Kathleen Davidson, independent scholar, The University of Sydney In nineteenth-century science, the production and circulation of images was a complex process. The advancement and increasing popularity of natural history, in particular, owed less to individual genius than to the collective enterprise of an immense network of practitioners, enthusiasts, expositors and consumers. Furthermore, the dissemination of new knowledge through different types of visual media was crucial to how this information was interpreted and by whom. Photographs, even more so than other media, were accessible to a wide range of viewers. Yet, they could be construed quite differently or assume a new status as they moved between the centre and periphery, separate interest groups or social strata. Due to its accessibility to a variety of audiences, photography also had the potential to draw together popular or commercial realms with the pursuit of natural history, the principal science of the empire. To explore this nexus between photography, scientific practice and empire, this paper considers the diverse ways in which photography and natural history intersected during the second half of the nineteenth century, analysing photography’s role in cultivating knowledge networks and reframing imperial science.