ThomsonJohn, Illustrations of China and its people: A series of two hundred photographs with letterpress descriptive of the places and people represented, i (London, 1874), Introduction.
2.
For recent examples see LauGrace, Picturing the Chinese: Early Western photographs and postcards of China (San Francisco, 2008), and James R. Ryan, Picturing place: Photography and the geographical imagination (London, 2003).
3.
Thomson was both connected to and aware of continental science. In 1876 he translated the French popular scientist, balloonist and photographer Tissandier'sGastonA history and handbook of photography (London, 1876), into English.
4.
WilderKelley, Photography and science (London, 2009), 3.
5.
TuckerJennifer, Nature exposed: Photography as eyewitness in Victorian science (Baltimore, 2005).
6.
EdwardsElizabeth, Raw histories: Photographs, anthropology and museums (Oxford, 2001), 16.
7.
PinneyChristopher, Camera indica: The social life of Indian photographs (London, 1997); Christopher Pinney, The coming of photography in India (London, 2008).
8.
There has been a large interest in photography and colonialism recently, which this paper builds on. In particular see ThompsonKrista, An eye for the Tropics: Tourism, photography, and framing the Caribbean picturesque (Durham, 2006); Chris Pinney, Photography and anthropology (London, 2011); Steve Edwards, Photography: A very short introduction (Oxford, 2006).
For an examination of visual culture and post-colonial theory, see the anthologies by HightEleanor M.SampsonGary D. (eds), Colonialist photography: Imag(in)ing Race and place (London, 2002); Joan M. Schwartz and James R. Ryan. Picturing place: Photography and the geographical imagination (London, 2003); Jill Beaulieu and Mary Roberts, Orientalism's interlocutors: Painting, architecture and photography (Durham, 2002); and Tim Barringer, Geoff Quilley and Douglas Fordham, “Introduction” in Art in the British Empire, ed. by BarringerTimGeoffQuilleyDouglasFordham (Manchester, 2007), 1–19.
12.
KaplanAnn E., Looking for the other: Feminism, film and the Imperial gaze (London, 1997), 4.
13.
Loomba, op. cit. (ref. 9), 97.
14.
See Richard Ovenden's introduction to ThomsonJohn, China and its people in early photographs: An unabridged reprint of the classic 1873/4 work (New York, 1982), p. xiv. Also see Richard Ovenden, John Thomson (1837–1921) photographer (Edinburgh, 1997).
15.
Ulrike Hillemann has pointed out that conceptions of China by England underwent significant change in the nineteenth century, moving from a conception of the east as a benevolent country to emulate in the eighteenth and turn of the nineteenth century, to a morally corrupt and cruel nation in the nineteenth century, and especially by the first opium war. Thomson's pictures therefore reflect this late nineteenth-century construction of the Orient. See HillemannUlrike, Asian Empire and British knowledge: China and the networks of British imperial expansion (London, 2009).
16.
For example, the photograph directly beside “The Cangue” is “The Cage Punishment” and shows a prisoner locked in a bamboo cage. ThomsonJohn, Illustrations of China and its people: A series of two hundred photographs with letterpress descriptive of the places and people represented, iii (London, 1874), plate VI, no. 14.
17.
Hillemann, op. cit. (ref. 15), 56.
18.
Ryan, op. cit. (ref. 2), 165.
19.
For a discussion of the various reproductive techniques and their uses, see GascoigneBamber, How to identify prints (London, 2004).
20.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), 363–4.
21.
MayhewHenry, London labour and London poor (London, 1851).
22.
ThomsonJohnSmithAdolphe, Street life in London (New York, 1969). Mayhew published a book of photographic images of London in 1861–62 which visualised the working class through ethnological tropes of racial difference. Thomson and Smith's photographs of London worked similarly to group vagrant and working subcultures of London along racial and class boundaries. For a more in-depth discussion of Mayhew's work, see QureshiSadiah, “Glimpsing the urban savage”, in Performing race: Exhibitions, empire and anthropology in nineteenth-century Britain (Chicago, 2010).
23.
TuckerJennifer, “Photography as witness, detective, and impostor: Visual representation in Victorian science”, in Victorian science in context, ed. by LightmanBernard (Chicago, 1997), 386.
24.
While it is beyond the scope of this paper, an analysis of Thomson's participation in the RGS, both through the presentations he gave on his travels at RGS meetings and later as the first lecturer in photography, would help position the reproduction of Thomson's images and photographic epistemology outside of the area of print.
25.
RyanJames R., “Imperial landscapes: Photography, geography and British overseas exploration”, Geography and imperialism: 1840–1920, ed. by BellMorag (Manchester, 1995), 69.
26.
For a detailed discussion of how geographical discourses were a product of and a companion to imperial expansion, see Ryan, op. cit. (ref. 2).
27.
DriverFelix, Geography militant: Cultures of exploration and empire (Oxford, 2001), 9.
28.
Tucker, op. cit. (ref. 5), 4.
29.
Ryan, op. cit. (ref. 2), 163.
30.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), plate 4.
31.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), 189.
32.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), 188–9.
33.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), i, plate xx. Note that the notion of picturesque again is used to define this street.
34.
FanFa-Ti, British naturalists in Qing China: Science, empire, and cultural encounter (Cambridge, Harvard), 2004, 4–5.
35.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 14), 10.
36.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), 9.
37.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 14), 14.
38.
Preface to The Graphic, iv, July-December 1871, p. v.
39.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), Preface.
40.
EdwardsElizabeth, op. cit. (ref. 6).
41.
Reproducing part of a photograph was a common occurrence within the illustrated press, but did not compromise the visual integrity of the image. According to Gascoigne, the mixing of reproduction methods and source material was a common technique for engravers to attain the best picture quality. See Gascoigne, op. cit. (ref. 19), 29.
42.
The Graphic, vii, no. 163, 11 January 1873, 35.
43.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), i, plate IV.
44.
See introduction to Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), viii.
45.
Ryan, op. cit. (ref. 2), 163.
46.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), plate 16.
47.
Thomson, op. cit. (ref. 1), plate 16.
48.
Green-LewisJennifer, Framing the Victorians: Photography and the culture of realism (Ithaca, 1996), 4.
