Photographic Travel Books
Résumé
Since early in its history, photography has been used by a diversity of travellers, whose collected photographs have been compiled into albums. But Photographic Travel as a genre of art did not appear before the second half of the twentieth century, and had a singular fate and fortune in the US as well as in Europe.
The initial objective of itinerant photographers is to make a book; their shooting practice is conditioned by this objective, as well as their travel experience. Their books - designed as one coherent collection - refer to their wandering experience, even though their stories are never completely free from fiction. In these books, their travels are conceptualized, and their subjectivity is revealed. It is is therefore relevant to call such books made of photographies, and possibly words about the travel experience, Photographic Travel (comparably to Travel Literature). Danièle Méaux has tackled the task of characterizing this genre