Almost everyone has seen it. Featured in millions of nearly identical images gracing glossy travel brochures, Peruvian marketing campaigns and personal posts that are presented as proof of the promise or consummation of adventure or national pride, Machu Picchu’s poster-like image is everywhere. First photographed by Hiram Bingham, a historian from Yale University, in 1911 and then by such Peruvian photographers as Martín Chambi and Juan Figueroa Aznar, today over a million tourists take its snapshot each year. The ubiquity of the image of Machu Picchu means that the archaeological remains of the retreat of the ninth Sapa Inca Pachacuti, who ruled from 1438 to 1471, no longer need a caption. Mention Machu Picchu to people and they immediately picture it: a jutting rock spire prominently presiding over a floor of ruins. While there are of course other views available of the site, the one we are most familiar with is the one first displayed in the pages of National Geographic in their 1913 ‘In the Wonderland of Peru’ issue.

Hiram Bingham organised three separate expeditions to Peru between 1911 and 1915. The first was planned around four goals, chief among which was to search for archaeological ruins in the Vilcabamba valley. At that time, other explorers, writers and geographers had speculated about the location of the last or ‘lost’ city of the Incas, where Manco Inca Yupanqui, the last Inca sovereign, had taken refuge from the Spanish conquerors and rival native elites. Many suggested that this last Inca city might be Choquequirao.

Following a visit to Santiago, Chile, in 1908 to attend the first Pan-American Scientific Congress, Bingham retraced a historic trade route between Lima, Potosí and Buenos Aires. Along the way, he visited the ruins at Choquequirao. In Across South America, Bingham observed that although the Italian-Peruvian geographer Antonio Raimondi might be correct to argue that Choquequirao was indeed the lost city, additional proof was needed.¹ It was necessary to explore the region of Vilcabamba.

Although Bingham dispelled the ‘lost city’ myth in one of his earliest publications following the 1911 expedition, this inconvenient finding did not hinder the narrative of Machu Picchu as a lost city from circulating wildly. Indeed, the thrill of potentially discovering a lost city helped garner monetary support in the US and local favour in Peru. National Geographic Magazine, newspapers and exhibitions perpetuated the profitable myth with headlines and stories accompanied by photographs.

Depictions of Machu Picchu in Peru differed somewhat. From the 1920s through the 1950s, photographers such as Martín Chambi and the Cabrera brothers made remarkably similar views to Bingham’s. But these photographs captured scenes from Andean life, including the presence of adventuring tour groups in and around the ruins. Although their photographs similarly highlighted loss and mystery, they reframed the ruins through the lens of nationalism and a celebratory nativism or indigenismo. Later, these sensibilities shifted as transnational interest in the region grew and Machu Picchu became a symbol of hemispheric unification and pan-American politics. In 1983 Machu Picchu and the city of Cusco were named UNESCO World Heritage sites, ushering in a new era of global tourism.

Recent archaeological and ethnohistorical research suggests that Machu Picchu was a community comprising approximately 600 inhabitants. Along with Incan royalty, artisans and servants from around the Andes resided there, occupied in farming, cooking, weaving and making metal objects. Today, tourists from around the world visit Machu Picchu, weaving their own narratives of discovery and adventure.

Although the many workers and assistants who accompanied Bingham on the expeditions varied, cameras were his constant companions. Kodak sponsored all three expeditions, providing photographic equipment, film, developing materials and instructions. Like so many expedition leaders at that time, Bingham felt that photography was a critical documentary tool for gathering scientific data. Kodak was interested in testing new equipment and securing exotic pictures for advertising purposes.

In addition to providing camera instruments, Kodak printed the photographs at a reduced cost, compiling albums that could then be used as research tools. These albums contributed to the development of theories about the landscape and its people. They were also used to illustrate articles published in scientific journals and magazines. Eventually, 23 albums were made of the approximately 9,000 printed photographs. Bingham kept a set of the albums at Yale and another set was given to National Geographic, where the editor, Gilbert Grosvenor, selected images for publication in one of the three issues the society printed featuring stories about the Yale Peruvian Expeditions. That Kodak printed all the negatives for Bingham was not unusual. What was unusual, however, was that they returned them all. Eventually Bingham delivered the negatives to National Geographic for safekeeping. Sometime in the 1970s, the original nitrate negatives were destroyed for fear of spontaneous combustion and copy negatives were made.

On the first Yale Peruvian Expedition, Bingham chose fairly portable cameras including a No. 3A special Kodak, two No. 3A folding pocket Kodaks and a No. 4 Kodak. He also packed three tank developers and chemicals for more than 2,500 exposures. The 3A folding pocket Kodak, first introduced in 1903, was unique at that time because it used a postcard format, producing a 3 ¼ × 5 ½ inch image that could be printed on postcard stock for mailing. Bingham’s original photographic outfit was also remarkably similar to that of Robert E. Peary, who also carried a No.4 and folding Kodaks on his expeditions to reach the North Pole. For the second expedition, from May to November 1912, Bingham decided that in addition to bringing eight of the tested models from the 1911 expedition, he wanted a No. 4 Panoram camera. He also requested 1,000 more exposures, as the team had run out of film on the previous expedition. For the last Yale Peruvian Expedition, Bingham chose to vary his photographic outfit, selecting a Cirkut camera. This decision proved questionable, since he found the mechanism so finicky that he wrote George Eastman several personal letters complaining about its performance and urging him to never give such a ‘carelessly made’ camera to another explorer again. Ironically, the Cirkut camera, first released in 1910, was considered the more expensive and superior design and was subsequently manufactured and sold by Eastman Kodak for nearly 50 years. In contrast to exposing stationary film through a pivoting lens, as with the Panoram mechanism, in the Cirkut camera the film rolled past a stable lens that opened as the camera swivelled. The expensive machine was capable of producing a panoramic photograph of up to ten inches in height by 12 feet in length. In the end, the No. 4 Panoram camera seemed to be just right for Bingham, producing some of his most captivating photographs. Through its lens, faraway horizons could be pictured.

When Bingham first visited Machu Picchu and took its picture, he really did not know what he had seen. He arrived on 24 July, escorted by a boy whom he had paid to guide him. In his field journal, he noted the presence of families who made their homes amidst the ruins. He also remarked on the signatures of previous adventurers, written on the rocks. Having learned about the site from those who inhabited the area, Bingham stayed only for the day, visiting again in September for a few days more. Upon returning to the United States, he secured sponsorship from National Geographic and additional funding for two more expeditions. In July 1912, Bingham sailed back to Peru, staying for a month at Machu Picchu. In November, he returned to the ruins yet again. George Eaton, the expedition’s osteologist, also stayed at Machu Picchu that summer, organising a widespread collecting operation involving local assistants who helped find and collect much of what was eventually removed from the site. Still, as Bingham told Gilbert Grosvenor, it was not until the publication of the 1913 National Geographic issue ‘In the Wonderland of Peru’ that he realised the magnitude and potential interest of what he had photographed.

Initially, at least, Bingham and his team were not expert photographers. They had difficulty using the new machines. To compensate for their lack of know-how, Bingham provided expedition circulars for team members. The circular contained instructions on the type of scenes desired, how to develop the film and how to document details that would assist in hand-painting photographic slides for illustrated lectures at home. Bingham offered specifics on labelling the negatives, including adding the serial number of the exposure as well as the month, day and initials of the photographer so that the photographs might be systematically catalogued upon the expedition’s return from the field. This coding system was useful for managing the enormous quantity of images and ultimately helped organise the photographs into albums, sorted by photographer and in chronological order. With each subsequent expedition, Bingham expanded the information contained in the circulars, suggesting that making pictures was not only a critical expeditionary activity but a challenging technical task as well.

Taking photographs, let alone processing the negatives, was difficult work. Even though many exposures were lost or unsuccessful, developing the negatives in the field, although not necessary, was desirable so that the team members could verify that what they had sought in an image had actually been captured by the camera. Climbing mountains with the camera equipment, levelling tripods, waiting for good light and better weather and hauling water to develop the film meant that much time and effort was spent on making photographs. For such an outlay of effort, there were no guarantees that the photographs obtained would be worthy to be used as scientific evidence. Consequently, Bingham took every precaution to make sure that the members of his team did not waste the precious film on useless snapshots.

Contrary to what might be assumed, photography was not a new technology in Peru. In 1842, Maximiliano Danti brought the daguerreotype to Lima. Daguerre himself had only revealed the machine to the French Academy of Science in 1839. Photographers such as the Courret brothers established successful portrait studios in cosmopolitan Lima in the late 1800s. By the turn of the century, portraiture was thriving in the capital with 40 to 50 studios producing photographs for the well-to-do. By the time of Bingham’s arrival in Cusco, photography was established in studios where middle- and upper-class families sought portraits. Camera stores also advertised their wares in daily newspapers.

Even though Bingham organised the expeditions, wrote solicitation letters for sponsorship, coordinated the teams and took many of the photographs we now celebrate, National Geographic editor Gilbert Grosvenor perhaps deserves credit for making Machu Picchu a household name and its image a common sight. Profusely illustrated with 244 pictures, ‘In the Wonderland of Peru’ was dedicated to Bingham and the Yale expeditions. Of particular note was the specially printed, hand-folded panorama photograph included in each issue of the edition. Grosvenor hoped the image, which cost about $2,000 to print, would be impressive and exciting for the reader. Indeed it was. The foldout image was almost immediately reprinted and circulated in newspaper and magazine copy in the United States and abroad.

In Lost City of the Incas, Bingham wrote, ‘Would anyone believe what I had found? Fortunately, in this land where accuracy in reporting what one has seen is not a prevailing characteristic of travellers, I had a good camera and the sun was shining.’² But of course, Bingham was only able to photograph Machu Picchu because it was already known. And the picture that would make him, and it, so famous was actually taken in 1912, not in 1911 when he first viewed the site. Although today we often think of a photograph as the result of one person’s decision to click a screen or open and close a shutter, the making of this iconic New World image-object was the eventual result of a specific configuration in time and space of machine, labour, subjects, camera technology, climate, corporate sponsorship, mass media and desire.

Bingham’s, or rather National Geographic’s, panoramic view persists today in millions upon millions of printed and digital photographic images. For the centenary celebration of the 1911 expedition, an enlargement of the panorama was featured in an exhibition titled Machu Picchu 100 años: una mirada a la expedicíon que asombró al mundo held at the Sumaq Machu Picchu Hotel in Aguas Calientes, Peru, a town at the base of the massif that supports the ruins. The same panorama was included in National Geographic’s exhibition Machu Picchu: A Lost City Uncovered; Photographs from the Hiram Bingham Expeditions 1911–1915, which ran for three months in 2011 at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC. Jonathan Irish, a photographer and program director at National Geographic Adventures, did a project in 2013 called Then + Now re-photographing some of Bingham’s images of the site, including the storied panorama. Every so often, National Geographic writes another news piece about Bingham and his photography, using expeditionary images to illustrate the text. On 24 July 2017, one such story appeared highlighting some of Bingham’s famed panoramas through a slideshow that included the original foldout. Today, anyone with access to the Internet can view the reproduced panorama on the National Geographic website.

Although Bingham’s first photograph documented Machu Picchu in greyscale, today we are most familiar with images showing its glorious green grassy expanses and breathtaking blue sky. Eastman Kodak Company had a hand in this, too. In 1939, Kodak began to promote the accessibility and potential of amateur colour photography. What began as a Kodachrome slideshow called The Cavalcade of Color at New York City’s World’s Fair became one of Kodak’s most unique and enduring marketing campaigns. Beginning in 1950, Kodak installed massive 18 × 60 foot backlit transparencies, themselves comprising 41 separate sections, known as Coloramas, in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Over the next 40 years, 565 transparencies were installed in the terminal, with the aim of promoting colour photography to a mass audience. Mostly taken by Kodak staff photographers, the images evoked snapshots that the casual photographer might attempt. Along with Norman Rockwell-esque depictions of Americana, including football games, Vermont ski trips and the Rockettes, global tourist destinations were also featured. Machu Picchu graced the terminal’s hall at least twice. The first time was in 1964 and featured two tourists. Using the iconic shot of the mountain Huayna Picchu that rises above Machu Picchu, the site is vacant except for a couple seated on a rock, looking away from both the camera and the ruins. The second was in 1977. This time, the angle of shot is slightly different, taken from a higher point on a knoll, looking down towards the ruins. Still framed by Huayna Picchu, this Colorama featured a shepherd with his four llamas.

In addition to inventing roll film, providing cameras and film free of charge to the three Yale Peruvian Expeditions, compiling the albums that were foundational for subsequent research and bringing colour to its rocky knolls for all to enjoy, Kodak’s technological advances have been instrumental in Machu Picchu’s continued global circulation. In 1978, Kodak patented the electronic still camera, the world’s first digital camera. In 1989, Kodak released the first single-lens reflex digital camera with a 1.2 megapixel sensor and a memory card. Although Kodak eventually went bankrupt precisely because of the explosion of digital photography, digitisation has enhanced the reach not only of Bingham’s original photographs of Machu Picchu but of countless similar others as well. As of August 2020, #machupicchu had over 1.7 million posts on Instagram, each including a photograph. Such widespread and unfettered circulation has meant that Bingham’s photograph of Machu Picchu continues to be taken today, not by him but by us. As for the original 1913 ‘In the Wonderland’ National Geographic issue with the special panoramic foldout, it has become a collector’s item.

FURTHER READING

Andrews, R. (2018) Colorama: George Eastman Museum (Kempen, Germany: teNeues).

Burger, R., and L. Salazar (eds.) (2004) Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Cox Hall, A. (2017) Framing a Lost City: Science, Photography and the Making of Machu Picchu (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press).

Edwards, E., and J. Hart (eds.) (2004) Photographs, Objects, Histories: On the Materiality of Images (New York, NY: Routledge).

Jacob, J. (ed.) (2011) Kodak Girl: From the Martha Cooper Collection (Göttingham, Germany: Steidl).

Lutz, C., and J.L. Collins (1993) Reading National Geographic (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).

Majluff, N., and L.E. Wuffarden (eds.) (2001) La recuperación de la memoria: Perú 1842–1942 (Lima: Fundación Telefónica y Museo de Arte de Lima).

Poole, D. (1997) Vision, Race, and Modernity: A Visual Economy of the Andean Image World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

Poole, R. (2004) Explorers House: ‘National Geographic’ and the World It Made (New York, NY: Penguin).

Rice, M. (2017) Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press).

¹ H. Bingham, (1911) Across South America: An Account of a Journey from Buenos Aires to Lima by Way of Potosí (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin).

² H. Bingham, (1952) The Lost City of the Incas: The Story of Machu Picchu and Its Builders (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), 186.