Photography and Colonialism.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND COLONIALISM

Established during the 19th century photography gradually became a recognised method not only for producing landscapes , portraits and other artistic images, but also a method of research in sciences and a documentation technique that was considered to be objective. The camera seemed to portray everything exactly , copying the reality like a tape recorder, not leaving out any details of reality out of sight or inventing facts that are non-existent. But, in the words of Frans Boas "the seeing eye is an organ of tradition", and the camera, technically being an extension of the human eye sees only where it is pointed at and records what a person behind the lens expects to see.

In this paper I'll try to take a look at the photography in the colonial era, representations of other cultures with the aid of a photographic camera and the issues of objectivity and whether the colonial images can be considered documents or not.

Invention of photography in the 19th century occured at the same time with other technical innovations that came to revolutionise the whole way of life in the Western society. Technical innovations have led not only to the rise of science, but the invention of railroads led to the growing travel and allowed for the transportation of cumbersome photographic equipment to the places far from home . In science

photography seemed to penetrate almost every area and became especially popular in studying human movement in anatomy and picturing objects and classifying them in zoology and archeology. In travel ,in the first half of the 19th century visiting Eastern countries was especially popular. Before the 1840's there were numerous attempts to make daguerrotypes of the oriental voyages, but the business of producing daguerrotypes proved to extremely difficult while on the move. Not only the equipment was incredibly cumbersome, but the process of producing images on glass plates was timeconsuming and demanded huge resources. It was after the 1840's when the photographic paper was invented that travel photogtraphy increased rapidly. Landscapes of Egypt, India and the Mediterranian became truly popular among both professional and amateur photographers.

Later half of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century was the time of empires and colonial expansion. On the photography of this period and especially early 1900's I'm going to concentrate. Colonial conquest attracted numbers of people seeking money and adventure into exploration of Asian and African countries. Some of those taking photographic equipment along were colonial administrators or workers, others included scientists like archeologists and anthropologists.

The science of anthropology became established in the colonial era and was in a way a consequence of the colonial encounter. Anthropologists maintained close ties with colonial administration and back home anthropological exhibitions were organised displaying both the photographs and cultural artifacts gathered by anthropologists. Anthropology of that period tried to show that humans gradually evolved from nature to civilization and while the Western civilizatiion was on top of the evolutionary ladder, "primitive" societies were more or less in their natural state. The concept of race and classification of human kind into racial categories needed visual illustration. Anthropologist Johannes Fabian argued that anthropology of the period was visually oriented that " the ability to visualise a culture or society becomes synonimous for understanding it".

The displaying of visualised cultures and tribal artifacts found place in ethographic museums. In "Predicament of Culture" James Clifford analyses the reality of an ethnographic museum where items are displayed and classified. In his opinion the nature of collections describes the nature of Western possesive individualism, where ideal self is defined as an owner. Identity of a collector is defined in the opposition of the Other and wealth appropriated from the Other serves as the source of collections and museums. Transferred to a museum, objects are ordered and classified in a hierarchical order. At the end of the 19th century evolutionism influenced the arrangement of exotic artifacts and every exhibition told a story of human development. "The object has ceased to be primarily an exotic "curiosity" and was now a source of information entirely integrated in the universe of Western man. The value of exotic objects was their ability to testify to the concrete reality of an earlier stage of human Culture, a common past confirming Europe's triumphant present" (Clifford 1988)

Photographs played an important part not only as objects of exhibitions, but there were means to bring the images of colonial reality to the homes of European bourgeoisie to provide with information about areas under colonial government and reassure once again of the supremacy of Western culture and inferiority of the Other.

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Anthropological photography of the colonial period usually treated the Other from the position of the dominating culture and political position of the time. It is possible to judge colonial photography in the Orientalist context. According to Edward Said, the author of Oreientalism , the Oriental is a product of dominating frameworks and "the Oriental is depicted as something one judges (as in court of law), something one studies and depicts(as in curriculum), something one disciplines(as in school or prison), something one illustrates (as in zoological manual).

There are two different approaches to the European colonial photography in Africa. The first approach emphasises photographs being real documents that can be used in historical research while the other approach sees photography as an instument of envisaging racial stereotypes and inventing Africa as an Orientalist reality. There are several criticisms concerning both of the approaches. As Christraud Geary notes it is difficult to make generalisations on African colonial photography as a whole because of the vastness of the continent and the variety of different ethnic groups populating it. Also the motives and understandings of individual photographers have to be taken into consideration. Another important perspective in analysing colonial photographs according to Geary is taking into consideration account of interaction between the photographer and the photographed.

I'm going to discuss the photographical work of the American Herbert Lang and the work of several German colonial photographers. Lang photographed in former Congo , which is now knpown as Zaire and the German project took place in the kingdom of Bamum in Cameroon. The work of photographers in both places can be analysed from the position of interaction between the photographers and their subjects, the creation of colonial reaction from the interaction between the two, and the part the Africans themselves have played in the representation.

Herbert Lang from the American museum of Natural history was assigned to Congo to report on the local way of life and to collect and identiy specimen of local natural and animal worlds. Having spent over five years in the region Lang has collected an incredible number of local artifacts and took about 10,000 photographs. In the words of art historian Schildkrout, Lang's photographs "depict a people who consciously constructed images of themselves for outsiders that relied on their perception of outsiders' perception of them".

Congo, where Lang did his work was the darkest and perhaps the most "uncivilised" part of Africa in the Western view of the period. Joseph Conrad, having called Congo "heart of darkness" has created the view of this part of African continent as hardly accessible and "prehistoric" .And even though European travellers became a familiar sight in Congo, Herbert Lang along with many others continued to perceive this place as isolated and relatively untouched by "civilization". Lang chose to describe Congo in an anthropological fashion of the period , collecting specimen and taking photographs, while refraining from judging the region . When photographing Lang was not concerned with the aesthetic value of his photographs or them being an artwork. As in his rigorous collection of specimen and artifacts, his approach to photgraphy was purely documentary and scientific. The idea of museum of natural history was to obtain a record of the Congo as a culture disappearing under the advance of Western civilization. In a way concern with indigenious cultures disappearing with the coming of civilisation was common to anthropologists. Malinowski wrote, although a little later, in his preface to "Argonauts of the West Pacific" that the purpose of his study was to become familiar with the disappearing ways of life.

Another issue to be taken into consideration when looking at Lang's photographs is the science of eugenics, influential in the beginning of the 20th century. The idea of eugenics was to control the reproduction of humans by statistically eliminating defective types, such as retarded and socially deviant people. Before colonial administration has prohibited the cannibalist practices of Congo peoples, the elimination of the weak and survival of the fittest depended mostly on cannibalism and it was an idea that Western civilisation could replace cannibalist practices with eugenics in order to stop the "chaotic" way of life.

Lang's eugenic anthropology photographs where concerned whith the correct identification of racial types of the Congo Pygmies. In his writings Lang describes his concerns with whether the Mbuti were a degenerate type of Negroes and his search for the truly typical memebers of the tribe. "Scientific" procedures in choosing the subjects of photographs were typical examples of colonialists' treatment of the colonised characterised by disrespect and treatment of people somewhat like in the procedure of cattle selection. According to the description to select the typical , Lang lined his subjects up and pulled every 3rd, 5th, or 7th person from the line. This procedure resembling photographing prisoners without any respect for their identity was justified by methods of science where elimination of any personal preference was needed.

Even the use of scientific methods in photography did not make Lang's photographs purely scientific and free of judgement. The interaction between the colonisers and colonised, photographer and the photographed invalidated photographs as documents and made them not the records of pure observation but a product of cultural interaction. Langs writing described accounts of the Mbuti telling the photographer of their fear of the camera in order to get some extra product. Through Lang's accounts it is possible to see the Mbuti perfect understanding of the colonial relationships and the understanding of what kind of picture of the primitive and backward tribe the colonisers wanted to see. Lang describes scenes where members of tribes mimicked and parodied the colonial relations.

Another aspect invalidating Lang's photographs as scientific documents is the liberty he used in producing captions for the pictures. Anthropologiacal truth was gone when the same picture was described as a posed illustrative photograph or as documentation of photographer's bravery in encountering a tribe armed with weapons in different publications.

Lang's motivation behind his photographs was to show the racial difference embodied by the Africans to the Western viewer. Also he strived to produce the image of Congo people as superstitious and primitive, but happy and accepting the colonial regime to prove once again the rightness of the European conception of the colonised Other and inferiority of the "primitive" way of life compared to imperial one.

German colonial photography in Bamum shows a different approach to portraying the colonised, but at the same time there is something in common with Lang's photography in a way that pictures are a product of interaction between the photographers and their subjects. Photography in Bamum was influenced by the romantic view of the "noble savage" and the portrayal of the colonised as loyal to the dominant Germans at the same time retaining a degree of independence in their government.

The Cameroonian kingdom of Bamum is known for its incredible artworks produced by the local artisans. Royal decorations of the palace, household objects, clothes and jewelry were famous not only in the neighboring districts but even further away.

In the end of the 19th century Bamum happened to be German territory when the colonial powers divided African territories between themselves.

As with other colonial districts photographers travelled to bring images of the colonised peoples to the Europeans. In Bamum there were different kinds of photographers involved in producing the photographic portrayal of the region. Every one of them was motivated by own motives and rewards. Missionary photographers seeked to produce images of those conversed into Christian faith, that served as means of colonial propaganda back at home. One of the favourite ways of portayal was showing the Africans as "unenligtened savages " compared with their later descriptions as educated, proper Christians. Another group of photographers in Bamum included amateurs seeking financil rewards for the pictures produced for ethnographic museums and private collections. Colonial officials also took photographs for the purpose of showing the advance of civilisation into the dark Africa. Yet another group of photgraphers consisted of anthropologists using photgraphy as a means of producing records of their scientific research.

As in case of Herbert Lang and American anthropologists, European anthropologists were intrested in evolutionary ideas and classification of races according to the evolutionary theory. Photography turned to be a perfect tool of turning people into objects. Dehumanising procedures for photographing racial types were developed by colonial anthropologists. These methods of ripping people of their identity and dignity were similar to the ones employed by Lang. In the name of science, the "object" was placed in front of a blanket and a series of photographs from different viewpoints were taken , reminding very much of modern mug shots. Standard photographic procedures allowed physical anthropologists to measure people directly from photographs.

Another use of photography in anthropology was documenting material culture. With the expansion of ethnographic museums and collections objects had to be photographed in order to find out if they were worth acquiring.

The kingdom of Bamum constituted a romantic image of the colony with a noble and intelligent king, abundant and full of beautiful material objects. The Germans were fascinated by the excellency of Bamum court and people's acception of colonial government and concentrated mostly on the portrayal of the elite. Bamum elite thought of photography as the prestigious medium. Elite members were familiar with photography and had treasured photographs of the German rulers and biblical motives that were displayed at prominent positions , given to them by missionaries and colonial administrators. In the photographs the Bamum elite chose to display their rank and the attributes of their social standing. German photographers took pictures that mostly confirmed thier view of the kingdom and its king. German colonial photographs seemed to concentrate on the aspect of the exotic and the foreign. The images of the king as a noble savage, powerful and intellegent dominate. German photographs portray the Bamum king as a German ally. This description was in fact profitable for the Bamum king because he has understood that the autonomy and self-government of Bamum depended on having good relationships with the Germans and so the German photographers got the images of a powerful African ruler understanding the supremacy of the colonial power they wanted to have. Photographers visualising Bamum as exotic and very spectacular place prevented them from objective portrayal of Bamum life and taking pictures of ordinary people engaged in everyday activities. Nobles were photographed in all contexts, even remaining anonymous when photographed as racial types in front of the blanket.

Bamum people understanding the position of images in social life, chose how to present themselves in the most favourable light. Images of the king and his mother showed their power and their position in the society was accented by the clothes they chose to wear emphasising massiveness and balance.

Apart from people colonial photographs included images of material objects produced for the ethnographic museums and perspective buyers of African artifacts and pictures of festive and ritual occasions. Even though documentations of rituals were intended as documental records they did not always fulfill this role. Ritual occasions were often staged especially for the photoshoot and may not have depicted the actual sequence of a ritual.

In both colonial photographs of Lang and Bamum images, the photographers tried to depict the image of the other confirming the already existent stereotypes. The images are quite different with the former presenting the backward and primitive people while the latter show fascination with the exotic. Colonial photographs intended as objective documentations of colonial reality are in fact the product of photographers' own preconceptions about the photographed and fulfillment of own prejudices combined with the complex relation between the colonisers and colonised. As colonial images show , however the colonisers tried to objectify the colonised, their project has failed with colonised often representing the colonial reality either by means of parodying it or appearing exactly as the colonisers wanted them to be.

If the photographs have to be used as historical records, than the condition in which they were taken has to be considered and their subjectivety has got to be considered.

References and selected bibliography:

"The Visual Culture Reader" edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff

Mirzoeff, Nicholas

"Photography at the Heart of Darkness" from "Bodyscape"

Geary, Christraud M.

"Images From Bamum. German Colonial Photography at the Court of King Njoya"

Collier

"Visual Anthropology. Photography as a Research Method"