Tourist Photographers

These small photographs were sold loose in packets, so that tourists could incorporate them into their own ‘snapshot albums’. Also shown is a reproduced page from an album where a tourist did just that. Buying photographs in this format allowed…

Eventually, tourists were able to take their own photographs, and to create highly personal souvenirs. The carefully selected photographs and captions in this album from the 1870s and 1880s reveal the creator’s fascination with finding sites that…

This album from the 1920s might seem more modern. Smaller, cheaper cameras allowed these tourists to take photographs themselves, so they could include whatever they wanted—lakes, mountains, waterfalls, and self-portraits with their car. You might…