Digital Rare Book:
Hindu Architecture In India And Abroad
By Prasanna Kumar Acharya
Published by Oxford University Press, London - 1927

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Image:
Angkor Wat, Cambodia - 1873

The first pictures of Angkor were taken 150 years ago! Back then, photographers were using one of the first photographic process created called wet plate collodion. They had porters to carry their darkroom and chemicals and it was a challenge to develop the photographic plates on site. In top of that, access to temples were not easy as now as they were still covered by a dense forest.

Two photographers are credited to successfully capture the first pictures of Angkor. The first one, was a Scottish Photographer named John Thomson, 29 years old, based in Singapore at the time: he did an extensive photographic work during his two weeks spent in 1866. John Thomson was inspired by the writings of Henri Mouhot in 1860. Beside Angkor Wat, Thomson took pictures of Angkor Thom and Bayon which was back then still covered by a dense jungle. It was only in 1911, that Jean Commaille lead an archeology mission from École française d’Extrême-Orient to clear up the trees in Bayon up and start restorations.

Few months after Thomson, Frenchman Emile Gsell, 28 years old and based in Saigon, brought his darkroom to Angkor and captured more than 100 pictures. He returned later on in 1873 with the famous expedition lead by Louis Delaporte. Gsell developed his glass plates on paper coated with albumen. The pictures of Thomson and Gsell are priceless documents of the temples of Angkor when they were largely unknown to the word and put in perspective the massive restoration work accomplished since the beginning of the 20th century.

Text and image source: Angkor Photography Tours