501
and some anthropometric photography carried out by
W. H. Jackson. Indians were seen has hostile savages;
there was a war waging on them, they had no place in
the new civilized world being built by the white man.
The fact that some of 19th century photographs would
show Indians in “civilized” costumes is a confi rmation
of this idea. As they were physically exterminated, they
had little or no place in photography. In the early 20th
century the Indian was no longer a treat, but little more
than a memory, or a folk character, so Curtis could
photograph to preserve that already vanished world.
His work was a huge exploit, consistent with the idea of
having all the races and tribes in one nationwide cata-
log, however his Indians would not, most of the times,
use those costumes or live in the way depicted by his
photographs. His pictorialistic approach is also seen as
a handicap to the ethnological value of his photographs,
even if it does enhance their art value.
The main interests of European photographer were,
however, focused on the old world. Orientalism was
at his height and photographers saw in the Holy Land,
Egypt, but also Far East, a fi rst choice location for pho-tographs. The mideastern landscape was in focus, as well
as mid eastern people, whose habits and costumes were,
2,000 years later, reminders of biblical scenes, many of
these photographs actually ended up being used as bibli-
cal illustrations. More than in any other places of the
world, most of these stereotypes were drawn from the
previous repertoire of themes known to Orientalist and
biblical scene painting. Western view of mideastern his-
torical signifi cance was, also, of major infl uence in the
way its inhabitants were perceived and photographed.
Religion was a major force driving mideastern ethno-
graphic photography. In complete opposition of this
use was the construction of a mideastern erotic image,
being built over the exotic beauty of Arab women, the
image of the harem and supposedly scantily clad belly
dancers and odalisques.
Mid eastern photographic tours were early in the
history of the medium, one of the better known was
Maxime du Camp’s expedition to Egypt and Palestine in
1848 and 1849, with novelist Gustave Flaubert. Even if
his published images were mostly of monuments, there
are also images of local people in those monumentalETHNOGRAPHY
Uncatologued (Photographer). Indian
peasent young woman holding twigs on
her head.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© The J. Paul Getty Museum.Hannavy_RT72353_C005.indd 501 7/5/2007 11:18:28 AM