Anthropological Uses of the Camera

Bibliographic Data

ID7470792
AuthorsE F Im Thurn (corresponding author)
Year1893
Volume22
Pages184-184
Publication date1893-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-5295 • E-ISSN: 2397-2564
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2842048
OpenAlexW2801943430
LanguageEN
Citations received10

AMONG the innumerable uses now made of the photographic camera, that which might be made of it by the anthropologist, and especially by the travelling anthropologist, seems to be insufficiently appreciated and utilised.Allusion is not here made so much to the use of the camera, in connection with anthropometry, for the stuldy of anthropology in its strictly physiological aspects-to its use in taking physiological photographs, on a fixed scale, of the human figure, in certain definite positions, and of simultaneously accurately measuring the same figure; for that, though a very useful function of the camera, is, though somewhat inore difficult of practice among primitive folk than those who have not tried it imagine, of quite sufficiently recoanised importance.My special concern to-night, on the other hand, is as to the use of the camera for the accurate record, not of the mere bodies of primitive folk-which might indeed be more accurately measured and photographed for such purposes dead than alive, could they be conveniently obtained when in that state-but of these folk regarded as living beings.This latter is indeed a far more difficult proceeding, onie much more seldom practised by anthropologists, and one the utility of which foi anthropology, regarded, as we all wish to regard it, as an exact science.some anthropologists will, I fancy, be at first sight inclined to question.Primitive phases of life are fast fading from the world in this age of restless travel anid exploration, and it should be recognised as almost the duty of educated travellers in the less known parts of the world to put on permallent record, before it is too late, such of these phases as they may observe; but it is certainly not a sufficiently recognised fact that such records, usually made in writing, might be iiifinitely helped out by the camera

Art · Computer Science · Photography and Visual Culture

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