Visualizing the Catastrophe. Photographs and Visual Objects of the 1906 Earthquake in Valparaiso[visuales sobre el terremoto de 1906 en Valparaíso]

This article analyzes the photographic representation of the earthquake that affected the city of Valparaíso in 1906. The research proposes that the use of photographs in the press, as well as in postcards and albums, gave way to the creation of new types of stories about the earthquake through visuality and closeness to the experience of the earthquake in the streets. The research was based on extensive documentary work carried out in different archives in Santiago and Valparaíso. The recovered ocumentation was analyzed based on iconographic and iconological observations that allowed for a selection and in-depth analysis of the photographic images. This article is structured in two parts: firstly, it analyzes the use of photography in the press and secondly, it observes the use of photographs of the earthquake in other visual objects, such as albums and postcards. Thus, this form of visual representation was a technical tool of the industrial modernity that, in turn, contributed to the transformation of social and cultural narratives to record and understand disasters.