Gezicht op Vietri sul Mare 1861 - 1878

Ernest Eléonor Pierre Lamy created this stereoscopic photograph of Vietri sul Mare in Italy, sometime in the late 19th century. What might seem like a straightforward landscape view was in fact deeply embedded in a new visual culture. With its dual image format, stereoscopy gave middle-class consumers the illusion of three-dimensionality and allowed them to ‘travel’ to exotic locations from the comfort of their own homes. Commercial photography studios thrived by mass-producing these images and distributing them through a burgeoning market. Lamy's business existed within a culture of mass tourism that shaped how Europeans encountered and consumed the world. To fully understand this image we need to look into photography’s emergence as both an art form and a commercial enterprise and to address the complex relationship between tourism, visual representation, and the marketing of national identity.