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Egyptian pyramids, the Biblical sights of the Holy Land,
the classical antiquities of the Aegean and to Istanbul.
The Hamburg-American Packet (Hapag) Company
merged with North German Lloyd in 1857 to become
Hapag Lloyd, launching its own grand tours to the
East. The Orient Express began in 1883 and by 1889
had extended its retail service to Istanbul. New travel
guidebooks were produced for the increased tourism,
and international trade exhibitions of the 19th century
also focused attention on the Orient. The opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869 brought further improved condi-
tions for travel and allowed photographers easy access
to Oriental lands.
Among the fi rst to travel to North Africa, shortly
after the invention of the Daguerreotype in 1839, the
painter Horace Vernet went to Egypt and the Holy Land
to photograph, accompanied by the daguerreotypist
Fréderic Goupil-Fesquet. Daguerre had predicted that
the intensity of Egyptian light would help produce an
image more quickly. The fi rst daguerreotype taken in
Egypt by Fosquet in October 1839, was titled “The Ha-
rem of Mohammed-Ali in Alexandria.” (It actually only
showed a half-open door and two guards.) The subjects
of “Woman” and “Other” were to become a popular,
as elements of the exotic, sexual, and decadent, were
incorporated into many photographs.
Photography became a significant travel aid for
artistic, archeological and geographic expeditions. In
1849–51, Maxime Du Camp accompanied Flaubert on
his trip to Egypt and published some of his images in
1852 in an important album, Egypte, Nubia, Palestine,
et Syrie. Several of the painter Jean-Léon Gérome’s
expeditions to the East included a photographer—his
brother-in-law Albert Goupil in 1868, and Auguste
Bartholdi in 1855. Bartholdi, perhaps better known
as a sculptor, recorded both monuments, such as his
“Colossi of Memnon” 1855, as well as aspects of their
day to day travels.
The largest group of travelling photographers came
from France, the second largest from England. Other
European countries such as Italy, Germany and Austria
and the United States had relatively few photographers
travelling to the area in the early days of photography.
There were few “local” photographers, in part due to
religious restrictions, forbidding the making of “graven
images.” The fi rst local photographers thus to open up
shops were primarily Christians.
The relative prosperity in France and England dur-
ing the middle of the 19th century allowed for more
frequent travel to the Orient. The French government,
in particular, encouraged Orientalist studies and often
fi nanced exploration trips. Maxime Du Camp and Au-
guste Salzmann were among the fi rst to receive such
support, followed by Louis de Clerq, Louis Vignes, and
Théodule Dévéria. Government survey missions from
England were fewer than from France but the British
tended to spend years rather than months surveying and
photographing. Signifi cant were the military expeditions
of the Royal Engineers, in particular, the Ordnance Sur-
vey of Jerusalem (1864–65) and the Ordnance Survey
of Sinai (1868–69) with James MacDonald as offi cial
photographer. The Palestine Exploration fund was es-
tablished in 1865 and an American Palestine Explora-
tion Society was founded in 1870. The fi rst American
expedition under Dr. Selah Merrill arrived in Lebanon
in 1875. Tancrede Dumas of Beirut was the offi cial
photographer for that mission.
Religious mission groups also often had photog-
raphers. As example, James Graham, lay secretary of
the London Jews Society, came to Palestine for four
years and was an active photographer there. In general,
according to Nissan Perez, in Focus East, British pho-
tographs tended to be more objective while the French
images tended to contain more mystery and emotion.
“If the British in their truthful images denuded the Ori-
ent from its silken veil of Arabian Nights fantasy, the
French wrapped it even more and made it more mysteri-
ous, more sensual—a project of pure Western fantasy
and imagination. With an eye for detail and daring
composition, French photographers [such as Teynard]
refl ected in their images the spirit of the places rather
than the stark reality...” (Nissan Perez, Focus East: Early
Photography in the Near East (1839–1885), New York,
Harry Abrams, 1988, p. 83)
Technical advancements in photography also had an
effect on the type of photographic images produced.
Initially the French daguerreotype and the British pro-
cess, the calotype or talbotype, were employed. The
latter system often produced quite atmospheric prints.
These processes were overtaken by the wet collodion
process that enabled Francis Frith to produce his beauti-
ful large 16 × 20 inch negatives beginning with his fi rst
trip to Egypt in 1856. This process allowed for much
faster exposures, often four to fi ve seconds versus the
calotype exposures which could be two minutes or the
daguerreotype which could take as long as twenty min-
utes. The wet process gave way to the dry collodion pro-
cess by 1875. Plates could then be prepared in advance
and developed when appropriate. The development of
gelatino-bromide emulsions in 1871, that were factory
produced and exported from factories in Britain, France,
and Germany to places such as Port Said in Egypt in the
1870s, was also signifi cant. Innovations in lens design
such as the 1886 Rapid Rectilinear lens further reduced
exposure times and distortion in the image. These tech-
nical advancements made it possible for commercial
photographers to better market their images and for
photographers to set up photographic studios. In Port
Said, the commercial market was initially dominated
by Hippolyte Arnoux who had a fl oating darkroom on