Fotografia jako zródło w badaniach nad krajobrazem historycznym – wybrane problemy

Abstract

PHOTOGRAPHY AS A SOURCE IN THE RESEARCH ON HISTORICAL LANDSCAPE – SELECTED PROBLEMS

Photography is an excellent source in historical research, especially on what can be referred to as historical landscape (i.e. cultural landscape with elements of political landscape known in historical geography). However, we can be quite surprised to note that many historians only use photographs as pictures illustrating the subjects they discuss – they do not acknowledge their value as sources on the level of research. Of course, there are also some historians who are well aware of the informative value of photographs, but they tend to pay very little attention to the use of photos in their studies on space. The present paper is an attempt to show in which fields photography can be useful, where and how a scholar of historical landscape can use it. At this point, it needs to be stressed that in some cases the typical characteristics of photography as a source that we know from literature on the subject are not directly referred to by the subject of this paper. Nine of such typical features are listed by Zenon Piech, and in this paper they are used as a base on which the specicity of photography as a source in the field of landscape studies has been demonstrated. The paper also offers some practical advice and a discussion on the threats that historians who wish to use this practically unlimited source of information may face.