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Pultz, John, The Body and the Lens: Photography 1839 to the
Present, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, “Reconsidering Erotic Photogra-
phy: Notes for a Project of Historic Salvage,” Photography
at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions,
and Practices, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1991.
Sullivan, Constance, ed., Nude Photographs 1850–1980, New
York: Harper & Row, 1980.

ETHNOGRAPHY
From its beginnings photography was considered as a
handmaiden of arts and science and was widely used
as an instrument for the gathering and cataloging of the
scientifi c data so prized during 19th century. People
were no exception to this cataloging which could take
place with never before seen tribes of dark Africa, as
well as with western countries peasant, or even urban
lower class populations. Commercial and amateur pho-
tographers, scientists and explorers all were engaged in
this picturing of the other, creating and perpetuating ste-
reotypes of childlike Africans, vice burdened Chinese,
noble savage North American Indians or southern Pacifi c
Venuses. Even if the scientifi c value of this view of the
other by the “Euro American” eye has been questioned
for a long time; these images have now an increased
signifi cance.
After all are not all photographs of ethnographic
value, don’t they all show habitats, behavior and cos-
tumes of human groups?
Since the 15th century Westerners had traveled
though the world. No continent or ocean seemed to be
unknown to 19th century cultured people. However
everything was again to be discovered, with new media,
including the mass use of press and photography which
allowed new forms of knowledge and a wider audience
for that knowledge. The white man was, for the fi rst
time, discovering interior Africa; North America, Asia
and Australia had yet to be explored fully. If new lands
with high waterfalls, huge mountains and rivers inter-
ested the public nothing could be of greater curiosity
than their inhabitants; people with strange habits, odd
clothing (or no clothing at all). These people were to be
found in all continents, from dark, wet and warm Africa,
to arid and dry Central Asia, exotic Far East, high South
American mountains, or even North American prairies,
not to mention European countryside. They all were en-
during the shock of being found by modern civilization,
they all were to disappear, at least as bearers of those
exotic and inferior habits.
This idea of photographing a vanishing world was
of greater importance for these photographers and con-
nected the images of these exotic peoples in far away
places with folk habits and costumes that were closer
to home.

Ethnography and photography were not only children
of the same century, but also of the same decades. They
both came to public eye around 1840; they were both
the products of 19th century’s scientifi c obsession. It is
impossible to image ethnography without photography,
but it is also hard to imagine 19th century photography
without its ethnological uses, where art and science were
very hard to tell apart.
Ethnographic photography was a tool both for colo-
nialism and imperial ambitions, of national identifi ca-
tion and nationalist construction. All parts of the world
were the subject of this photography pursued, like one
of the most important missions of photography, by
amateurs and professional photographers, by travel-
ers and scientists. In these images persons were not
seen as individuals, but rather as representing ethnic,
regional or professional types. The ambition was to
gather a worldwide catalogue of races, ethnic groups
and types, which, after all was not far from happen-
ing. Louis Figuier, author of the 1873 book, Les Races
Humaines, wrote about the need of an ethnographic
collection obtained by means of photography, by the
same time T. H. Huxley was commissioned by British
Imperial authorities to create a photographic fund of all
the races of the British Empire.
Scientists and explorers used photography as an
instrument for the research and knowledge spreading
they pursued. Its objectivity would allow the most ac-
curate record of people and places they were exploring.
However photography could also be seen as the power
demonstration of the western white power over the
barbaric non-white, and as a means of bringing light,
another way of spelling Christianity and civilization,
over these peoples. Being a godlike, light based, tech-
nology, photography was seen per se as able to bring
the light of civilization to the darker, uncivilized parts
of the world.
The control over those photographed enforced by
the photographer was a part of the white upper class
westerner power over the other. The power needed to
make people pose to the photographer was a part of
the wider colonial or ruling class power. The eye of the
photographer and the eye of the camera were analogous
to the eye of the surveillance needed to ensure control
over lower class and colonial people.
One of the fi rst references of the use of photography
for the study of other people was made as early as 1852,
in the Manual of Ethnological Inquiry, published in
1852 by the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, nevertheless the real uses were not yet com-
mon, due to the technical problems of using photography
in the fi eld. However, the camera was a mandatory piece
of equipment for late 19th century explorers, scientists
and travelers, photography was much easier with dry-
plates and handheld cameras.

ETHNOGRAPHY


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