THE PHOTOGRAPHIC CAMERA AS A MEASURING MACHINE

“(…) Photographic images, being subject in their formation to the rules of geometry, will allow, with the help of a small number of data, to reconstitute the exact dimensions [of objects photographed] (…) [This is the] role that photographic procedures are destined to play in this great national enterprise [colonialism]”.

François Arago “Report on the daguerreotype” speech was given in the French Chamber of Deputies on July 3, 1839.

Arago was the scientist invited by J.L. Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype, to present the invention before the French Academy of Sciences and the Chamber of Deputies. The daguerreotype is one of the earliest forms of photography.

GEODESIC MISSION EAST AFRICA (1907-1910)

1. Detective cameras and tripod
UL-IICT-Col. scientific equipment, T.23270 and T.23299

2. Camera case
UL-IICT-Col. scientific equipment, T.23439

3. Cloth bags
Label with the inscription: “Camping card delivered by Moura Braz of the Luzo-Belgian border service.”
UL-IICT-Col. scientific equipment, T.23443, T.23444

4. Chassis for placing glass negatives on the camera of various dimensions, including stereoscopy.
UL-IICT-Col. scientific equipment, T.23432, 23262, 23265, 23266

5. Wooden chassis for contact printing.
UL-IICT-Col. scientific equipment, T.23291

6. Original glass negative on gelatin and silver, 9x12cm. Respective contact print, on gelatin and silver paper, 9x12cm. 
UL-IICT-Col.CCart/VE795, proof 74.14

7. MGAO photo album. 1907-1910
Lisbon, January 1921. [Ass.] Gago Coutinho, chief of the Mission”. 
UL-IICT-Col.MGG-Alb4

8. Anonymous photographer. Image cropped from an original photograph of the Border Delimitation Mission South of the Zambezi, 1904-1906, next to landmark VIII - Margin of the Angua. 
UL-IICT-Col.CCart 23877