691
“Red man” had become subject to its own peculiar kind
of orientalism particularly by the end of the century.
Current conditions and rapid changes occurring in
the lives of indigenous peoples, the results of cultural
clashes with Anglo-Americans and Europeans, were
relatively little depicted through the lens compared
with natives perceived as specimens of peoples on the
brink of extinction.
Legendary or imaginative associations of place no
less than historical signifi cance became major motives
for taking numerous corresponding pictures of architec-
tural monuments and their environs. Astute photogra-
phers came to understand that profi ts were to be made
by tracking down a variety of culturally and politically
important subjects. George Washington Wilson, a native
of Scotland, developed an eye for the best view to be sure
the growing tourist market for domestic scenery would
be satisfi ed. His business, started in the early 1850s,
realized continued success in the following decade with
photographs and books of Scottish and English subjects
of literary renown, including Fingal’s Cave at Staffa
(c.1863-67) and Scott’s Tomb at Dryburgh Abbey (c.
1863–68). Francis Frith had launched his Reigate fi rm
in 1860, having just returned from a third and fi nal
journey to Egypt and the Holy Land. His acclaim grew
from several publications of his large format prints (e.g.,
Cairo, Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Pyramids of Egypt,
1860), exquisite in their delineation of ancient monu-
ments, profound in their association with Biblical places.
In 1862, Frith and Company was established, which
became a huge commercial concern; Frith had decided
to cast his net even further from England by hiring other
operators to photograph on the Continent, while also
buying inventories of photographs taken of India and
elsewhere. To re-photograph the same subjects and to
market them under different imprints was hardly unusual
for the period, especially if they had a proven record
of popularity. With the increased competition among
photographers of the 1860s, the systematic cataloguing
of each new series of pictures by place and subject, with
corresponding negative numbers, became an important
marketing strategy (Wilson and Brady had adopted justHISTORY: 5. 1860sAnnan, Thomas. Close, No. 61
Saltmarket. One of 40 prints from an
album entitled: “Photographs of Old
Closes, Streets & c.”
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© The J. Paul Getty Museum.