Jean-François Werner’s article on Albert Khan and the “Archives of the Planet” prompted several interesting questions about the role of photography in “salvage anthropology.” I was particularly interested in Werner’s discussion of how Kahn amassed his collection of autochromes, and agendas of particular camera operators (such as the colonial officer in Indochina and the catholic priest in Dahomey). To what extent are these biases visible in the images themselves, versus the historical/archival documents Werner consults? Despite the fact that Khan’s collection was not as “homogenous” as he would have liked, it seems to me that his project positions objectivity as something located in the medium of photography itself, rather than the individual photographer.

It was also interesting to learn how his collection was used to teach human geography and how the technology of the autochrome was favored not only for its perceived accuracy, but for its ability to be used as a slide projection in the classroom setting. It reminded me of concurrent (or slightly earlier??) developments in the field of art history. In his article “The Slide Lecture, or The Work of Art History in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Robert S. Nelsons argues that “For art history the ability to produce objective representations of works of art, especially in great abundance in the slide lecture, permitted new types of arguments.” How did Khan’s archive allow lecturers of human geography to form “new types of arguments” through the selection and sequencing of autochromes — beyond simply demonstrating the diversity of human culture across the globe? I would be curious to know a little more about how autochromes were used in the context of the classroom, versus moving images.