NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Did romantic notions of lost worlds and the age of exploration influence how an abandoned mountaintop city in Peru was first photographed and presented to the world?
Armed with the exact type of camera and film, and using the vantage points of the original 1911 expedition, Rutgers geography instructor Roger Balm will revisit an explorer's first photo-shoot at Machu Picchu, the now-famous "Lost City of the Incas" in the Andes Mountains. Leaving in mid-May, Balm will examine to what extent the original pictures were framed and constructed to fit popular ideas about lost worlds rather than to provide scientific documentation.
Perched 8,000 feet up on a Peruvian mountain peak, the complex Incan stonework of Machu Picchu was abandoned for about 500 years until Hiram Bingham of Yale University was led to the site by a young boy in 1911.
Bingham's photos, sketches and descriptions depicted a mysterious, cloud-enshrouded world at a time when North America and Europe were captivated by popular literature about such places.
Though Balm believes Bingham's photos were taken in good faith, he feels that Bingham may have inadvertently focused more on the terrain and on his achievement of reaching Machu Picchu, than on documenting the ruins themselves. "The photographs produced that day are equal parts fact and desire," Balm said. "It's only human nature to be influenced by Rudyard Kipling's preconception of ‘something lost behind the ranges.'"
Balm's expedition is underwritten by the American Geographical Society, which awarded Balm a McColl Fellowship for 2002. He received the appropriate Kodak 3A Special camera and tripod on loan from the George Eastman House/International Museum of Photography.
Balm, who has already visited Machu Picchu for preliminary research, is an accomplished landscape painter and has published articles on the ways explorers used painting and drawing to convey information.
Until May 14, Kilmer Library, 75 Avenue E, Piscataway, on Rutgers' Livingston campus, is exhibiting a display case of artifacts related to the 1911 Bingham expedition, including a vintage camera, photos, sketches and books from the period. Balm has posted an informational Web site previewing his expedition. "Picturing Lost Worlds: The 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition Research Project" can be accessed at http://geography.rutgers.edu/people/balm/.