The Experience of Elsewhere: Photography in the Travelogues of Pierre Trémaux

Between 1852 and 1868, the architect and amateur naturalist Pierre Trémaux (1818–1895) produced three groups of plates and accompanying texts on the geography, architecture, and people of African and Anatolian regions. These luxe publications, produced with the support of the French government, exploit an array of graphic techniques; they combine salted paper prints, engravings, tinted and colour lithographs, photolithographs, and texts in ways never previously attempted. Their examination provides insights into the ways these media interacted, and how comfortably photography in fact sat amongst its predecessors within the long-established context of the travel narrative. This paper will probe the implications of photography for Trémaux’s project through an investigation of his first book, Voyages au Soudan oriental et dans l’Afrique septentrionale. To what extent did the new, mechanical medium clarify or confound his effort to “explain” parts of Africa still hardly known to Europeans? What does this reveal about the role of photographic authenticity in familiarizing imperial audiences with distant places, during a transitional moment in visual culture?

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