“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge – and, therefore, like power.” Susan Sontag On Photography. The photographs in colonies began around 1850 to 1915 in a time of the high imperialism. In this time there were the birth of two types of mass produced images of peoples, who lived in Africa, India, Australia and in other colonies. On the one hand were the live displays of primitive peoples, the generic field or anthropological photographs that were stages at exhibitions. On the other hand there were the photographic images of these people, which formed part of an emerging international tourist industry as well there are studio photographs …show more content…
The first type were two methods, which were invented to give a worldwide standardization how to photograph aboriginal people and to use the method for other races as well. The first method was invented by Henry Huxley, who recommended that all non-European subjects should be photographed naked and their bodies should pose in such a way that the viewer compare unimpeded their bodies with the anatomy of other racial peoples (Maxwell 40). On the photograph was also a plainly marked measuring-scale placed, which were in the same plane as the subject (41). The second man, who invented a similar method, was J. H. Lamprey. He invented a ´cross-sectional mesh constructed from silk threads stretched two inches apart on a three-foot by seven-foot frame´. In which the colonized peoples were shown naked and were photographed in full-length in front and in profile (Maxwell 41). The frontal poses and stark backgrounds associate these images also with photographs of racial types (Webb …show more content…
Also the exhibition managers did, which showed the images, because they created time-worn myths about the colonized peoples for their exhibitions about practices such as cannibalism and prostitution. So that these peoples were portrayed in this exhibitions, which appeared first around the 1860s, as flouting the taboos associated with the civilization (Maxwell 2). These myths allowed or gave Europeans the power to ´deflect the violence they had inflicted on “native” populations´. These people they had stolen the resources, the land as well whose culture they were undermining (2). They also promoted a lower entry fee, so that more audience could come and look at the pictures (Lewis