1399
kets like tropical cameras which were made to deal with
warm, humid climates and a special bike cameras was
invented to allow people to carry a very light camera
while cycling.
To further develop people’s interest, photographic
societies were started allowing people to pursue both
photography and travel, or even sometimes, photogra-
phy and cycling. The train and the bicycle were the two
main travel companions for the 1890s photographers,
replacing the mule cart used by photographers of the
daguerreotype and wet plate decades.
Besides travelling to new places an increasingly large
group of society was enjoying parts of the summer at
seaside resorts. Even though these resorts were mostly
class segregated, photography played an equal part in the
summer for all classes, starting from the small trade of
ambulant photographers to the high-class studios from
the large cities migrating with his well-heeled clients.
This usually local summertime tourism meant
that a good amount of tourist photography from the
later 19th century was made in the photographer’s own
country. Some spots with a special aura would evoke
that country’s history and meaning. Some fi gures, like
Shakespeare in Great Britain, and others that were
seen as particularly important would have their lives as
imagined by photographers explored and photographed,
not only by a large number of amateur and professional
photographers, but images of their houses would appear
in photographically illustrated books and tourist guide
books. Each country created its own photographic ste-
reotypes, one for instance was that England was magic
and small, and another was one where Spain exotic
and grand.
With mass travel and mass tourism came the distinc-
tion between the tourist and the traveller, the former
being unable to grasp below the surface of things, being
TOURIST PHOTOGRAPHY
Beato, Antonio. Group at Abydos.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© The J. Paul Getty Museum.