Using Sketches to Identify Species 

One of the oldest sketches in Wiley Digital Archives from 1496 depicts two sea monsters with scales, horns, talons, and feathers. Identifying fauna and flora through sketch practice was a reliable method for identifying species. 

Sketch practice remained the preferred form of identifying wildlife even after photography was introduced. This began to change as camera quality improved and lenses were produced to support long-range capabilities.

From the collection: E. von Groote, RGS Images Online, 1496.

Discovery and Disaster: Documenting Ship Expeditions

During expeditions, detailed sketches were used to acknowledge both discovery and disaster before photography.

A sketch by John E. Davis shows two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, colliding to avoid an iceberg during an arctic expedition in 1842. Only five years later, the ships met their demise during the Franklin expedition, where 129 crewmembers perished. Photos in the archive show the discovered remains of seven of the crew members nearly a century later.

From the collection: John E. Davis, RGS Images Online, 12/03/1842.

A Pop of Color: Lantern Slides

Introduced in 1849, photographic lantern slides were the next trend among travelers and, due to their projection capability, the next great visual storyteller. From 1888-1915, Walter Weston, known as the father of recreational mountaineering in Japan, served as a missionary where he captured his experience of Japanese landscapes, culture, and traditions through lantern slides.

Lantern slides were produced in black and white. Colored lantern slides required a colorist to add saturation by hand, often resulting in a surreal and illustrative appearance.

From the collection: W. Weston, Lantern Slides, Japan, n.d.

Failed Voyages Caught on Camera

There are remaining mysteries concerning the previously mentioned Franklin expedition due to a lack of surviving evidence. The Terra Nova expedition of 1910-1912 led by Robert Falcon Scott, however, was one of the earliest failed expeditions supported by photographical evidence. Herbert Ponting joined the journey to the Antarctic with his cinematograph, taking photos of the expedition up until sledging season, where he took photos of five crew members who set out to reach the South Pole and would never return.

From the collection: Herbert Ponting, RGS Images Online, 9/15/1911.
(Available to view via institutional or trial access)

A Pioneer for Female Photographers

Vera Broughton was one of the first female photographers in the field of ethnography. Broughton traveled to Burma, Malaysia, Sarawak, Vietnam, the Philippines, China, Papua New Guinea, and Australia with Walter Guinness, or Lord Moyne, who used Broughton’s expedition pictures to illustrate his book Walkabout, a tale about an unnamed aboriginal who helps two stranded children survive the Australian wilderness. 

From the collection: Moyne & Broughton Collection, 1939.
(Available to view via institutional or trial access)

Color Photography Enters the Game

While founded in the 1890’s, color photography only started to become refined and commercialized starting in the 1930s. It then spread like wildfire, breathing polychromatic life into pictures and thus beginning the transition of leaving grayscale behind.

Philip Dark was an anthropologist whose interests in the peoples of the Pacific took him to Papua New Guinea, where he studied and photographed the Kilenge. Dark’s work has served as a beacon for researchers interested in the Pacific.

From the collection: Philip John Crosskey Dark, Dark Collection, 1960s. (Available to view via institutional or trial access)