Magnificient adventures are captured in this selection of photographic firsts, some of the earliest images from each location, taken by world-renowned photographers including Gertrude Bell, Carleton Watkins, Isabella Bird, Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley.

The images all feature in the ongoing Lights and Shadows exhibition, organised by the Royal Geographical Society in London, and are taken from the society’s historic image collection, revealing something of the marked progress of photography between 1851 and 1962, as well as providing a useful reference for economic, environmental or climatic change that has happened since they were taken. Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/…