The Market of Tourism Images

The industrialization of the production and business of photography occurred alongside the profound rise of the tourism industry at the turn of the twentieth century. Companies specializing in the photographic image, premised on photographic agencies, were formed in Paris, where they held a place of importance in the landscape of French tourism. How were these businesses structured, and what strategies did they employ to insinuate themselves locally, in the heart of tourist sites themselves? Can certain changes be stated in iconographic terms? The operations of the company Neurdein frères (1864-1917) and its approach to the tourist destination Mont Saint-Michel provide a revealing look at these permutations. The professionalization of tourism through the standardization of touristic mises en scène, the corporate management of photograph collections, and the endless quest for profitable images observable in this example establish the influence that the commerical structure of image-making had on the formation of a tourist identity