Author: Christopher Pinney
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226668659
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Pinney identifies three key moments In Indian portraiture: the use of photography as a quantifiable instrument of measurement under British rule, the role of portraiture in moral instruction, and the current visual style of popular culture and its effects on modes of picturing. Photographic culture thus becomes a mutable realm in which capturing likeness is only part of the project. Today, Indian images are characterized by a distinctive postcolonial photographic practice, which involves sophisticated inventiveness and techniques such as overpainting, collage, composite printing and doubling. Contemporary portraits that showcase these techniques rely as well on elaborate backdrops and props such as motorbikes to construct an endless variety of identities, challenging the prior use of photography as documentation and description.
Camera Indica
Author: Christopher Pinney
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226668659
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Pinney identifies three key moments In Indian portraiture: the use of photography as a quantifiable instrument of measurement under British rule, the role of portraiture in moral instruction, and the current visual style of popular culture and its effects on modes of picturing. Photographic culture thus becomes a mutable realm in which capturing likeness is only part of the project. Today, Indian images are characterized by a distinctive postcolonial photographic practice, which involves sophisticated inventiveness and techniques such as overpainting, collage, composite printing and doubling. Contemporary portraits that showcase these techniques rely as well on elaborate backdrops and props such as motorbikes to construct an endless variety of identities, challenging the prior use of photography as documentation and description.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226668659
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Pinney identifies three key moments In Indian portraiture: the use of photography as a quantifiable instrument of measurement under British rule, the role of portraiture in moral instruction, and the current visual style of popular culture and its effects on modes of picturing. Photographic culture thus becomes a mutable realm in which capturing likeness is only part of the project. Today, Indian images are characterized by a distinctive postcolonial photographic practice, which involves sophisticated inventiveness and techniques such as overpainting, collage, composite printing and doubling. Contemporary portraits that showcase these techniques rely as well on elaborate backdrops and props such as motorbikes to construct an endless variety of identities, challenging the prior use of photography as documentation and description.
Camera Indica
Author: Christopher Pinney
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780231520
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
A wedding couple gazes resolutely at viewers from the wings of a butterfly; a portrait surrounded by rose petals commemorates a recently deceased boy. These quiet but moving images represent the changing role of photographic portraiture in India, a topic anthropologist Christopher Pinney explores in Camera Indica. Studying photographic practice in India, Pinney traces photography's various purposes and goals from colonial through postcolonial times. He identifies three key periods in Indian portraiture: the use of photography under British rule as a quantifiable instrument of measurement, the later role of portraiture in moral instruction, and the current visual popular culture and its effects on modes of picturing. Photographic culture thus becomes a mutable realm in which capturing likeness is only part of the project. Lavishly illustrated, Pinney's account of the change from depiction to invention uncovers fascinating links between these evocative images and the society and history from which they emerge.
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780231520
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Book Description
A wedding couple gazes resolutely at viewers from the wings of a butterfly; a portrait surrounded by rose petals commemorates a recently deceased boy. These quiet but moving images represent the changing role of photographic portraiture in India, a topic anthropologist Christopher Pinney explores in Camera Indica. Studying photographic practice in India, Pinney traces photography's various purposes and goals from colonial through postcolonial times. He identifies three key periods in Indian portraiture: the use of photography under British rule as a quantifiable instrument of measurement, the later role of portraiture in moral instruction, and the current visual popular culture and its effects on modes of picturing. Photographic culture thus becomes a mutable realm in which capturing likeness is only part of the project. Lavishly illustrated, Pinney's account of the change from depiction to invention uncovers fascinating links between these evocative images and the society and history from which they emerge.
The Camera as Actor
Author: Amy Cox Hall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000182525
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Looking beyond the impact photographs have on the perpetuation and expression of social norms and stereotypes, and the influence of the act of taking a photograph, this new collection brings together international scholars to examine the camera itself as an actor. Bringing the camera back into view, this volume furthers our understanding of how, and in what ways, imaging technology shapes us, our lives, and the representations out of which we fashion knowledge, base our judgments and ultimately act. Through a broad range of case studies, the authors in this collection make the convincing claim that the camera is much more than a mechanical device brought to life by the photographer. This book will be of interest to scholars in photography, visual culture, anthropology and the history of photography.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000182525
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Looking beyond the impact photographs have on the perpetuation and expression of social norms and stereotypes, and the influence of the act of taking a photograph, this new collection brings together international scholars to examine the camera itself as an actor. Bringing the camera back into view, this volume furthers our understanding of how, and in what ways, imaging technology shapes us, our lives, and the representations out of which we fashion knowledge, base our judgments and ultimately act. Through a broad range of case studies, the authors in this collection make the convincing claim that the camera is much more than a mechanical device brought to life by the photographer. This book will be of interest to scholars in photography, visual culture, anthropology and the history of photography.
Camera Orientalis
Author: Ali Behdad
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022635654X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229
Book Description
In the decades after its invention in 1839, photography was inextricably linked to the Middle East. Introduced as a crucial tool for Egyptologists and Orientalists who needed to document their archaeological findings, the photograph was easier and faster to produce in intense Middle Eastern light—making the region one of the original sites for the practice of photography. A pioneering study of this intertwined history, Camera Orientalis traces the Middle East’s influences on photography’s evolution, as well as photography’s effect on Europe’s view of “the Orient.” Considering a range of Western and Middle Eastern archival material from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ali Behdad offers a rich account of how photography transformed Europe’s distinctly Orientalist vision into what seemed objective fact, a transformation that proved central to the project of European colonialism. At the same time, Orientalism was useful for photographers from both regions, as it gave them a set of conventions by which to frame exotic Middle Eastern cultures for Western audiences. Behdad also shows how Middle Eastern audiences embraced photography as a way to foreground status and patriarchal values while also exoticizing other social classes. An important examination of previously overlooked European and Middle Eastern photographers and studios, Camera Orientalis demonstrates that, far from being a one-sided European development, Orientalist photography was the product of rich cultural contact between the East and the West.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022635654X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229
Book Description
In the decades after its invention in 1839, photography was inextricably linked to the Middle East. Introduced as a crucial tool for Egyptologists and Orientalists who needed to document their archaeological findings, the photograph was easier and faster to produce in intense Middle Eastern light—making the region one of the original sites for the practice of photography. A pioneering study of this intertwined history, Camera Orientalis traces the Middle East’s influences on photography’s evolution, as well as photography’s effect on Europe’s view of “the Orient.” Considering a range of Western and Middle Eastern archival material from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ali Behdad offers a rich account of how photography transformed Europe’s distinctly Orientalist vision into what seemed objective fact, a transformation that proved central to the project of European colonialism. At the same time, Orientalism was useful for photographers from both regions, as it gave them a set of conventions by which to frame exotic Middle Eastern cultures for Western audiences. Behdad also shows how Middle Eastern audiences embraced photography as a way to foreground status and patriarchal values while also exoticizing other social classes. An important examination of previously overlooked European and Middle Eastern photographers and studios, Camera Orientalis demonstrates that, far from being a one-sided European development, Orientalist photography was the product of rich cultural contact between the East and the West.
Celluloid Deities
Author: Preminda Jacob
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739131303
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
Towering billboards featuring photorealistic portraits of popular cinema stars and political leaders dominated the cityscape of Chennai, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Studying the manufacture and reception of these billboards_known locally as banners and cutouts_within the context of the entwined histories of the cinema industry and political parties in Tamil Nadu, Preminda Jacob reveals the broader significance of these fragments of visual culture beyond their immediate function as pretty pieces of advertising. Jacob analyzes the juxtaposition of cinematic and political imagery in the extra-cinematic terrain of Chennai's city streets and how this placement was pivotal to the elevation of regional celebrities to cult status. When interpreting these images and discussing their political and cultural resonance within the Tamil Nadu community, Jacob draws upon multiple perspectives to give appropriate context to this fascinating form of visual media.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739131303
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
Towering billboards featuring photorealistic portraits of popular cinema stars and political leaders dominated the cityscape of Chennai, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Studying the manufacture and reception of these billboards_known locally as banners and cutouts_within the context of the entwined histories of the cinema industry and political parties in Tamil Nadu, Preminda Jacob reveals the broader significance of these fragments of visual culture beyond their immediate function as pretty pieces of advertising. Jacob analyzes the juxtaposition of cinematic and political imagery in the extra-cinematic terrain of Chennai's city streets and how this placement was pivotal to the elevation of regional celebrities to cult status. When interpreting these images and discussing their political and cultural resonance within the Tamil Nadu community, Jacob draws upon multiple perspectives to give appropriate context to this fascinating form of visual media.
The Coming of Photography in India
Author: Christopher Pinney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Though photography reaches as far back as the sixteenth-century’s camera obscura projects, it wasn’t until the British colonial period that amateur photographers introduced their technology to the Indian subcontinent. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, India was at the center of a representational revolution. Was photography in India simply a void, waiting to be filled by pre-existing cultural and historical practice? Or was it disruptive, throwing up new opportunities, prophesying new social formations, and bringing anxieties about formerly secluded events and practices into a newly visible sphere? The Coming of Photography in India transcends traditional cultural and technological narratives in order to present a subtle and compelling account of the limits, possibilities, and consequences of photography. Examining technology in order to explain the dynamic incarnation of photographic practice as cure, poison, and prophecy, Christopher Pinney presents a bold account that will reward anyone with an interest in India, photography, or the history of the book. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations and a large number of previously unpublished images, this volume presents a sophisticated account of the “disturbance” that photography has brought to all of our lives.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Though photography reaches as far back as the sixteenth-century’s camera obscura projects, it wasn’t until the British colonial period that amateur photographers introduced their technology to the Indian subcontinent. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, India was at the center of a representational revolution. Was photography in India simply a void, waiting to be filled by pre-existing cultural and historical practice? Or was it disruptive, throwing up new opportunities, prophesying new social formations, and bringing anxieties about formerly secluded events and practices into a newly visible sphere? The Coming of Photography in India transcends traditional cultural and technological narratives in order to present a subtle and compelling account of the limits, possibilities, and consequences of photography. Examining technology in order to explain the dynamic incarnation of photographic practice as cure, poison, and prophecy, Christopher Pinney presents a bold account that will reward anyone with an interest in India, photography, or the history of the book. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations and a large number of previously unpublished images, this volume presents a sophisticated account of the “disturbance” that photography has brought to all of our lives.
The Camera as Witness
Author: Joy L. K. Pachuau
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107073391
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
The book challenges the stereotypes about and narrates the daily lives of the Mizos through the use of vernacular photography.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107073391
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
The book challenges the stereotypes about and narrates the daily lives of the Mizos through the use of vernacular photography.
Snapshot Stories
Author: Erika Hanna
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198823037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
Photographers often depict Ireland with bucolic rural landscapes, but during the twentieth century, men and women across Ireland picked up cameras to create and curate photographs revealing more complex and diverse images of Ireland. Snapshot Stories Uses diverse photographic archives, both professional and personal, to explore these stories.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198823037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
Photographers often depict Ireland with bucolic rural landscapes, but during the twentieth century, men and women across Ireland picked up cameras to create and curate photographs revealing more complex and diverse images of Ireland. Snapshot Stories Uses diverse photographic archives, both professional and personal, to explore these stories.
Empires of the Senses
Author: Andrew J. Rotter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190924713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
When encountering unfamiliar environments in India and the Philippines, the British and the Americans wrote extensively about the first taste of mango and meat spiced with cumin, the smell of excrement and coconut oil, the feel of humidity and rough cloth against skin, the sound of bells and insects, and the appearance of dark-skinned natives and lepers. So too did the colonial subjects they encountered perceive the agents of empire through their senses and their skins. Empire of course involved economics, geopolitics, violence, a desire for order and greatness, a craving for excitement and adventure. It also involved an encounter between authorities and subjects, an everyday process of social interaction, political negotiation, policing, schooling, and healing. While these all concerned what people thought about each other, perceptions of others, as Andrew Rotter shows, were also formed through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. In this book, Rotter offers a sensory history of the British in India from the formal imposition of their rule to its end (1857-1947) and the Americans in the Philippines from annexation to independence (1898-1946). The British and the Americans saw themselves as the civilizers of what they judged backward societies, and they believed that a vital part of the civilizing process was to properly prioritize the senses and to ensure them against offense or affront. Societies that looked shabby, were noisy and smelly, felt wrong, and consumed unwholesome food in unmannerly ways were unfit for self-government. It was the duty of allegedly more sensorily advanced Anglo-Americans to educate them before formally withdrawing their power. Indians and Filipinos had different ideas of what constituted sensory civilization and to some extent resisted imperial efforts to impose their own versions. What eventually emerged were compromises between these nations' sensory regimes. A fascinating and original comparative work, Empires of the Senses offers new perspectives on imperial history.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190924713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
When encountering unfamiliar environments in India and the Philippines, the British and the Americans wrote extensively about the first taste of mango and meat spiced with cumin, the smell of excrement and coconut oil, the feel of humidity and rough cloth against skin, the sound of bells and insects, and the appearance of dark-skinned natives and lepers. So too did the colonial subjects they encountered perceive the agents of empire through their senses and their skins. Empire of course involved economics, geopolitics, violence, a desire for order and greatness, a craving for excitement and adventure. It also involved an encounter between authorities and subjects, an everyday process of social interaction, political negotiation, policing, schooling, and healing. While these all concerned what people thought about each other, perceptions of others, as Andrew Rotter shows, were also formed through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. In this book, Rotter offers a sensory history of the British in India from the formal imposition of their rule to its end (1857-1947) and the Americans in the Philippines from annexation to independence (1898-1946). The British and the Americans saw themselves as the civilizers of what they judged backward societies, and they believed that a vital part of the civilizing process was to properly prioritize the senses and to ensure them against offense or affront. Societies that looked shabby, were noisy and smelly, felt wrong, and consumed unwholesome food in unmannerly ways were unfit for self-government. It was the duty of allegedly more sensorily advanced Anglo-Americans to educate them before formally withdrawing their power. Indians and Filipinos had different ideas of what constituted sensory civilization and to some extent resisted imperial efforts to impose their own versions. What eventually emerged were compromises between these nations' sensory regimes. A fascinating and original comparative work, Empires of the Senses offers new perspectives on imperial history.
Refracted Visions
Author: Karen Strassler
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391546
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
A young couple poses before a painted backdrop depicting a modern building set in a volcanic landscape; a college student grabs his camera as he heads to a political demonstration; a man poses stiffly for his identity photograph; amateur photographers look for picturesque images in a rural village; an old woman leafs through a family album. In Refracted Visions, Karen Strassler argues that popular photographic practices such as these have played a crucial role in the making of modern national subjects in postcolonial Java. Contending that photographic genres cultivate distinctive ways of seeing and positioning oneself and others within the affective, ideological, and temporal location of Indonesia, she examines genres ranging from state identification photos to pictures documenting family rituals. Oriented to projects of selfhood, memory, and social affiliation, popular photographs recast national iconographies in an intimate register. They convey the longings of Indonesian national modernity: nostalgia for rural idylls and “tradition,” desires for the trappings of modernity and affluence, dreams of historical agency, and hopes for political authenticity. Yet photography also brings people into contact with ideas and images that transcend and at times undermine a strictly national frame. Photography’s primary practitioners in the postcolonial era have been Chinese Indonesians. Acting as cultural brokers who translate global and colonial imageries into national idioms, these members of a transnational minority have helped shape the visual contours of Indonesian belonging even as their own place within the nation remains tenuous. Refracted Visions illuminates the ways that everyday photographic practices generate visual habits that in turn give rise to political subjects and communities.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391546
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
A young couple poses before a painted backdrop depicting a modern building set in a volcanic landscape; a college student grabs his camera as he heads to a political demonstration; a man poses stiffly for his identity photograph; amateur photographers look for picturesque images in a rural village; an old woman leafs through a family album. In Refracted Visions, Karen Strassler argues that popular photographic practices such as these have played a crucial role in the making of modern national subjects in postcolonial Java. Contending that photographic genres cultivate distinctive ways of seeing and positioning oneself and others within the affective, ideological, and temporal location of Indonesia, she examines genres ranging from state identification photos to pictures documenting family rituals. Oriented to projects of selfhood, memory, and social affiliation, popular photographs recast national iconographies in an intimate register. They convey the longings of Indonesian national modernity: nostalgia for rural idylls and “tradition,” desires for the trappings of modernity and affluence, dreams of historical agency, and hopes for political authenticity. Yet photography also brings people into contact with ideas and images that transcend and at times undermine a strictly national frame. Photography’s primary practitioners in the postcolonial era have been Chinese Indonesians. Acting as cultural brokers who translate global and colonial imageries into national idioms, these members of a transnational minority have helped shape the visual contours of Indonesian belonging even as their own place within the nation remains tenuous. Refracted Visions illuminates the ways that everyday photographic practices generate visual habits that in turn give rise to political subjects and communities.