Photography, History of

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Dictionary / Encyclopedia Article

Reference

Photography, History of

SOHIER, Estelle

SOHIER, Estelle. Photography, History of. In: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: O-X . Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010. p. 145-149

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:32643

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Photography, history of

Since its beginnings P. has contributed consider- ably to scientiﬁ c research; ÷archaeology documented its ﬁ ndings in P. already from the late 19^th cent. (e.g., DAE I–IV), and ethnographical research heavily relied on P. and still does (e.g., VSAe I–III). In recent years, historical photos have been used to trace environmental change (e.g., Nyssen et al. 2009). Especially since the 1980s photographic collections concerning Ethi- opia and Eritrea have been used by researchers as historical documents and sources (Triulzi 1988;

1995).

Photographs can be traced in public and private collections in Ethiopia or abroad, especially in Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States, Switzerland, but also in other coun- tries. The photographers had very different back- grounds – amateurs or professionals, missionaries, craftsmen, colonialists, scientists, businessmen, Europeans, Indians, Ethiopians and others. Pho- tographers of the Horn had various interests and cultures that led to a very diverse production.

Photos of Ethiopia can today be found in private collections, ÷museums, ÷libraries, and P. agencies. They are conserved as originals (mostly on paper but also dry plates, stereoscopic glass slides, etc.), as printed photos from books, or kept in electronic data bases. One of the most important collections belongs to the ÷Institute of Ethi- opian Studies in Addis Abäba. The Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente in Rome and the University “l’Orien- 35 cylinders during his

stay in Ethiopia 1921 to 1924, and Max ÷Grühl completed seven cylinders in 1926 during the German Nile–Lake Rudolf–Käfa-Expedi- tion. Information about these recordings is sup- plied in the accompa- nying documentation and correspondence.

The P. of Berlin fo- cus on music. They provide a survey of tra- ditional songs, public performances, musical instruments and short examples of texts. To- day the collections be- long to the Department of Ethnomusicology in the Ethnographical

Max Grühl and his team recording music with a phonograph during the Käfa expedition (1925–26); photo from Grühl, 1935 pl. 31

Museum and National Museum in Berlin, and are part of the early cylinder recordings inscribed in the UNESCO list “Memory of the World” in 1999.

Other P. collections are found in Sweden and Austria. A collection recorded by the Swedish missionary Gustaf Richard ÷Sundström com- prises 30 cylinders from about 1912. The Vienna Phono gramm archiv holds phonograms of GéŸéz, recorded in 1912 in Cairo and Jerusalem by R.A.

Péter and G. Klameth.

Src.: Montagu Sinclair Wellby, ‘Twixt Sirdar and Menelik, London 1901, 76ff.

Lit.: Abraham Demoz, “Emperor Menelik‘s Phonograph Message to Queen Victoria”, BSOAS 32, 2, 1969, 251–56;

ArEvang 357; DAE I; Max Grühl, Abessinien ahoi, Ber- lin 1935, pl. 31; Felix Rosen, Eine deutsche Gesandtschaft in Abessinien, Leipzig 1907; Wolbert G.C. Smidt, “A War-Song on Yohannes IV against the Egyptians, Recited by Lég Täfäri in Aksum, 1906”, Studies of the Department of African Languages and Cultures, Warsaw University 41, 2007, 107–31; Timkehet Teffera, Historische Tonauf- nahmen aus Axum – Äthiopien: Sammlung Kaschke 1906, ms., Phonogramm-Archiv Berlin 2002; Rainer Voigt,

“Gärmän dägg näw ‘Deutsches/Deutschland ist gut!’: Ein amharisches Lied zu Ehren des deutschen Kaisers aus der Sammlung Kaschke”, Aethiopica 7, 2004, 146–59; Susanne Ziegler, “Historical Sound Recordings from Ethio- pia on Wax Cylinders” in: AfrHorn 322–43; Ead., Die Wachszylinder des Berliner Phonogramm-Archivs (mit CD-ROM), Berlin 2006; Ead., “Die phonographische Sammlung von Erich Kaschke (Axum-Expedition 1906)”, in: WenDAE II, in preparation.

Susanne Ziegler

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tale” in Naples possess a great number of pictures of Eri- trea and Ethiopia (Palma 1996; 2005). The Völkerkunde- museum of Zurich University keeps the photographic collection of Alfred ÷Ilg of some 1,000 silver bromide gelatine dry plates and stereoscopic glass slides (Biasio 2004). In France there are numerous public and private collections, e.g., in the ÷Bibliothèque nationale (Hirsch – Perret 1995). In Germany, an important collection of ethnographic photos is kept by the Frobenius-Institut in Frankfurt/Main. The Kunstkamera of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Rus- sian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, preserves 19^th- to early 20^th-cent. photos of Russian travellers. In Canada, the electronic database DEEDS conserves thousands of photographs of Ethiopian cultural sites for scholarly use.

P. was ﬁ rst used in Ethiopia in 1859 by Henry

÷Stern, a Protestant missionary, who took pictures of people and places. Most photos seem to have disappeared but are known from the engrav- ings he published in 1862. The British expedition of 1867–68 next made an extensive use of the camera (cp. ﬁ g. 1). Seven professional photographers attached to the troops took pictures of military interest, but also of Ethiopian personalities (e.g., the son of ÷Tewodros II, ÷ŸAlämayyähu), of settlements and landscapes (some of them were published in Pankhurst – Gérard 1996: 19ff.; s.

also Gräber 1999). Following the advances in photographic technique, the number of amateur photographers increased in the last quarter of the 19^th cent. Explorers, craftsmen, businessmen and missionaries visiting the coastal regions (÷Eritrea; ÷Djibouti) and ÷Šäwa, ÷Ogaden,

÷Käfa, ÷Gimma, ÷Somali, ÷Tégray etc. produced photographs, some for use in travel litera- ture, thanks to the advance of ÷printing technol- ogy. E.g., the impressive photographs of the Ital-

ian Secondo Bertolani from the early 20^th cent. were – and still are – published in many books both in Ethiopia and abroad (GueCopMen).

The young Eritrean colony witnessed the ﬁ rst photographic studios. The photographers Luigi Naretti, Giovanni and Francesco Nicotra or Ledru Mauro from Messina established themselves in ÷Massawa from 1885. Up to 1897 they mostly photographed military topics, following the colonial expansion of Eritrea. Some- times authorized by the Minis- try of War to follow the Italian Fig. 1: Detail from a panorama photo showing the Napier expedition’s fleet at Zula

bay; photo 1867/68, Agfa Fotorama, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Köln

troops inside the country, some photographers provided information about the colonial conquest, such as Luigi Fiorillo (Goglia 1989: 17).

The military commanders were eager to promote propaganda about the success of their opera- tions, or used photography to identify brigands (Palma 2005: 42). The ﬁ rst photographic production was therefore devoted to Italian achieve-

Fig. 2: A photo of the éccäge Tewoﬂ os by Naretti, ca.

1880s; from GueCopMen 144

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ments, views of Massawa, native troops but also to arrested persons, trials or to chiefs who allied themselves with the Italians (Palma 2005: 46).

The most important photographer of this period was Luigi Naretti (cp. ﬁ g. 2). He photographed such personalities as ras ÷Mängäša Yohannés in Mäqälä (GueCopMen 1, 352), and also the palace of the ruler ÷Yohannés IV, built by his cousin Giacomo ÷Naretti (Palma 2002). Like the other photographers, Naretti published his pictures as postcards for sale in the colony, or sold them to the growing Italian illustrated ÷press. P. then contributed to the construction of a greater con- sensus among the still very much divided public in favour of colonialism (Palma 2005: 40). After the turn of the 20^th cent., new photographers ar- rived in Eritrea in a more peaceful context and photographed the local population, daily life and the city rather than ofﬁ cials. Considerable expansion of P. took place in ÷Asmära during the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936.

In Ethiopia, the ﬁ rst studio was opened in Addis Abäba in 1905 by Bedros Boyadjian. During a visit together with the archbishop of the Armenia Church of Jerusalem, he was asked by ase

÷Ménilék II to stay in Ethiopia. The establish- ment of the Armenian Levon Yazidjian from the

÷Ottoman Empire followed in 1909, then that of the Indian G. Mody. P. expanded signiﬁ cantly in the 1920s, with the opening of several studios by foreigners, mainly along Ras Mäk^wännén Avenue (Pank hurst – Gérard 1996: 36). Some professionals also practised provisionally in the country, especially during national events such as the ÷coronation of ÷Òaylä Íéllase I in 1930, for instance the German Josef Steinlehner. Several photographers also began offering cheap “minute photographs” in the market area (Pankhurst – Gérard 1996: 36), but P. remained a luxury product be- fore the Italian invasion.

From the beginning, P. played a role in the political life of the Horn. Yohannés IV was the ﬁ rst ruler to have been portrayed by a camera, both alone and with his son ÷Arýaya in the 1880s. Ménilék II and his successors then made consequent political use of the new medium, and their portraits are countless. In the beginning, Ménilék II used the skills of amateur photographers from the 1880s such as Alfred Ilg or of Secondo Bertolani, an employee of the Ital- ian legation. After 1905 Bedros Boyadjian and his successors Haïgaz and Tony Boyadjian became the ofﬁ cial photographers of the court for

more than half a century. Photos of Ménilék II,

÷Zäwditu, and Täfäri (later ase Òaylä Íéllase I) also led to such by-products as postcards, coins, medals (÷Orders and decorations) and ÷stamps.

They also led to a change of style in royal portraits in church ÷paintings (Sohier 2007; e.g., néguí ÷Mikaýel Ali with an imperial crown in a miniature in a ms. of Däbrä Hayq Éstifanos, after a photo, s. Smidt 2008). The creation and use of these pictures were part of the sovereigns’

answer to the deep political and geographical transformation of these times and to the defence of their independence from colonial conquest.

The use of P. formed part of a wider symbolic policy that included other means such as texts and ceremonies (Sohier 2007). P. was also used as evidence during political or judicial problems, including for the purpose of political defama- tion: for example, a modiﬁ ed photograph of lég

÷Iyasu in Muslim dress, produced by Levon Yazedjian, contributed to his fall in September 1916 (Berhanou Abebe 2003; however, a photo Fig. 3: Fitawrari “Wazazu Atefek” (Wäzäzu [?] Atäfk),

postcard printed in Ethiopia; photo 1930s, unknown photographer, from the collection of the IES (W no. 149)

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portrait of néguí Mikaýel, said to be a falsiﬁ cation [s. Berhanou Abebe 2003] was in fact a real pho- to, s. Smidt 2008). Numerous modiﬁ cations were also done for purposes of layout and clarity.

Beginning with the death of ras ÷Mäk^wännén in 1906, it also became customary to display a photographic efﬁ gy of the deceased during the funeral procession, whenever such a portrait was available (Pankhurst – Gérard 1996:30).

P. and its by-products were also widely used by the Italian government to legitimize the colonial conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. The Istituto LUCE was established in Asmära and transferred

published after the war as evidence of the violence used by the fascist troops (Kali-Nyah 1946). But the main part of Italian photographic production during the occupation was dedicated to their huge construction works.

At the same time, the followers of Òaylä Íéllase also used P. to support their struggle. The Austrian Arnold Weinhold took pictures of Ethiopian ÷re- sistance fi ghters (Pankhurst – Gérard 1998: 144), whilst British photographers documented the troops of the King of Kings and his return to Ethi- opia. These images were reproduced in different mediums (books, church paintings) by the Ethi- opian royalty after 1941 to justify its behaviour during the war (cp. fi g. 4). Later, a defamatory photographic campaign was, in turn, used against Òaylä Íéllase by his adversaries during the ÷Rev- olution of 1974 (Perret 1995); the distribution of photos and fi lm material of the Wällo ÷famine was of crucial importance for the change in public opinion towards the ruler both locally as well as internationally. Pictures of Òaylä Íéllase then disappeared from the public arena until 1991.

Progressive change marked photographic production in the second half of the 20^th cent. Until the 1930s, only one Ethiopian photographer ac- quired some importance, but after the war Ethio- pia’s professional and amateur photographers increased. The Ministry of Information sent students abroad to study photograph-reportage; the court to Addis Abäba after the con-

quest. 7,000 negatives had by then been reproduced, and were distributed in 350,000 copies, 60,000 metres of ﬁ lm were shot and 18 documentaries produced (Goglia 1989: 34f.). P. was the tool of carefully produced propaganda and contributed to the popularity of the conquest in It- aly. Erotic pictures of Ethiopian women were also designed to ap- peal to Mussolini’s soldiers, but were withdrawn after the estab- lishment of a policy of racial dis- crimination in ÷Africa Orientale Italiana (÷Sexuality). Alongside the ofﬁ cial photographic production, many Italian soldiers also used their own cameras to record their adventures (e.g., Steinacher 2006). Photos of mas- sacres were also taken, and then

employed Ethiopian photographers, such as Yohannés Òaylä (Pank hurst – Gérard 1998: 134) or later Šimällés Dästa. Italians and Armenians opened popular photo studios (cp. ﬁ g. 3) in the capital, such as “Photalité” near the National Theatre or “Photo Jiro”, but there were also Ethio- pian studios, such as “Photo Berhan” or “Photo Speedy”

(Pankhurst – Gérard 1998: 145).

The numbers of studios increased dramatically in all the regional capitals of the country during the last quarter of the 20^th cent., whilst the cost of P. became affordable to many. P. accom- panied the life of urban Ethio- pians (especially important for infancy, graduation ceremonies, weddings, and burials). Ethio- pian photographers developed Fig. 4: Òaylä Íéllase’s mobilization during the Italian

conquest, photo 1935/36, unknown photographer, 1935–36; from the collection of the IES (S1, no. 12)

Fig. 5: Photographed on commission: Stu- dio “Photo Matéwos”, Mätähara, 1977; private collection

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their own style from imported techniques. The retouching and colouring of photos is an Ethiopi- an speciality, derived from techniques introduced by Armenian photographers (Hersan 1998); the technique of duplicated or doubled portraits was used in Ethiopia and Eritrea – as in West Africa – from the 1970s (cp. ﬁ g. 5). The Ethiopian tour- ist information ofﬁ ce issued postcards and made extensive use of P. to attract tourists (one photo from a 1960s touristic brochure later even served as a model for the one Bérr note showing a shep- herd boy).

Not all inhabitants of the Horn have access to or show any interest in P. In the south of Ethi- opia, e.g., the ÷Ña¡atom still had no interest, they showed moreover some suspicion towards the camera in the 1970s (Tornay 1991). Some Muslims today refuse to be photographed, even if most did not in the past (such as in ÷Somalia).

For other groups of the ÷Omo region, the photographic activities of tourists or other professionals in search of exoticism and supporters of primitivism myths are nowadays a source of in- come for the photographed (Tornay 2009).

Already in the 1930s and 1950s, but to a much higher degree from the 1990s, photo books at- tracted the interest of the public in Ethiopia and formed the image of Ethiopia in the West. Origi- nally, photo books focused more on the Chris- tian highlands, with some interest in Muslim are- as in eastern Ethiopia (such as ÷Harär); in recent years a great number of high-quality art-print books have focused on southern populations, regarded as “exotic” witnesses of the richness of human culture, while many photo publications also uncovered the great iconographic heritage of the highlands. Due to a rising interest in historical P., there are a number of new books documenting the Ethiopia of the past through historical photo collections (e.g., Pankhurst – Gérard 1996; Biasio 2004; Steinacher 2006; Fasil Giorghis – Gérard 2007; Smidt 2009).

Lit.: Berhanou Abebe, “Montages et trucages photographiques dans l’Éthiopie moderne”, AE 19, 2003, 19–41;

Id., “Les Boyadjian, photographes de cour en Éthiopie”, in: Alain Metternich (ed.), Les Boyadjian, Photographes arméniens à la cour du Négus, Paris 2007 (Connaissance des Arts, Hors-série 327), 3–13; Elisabeth Biasio, Prunk und Pracht am Hofe Menileks: Alfred Ilgs Äthiopien um 1900 – Majesty and Magniﬁ cence at the Court of Menilek: Alfred Ilg‘s Ethiopia, Zürich 2004; Antoine Cheret, Les photo- graphies anciennes de l’Ethiopie (1888–1930), M.A. thesis, Université Paris I, 1995; Luigi Goglia, Colonialismo e fo- tograﬁ a. Il caso italiano, Messina 1989; Fasil Giorghis – Denis Gérard, Addis Ababa 1886–1941: the City and its Architectural Heritage/La Ville et son Patrimoine archi-

tectural, Addis Ababa 2007; Gerd Gräber, “Die befrei- ten Geiseln Kaiser Tewodros’ II. Aus dem Photoalbum der Royal Engineers 1867/68”, Aethiopica 2, 1999, 159–

82; GueCopMen 1, 352; Guy Hersant, “Portraits peints d’Addis-Ababa”, in: Anthologie de la photographie africai- ne, Revue Noire, Paris 1998, 148–51; Bertrand Hirsch – Michel Perret, Ethiopie, années 30, Paris 1989; Id.,

“Fonds photographiques français concernant l’Ethiopie:

quelques réﬂ exions préliminaires”, in: Triulzi 1995, 213–

19; Imani Kali-Nyah, Italy’s War Crimes in Ethiopia 1935–1941, Evidence for the War Crimes Commission, ed.

by Sylvia Pankhurst, s.l. [Essex] 1946 (2^nd ed. Chicago, IL 2000); Jan Nyssen et al., “Desertiﬁ cation? Northern Ethiopia Re-photographed after 140 years”, Science of the Total Environment 10, 1016, 2009; Adolfo Mignemi (ed.), Immagine coordinata per un impero. Etiopia 1935–

1936, Novara 1984; Silvana Palma (ed.), Archivio storico della società africana d’Italia, vol. 2: Raccolte fotografi che e cartografi che, Napoli 1996; Ead., “Fotografi a di una co- lonia: L’Eritrea di Luigi Naretti (1885–1900)”, Quaderni Storici 109, 2002, 83–147; Ead., “The Seen, the Unseen, the Invented. Misrepresentations of African ‘Otherness’

in the Making of a Colony. Eritrea, 1885–1896”, Cahiers d’Études africaines 45, 1, 177, 2005, 39–69; Ead., L’Africa nella collezione fotograﬁ ca dell’IsIAO. Il fondo Eritrea–

Etiopia, Roma 2005; Richard Pankhurst – Denis Gérard, Ethiopia Photographed: Historic Photographs of the Coun- try and its People taken between 1867 and 1935, London – New York 1996, 27 (ill.); Iid., “Photographes de cour”, in: Anthologie de la photographie africaine et de l’Océan Indien, Paris 1998, 133–46; Wolbert G.C. Smidt, “The Coronation of Negus Mikael, King of Wollo and Tigray, in May 1914: New Findings”, AE 23, 2007–08, 413–39 (Lit.); Id., Photos as Historical Witnesses, the First Ethi- opians in Germany and the First Germans in Ethiopia – the History of a Complex Relationship, Münster – Berlin ²2009; Estelle Sohier, Politiques de l’image et pouvoir royal en Éthiopie de Menilek II à Haylä Sellasé (1880–1936), Ph.D. thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon- Sorbonne – Università “l’Orientale” Napoli, 2007; Gerald Steinacher (ed.), Zwischen Duce und Negus, Südtirol und der Abessinienkrieg 1935–1941, Bozen 2006 (Publi- cazioni dell’Archivio Provinciale di Bolzano 22); Serge Tornay, “Photographie et traitement d’autrui: réﬂ exions d’un ethnographe”, L’Ethnographie 87, 1, 1991, 97–112;

Id., “Du corps humain comme marchandise. Mythe pri- mitiviste et harcèlement photographique dans la Vallée de l’Omo, Éthiopie”, Afrique et histoire 7, 2009, 331–42;

Alessandro Triulzi, “Fotografi a coloniale e storia del- l’Africa”, Archivio Fotografi co Toscano, Rivista di Storia e Fotografi a 8, 1988, 39–42; Id. (ed.), Fotografi a e storia dell’Africa, Atti del Convegno Internazionale Napoli – Roma 9–11 settembre 1992, Napoli 1995; Id., “Africa: die- ci anni di indagine. A che punto siamo”, Archivio Fotogra- fi co Toscano 21, 1995, 7–11.

Estelle Sohier

Physiologos ÷Fisalgos Piaggia, Carlo

P. (b. 4 January 1827, Badia Cantignano, Lucca, Italy, d. 17 January 1882, Karkodje, Sinnar) was an Italian traveller and explorer. After the sudden loss of his family in 1849, he travelled to Tunis