Photography's
Other Histories
Edited by Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson
Duke University Press, 2003
296 pages: 128 halftones, 1 table
ISBN 0-8223-3126-8 Cloth - $69.95
ISBN 0-8223-3113-6 Paperback - $22.95
Reviewed by Amy Ione
The Diatrope Institute
PO Box 12748
Berkeley, CA 94712-3748 USA
ione@diatrope.com
When nineteenth century experiments made it possible to combine
light and chemicals to record images on a sensitive material,
what we now call photography was born. Relatively new in
the scheme of things, photographic replication has nonetheless
had a powerful impact on global communication from its inception.
Photography's Other Histories introduces several geographies
often left out of the academic accounts and expands historical
critical debate beyond what the authors see as a Euro-American
bias. This approach allows the 12 essays in this publication
to successfully convey that the cultural experience of this new
technology was not homogenous. Chapters devoted to Australian
Aborigines, American Navajo, Papua New Guinea, China, Japan, Peru,
Kenya, India, and Nigeria convey photography's influence on global
development and cross-cultural communication. Each point
is doubly articulated by the use of the forceful images that the
writers reference. As a result, selections offer a lens
on worldwide geopolitical histories as well as reminders of the
degree to which many traditions found the Western use of this
tool invasive.
Overall these case-centered contributions work in elaborating
photography's reach and underscore the multifaceted issues that
have arisen as our world has grown smaller. Indeed, several
authors presented research that was so powerful I found my mind
circling back to the details repeatedly for days after the reading.
In part the impact was no doubt due to my unfamiliarity with the
subject matter. Given that much of the research was new
to me, it was particularly useful to find the textual descriptions
enhanced by the camera's ability to present the faces and topography
from various perspectives. I particularly valued the way
the publication presented alternatives. For example, James
Faris' astute comparison of a published and an unpublished image
of one woman often depicted by Edward S. Curtis aided immensely
in presenting the thesis that the Curtis photographs were frequently
contrived and misleading. In this case, Faris includes a Curtis
picture showing that this woman had a rich, warm, beaming smile
that remained unknown to us due to Curtis' decision to never share
her expressive face with the outside world. Instead,
all of the images this well-known photographer published of her
depict a somber native who, as Faris relates, was apparently "dressed
up" for the camera.
Organizationally, the book shows that choices determine how a
story is told. The editors favored portraying the histories
in a postmodern fashion and through anthropological eyes.
Bracketing the book into three parts -Personal Archives,"
"Visual Economies," and "Self-Fashioning and Vernacular
Modernism" -led to the mixing of traditions within parts.
While the global feel of this mixture was a positive, the approach
often separated related essays. It was not a major problem,
but I did find that the placement of contributions undermined
the bookęs ability to connect articles that shared historical
crosscurrents. For example, I would have liked the four
essays on the Australian Aborigines to have been placed together.
As an alternative the tone moves from personal reactions to issues
that relate more to practices
The initial chapters set the stage with three first-person accounts
by two indigenous Australians and a Seminole/Muskogee/Diné artist.
After reading through Christopher Pinney's quite academic introduction,
Jo-Anne Driessens' essay, "Relating to Photographs"
was notably refreshing. Using a human voice, she eschews dry jargon
in favor of clear presentation of her poignant story. Adopted
at two weeks of age, Driessens explains that she discovered her
Aboriginal background through photographs in the Tindale Collection.
I was immediately won over by the sincerity expressed in this
piece. Although the shortest in the book, in my opinion,
it was the best.
The next two sections might be characterized as a mix of anthropology
and visual culture. Roslyn Poignant's exposé of misused photography
was presented in the "The Making of Professional 'Savages':
From P.T. Barnum". As Pinney explains, she "inserts
photographic representations of abducted indigenous Australians
in the context of a history of earlier depictions."
A fragment of forthcoming work, this author raises important questions
regarding the well-known historical trend of demeaning others
and stereotyping. Also of interest is Morris Low's essay
on the documentation demonstrating Japanese colonialism in Manchuria.
Nicolas Peterson's treatment in "The Changing Photographic
Contract: Aborigines and Image Ethics" was the best in this
section, in my opinion, due to its scope. Dividing the topic
into three periods (1840s-1920s, 1920s-1971, 1971-present), Peterson
successfully communicates how photography registered in relation
to Aboriginal culture. Here we see that the tool opened
a dialogue as issues were identified, misunderstandings were clarified,
and differences about the role of photography matured over time.
To his credit, Peterson writes with an even hand in conveying
how difficult it is to reconcile the Aboriginal right to protect
their heritage with the desire of anthropologists to document
this culture. Placing the subject in a broad framework allowed
him to illuminate heart-felt positions. His presentation
also reinforced the impressions I formed after a recent visit
to Australia, where I was struck by the population's struggle
to come to terms with the range of viewpoints regarding these
issues and the historical record.
The third section raises important questions about how other practices
relate to photography. To oversimplify, this section was
more like life: both rich and diffuse. I was enthralled
by Deborah Poole's "Figueroa Aznar and the Cusco Indigenistas:
Photography and Modernism in Early-Twentieth-Century Peru".
Poole suggests that Figueroa, a painter and photographer,
borrowed heavily from the literature and art of European Romanticism.
Subsequently he created an approach to both photography and modernity
that intentionally departed from European Modernism. Poole's expansive
piece demonstrates that this artist's tangentially modernist style
was shaped by Peruvian understandings of photography and art.
Also of note was the final essay, by Stephen F. Sprague, "Yoruba
Photography". Sprague explains that daguerreotyping came
to Africa only three months after it was invented and, in doing
so, conveys the degree to which the Yoruba integrated the technology
into their own culture. His analysis also underscores that
the history of photography propagated throughout the globe almost
immediately.
Although far-reaching and ambitious, Photography's Other Histories
is not flawless. The essays too often seemed to dichotomize
cultures. This simplistification to some degree stems from
the decision to highlight the "Other", which is so ingrained
in anthropology's essentially Euro-American methodology.
The concept, to my mind, seems to defy the intention to broaden
cross-cultural awareness. While it is widely accepted, I
continue to believe that the "Other" characterization
definitionally undermines that each culture has a history to those
who live through its events and to present these episodes in terms
of "Other" language is to write-up the research from
what is at times an inappropriate vantage point. The problem
of "otherness" was especially noticeable in some of
the early, personal essays, where it seemed that some writers
editorialized on the 'other' in a way that initially gave me the
impression that the book was too heavily weighted toward presenting
Fourth World points of view. As it turned out, it is a balanced
publication overall.
One dramatically evident oversight related to this approach was
that the emphasis on the 'other' here failed to consider that
the traditional canon equally ignores Euro-American contributions
that are not easily fit into the well-developed story of photography.
Including some of these overlooked histories would have strengthened
the contributions by demonstrating the Euro-American tradition
has excluded many we would define as Euro-Amercian. For
example, the California nature photographers (e.g,. Carleton
Watkins) of the nineteenth century are similarly hard to fit into
the traditional historical discourse. They, too, could have
easily been presented in terms of "photography's other histories"
to accentuate that the narrow photographic discourse generally
adopted excludes all kinds of trajectories. Although quite
American, these Californian photographers are difficult to conceive
in terms of the "spectacle society " so often used assess
the nineteenth century photography. Navajo history, too, is surely
American history. Yet, in the structure provided by this
book it seems that indigenous histories are basically termed non-Western
and crosscurrents tend to be read in increasingly prescribed ways
as a result. Clearly, the way in which the Euro-American
versus non-Western terminology infers a colonial dimension is
worthy of discussion. Still, in my opinion, the complexity
of communication is too real to characterize lightly. How
local histories develop can be needlessly over-simplified and
is exacerbated when characterizations are inaccurately presented
in terms of an artificial dichotomy.
In summary, this book is an excellent reminder of how much all
cultures have to learn about others. At times the essays
too strongly project opposing cultural views. Still, its
scope and structure suggest Photography's Other Histories
would be a good choice for a textbook. General readers will
also find the book appealing. Well-researched, these essays
concisely bring to mind the reality of the photographic experience.