map natural and man-made features on the earth's surface.
One of the earliest uses of photography in map-making was in data gathering, from both the ground and the air. Pioneering efforts involved carrying cameras and portable darkrooms to the top of hills and tall buildings, and experimenting with kites and balloons of produce landscape views. True aerial photography was first attempted from balloons: by Nadar in 1858, in order to obtain a photographic bird's-eye view from which he planned to produce a detailed topographical map; and in October 1860 by James Wallace Black (1825-96), who photographed Boston ‘as the eagle and the wild goose see it’ (Oliver Wendell Holmes).
Phototopography or photogrammetry was begun by the French military engineer Aimé Laussedat (1819-1907), who developed the first plane-table photogrammetrical devices and methods. However, the application of photography to surveying was subsequently refined by Édouard Deville, Surveyor-General for Canada, who invented a stereoscopic plotting instrument and perfected the first practical method of analogue photogrammetry which came to dominate the production of topographical maps. It was used in the late 19th century to survey vast tracts of difficult terrain in the Rocky Mountains of western Canada and to settle the dispute over the Alaska-British Columbia Boundary.
Another early application of photography was for the reproduction of military maps and plans. Incorporated into the training programme at the Royal Engineers' (RE) establishment at Chatham, England, photography was cited in 1860 by head instructor Captain Henry Schaw for its utility for ‘copying plans and maps, either on the same scale, or reduced, or enlarged’. Photography was employed to reduce map images for use in compilation from large-scale (more detailed) to small-scale (less detailed) maps; to create ‘guide’ images on wood blocks or metal plates for use by engravers; and to support a variety of increasingly sophisticated scribing techniques.
Photography was also used to supplement map-making on boundary, geological, and railway surveys, especially in the American and Canadian West. The official reports and popular narratives which resulted from such surveys included photographic and cartographic evidence to support government and corporate agendas. In March 1874 Captain Samuel Anderson, RE, chief astronomer on the boundary survey of the 49th Parallel across the great plains of North America, wrote to his mother, ‘Great people I find never read a long report but they will look over maps & pictures, and this will tell them everything if they examine the maps & the photographs carefully.’ In Portugal, Joseph James Forrester (Baron de Forrester) used photography to complement his efforts to map and improve navigation on the River Douro through the wine-producing districts near Oporto. And in Australia, Richard Daintree, a geologist trained in photography, produced views that were subsequently engraved, keyed to their field location, and reproduced on the maps of the Geological Survey of Victoria in the 1860s.
These early established uses of photography for map production continue; however, since the mid-20th century, electronic imaging (involving satellites and remote sensing) has increasingly replaced film-based photography in cartographic production and reproduction. Equally, the use of photography to expedite map reproduction and distribution, and to facilitate map preservation and access in libraries and archives, has evolved from chemistry-based processes to photomechanical techniques to digital means.
Late 20th-century scholarly interest in vision and visual representation resulted in parallel critiques of the photograph and the map as accurate and objective records. Both types of visual representation were employed as tools of imperial expansion and nation building, and are now being subjected to postcolonial and contextual analyses to reveal their impact on society, history, and notions of place.
— Joan Schwartz
Bibliography
- Newhall, B., Airborne Camera: The World from the Air and Outer Space (1969).
- Buisseret, D., and Baruth, C., “‘Aerial Imagery’”, in D. Buisseret (ed.), From Sea Charts to Satellite Images: Interpreting North American History through Maps (1990).
- Cook, K. S., ‘The Historical Role of Photomechanical Techniques in Map Production’,
Cartography and Geographic Information Science ,29 (2002)
