I don't see how images (assuming photographs) are necessarily important here. Traditional owners have been passing down stories of country for tens of thousands

I don't see how images (assuming photographs) are necessarily important here. Traditional owners have been passing down stories of country for tens of thousands of years, passing them down by oral history and experiencing place. Marking history with physical presence of permanence is a primarily western phenomenon (for example: not all cultures had access to hard stone for construction, be it either locally, or via trade - wood succumbs to the elements eventually - the physical record of built form in Japan doesn't go back very far because buildings and structures were more impermanent. Some argue this is why they have such a strong written tradition and a focus on gardens, similar for areas of china and many island nations). "Evocative" images are irrelevant.