The Yangtze River Was My Darkroom
Isabella Bird’s Candid Photos of Southwest China, 1897
By Brodie Burns-Williamson
In 1897, Isabella Bird travelled thousands of kilometres through southwest China with a camera at her side.
Taking advantage of the invention of portable cameras, she photographed river workers, market traders, travellers, villagers and city streets. On the road she caught remarkable moments of everyday life.
More than a century later, these photographs remain windows into a vanished world.
A quiet journey through Sichuan and the upper Yangtze, one image at a time.
ISBN: 978-1-7646790-9-1