Local portraiture : through the lens of 19th-century Iranian photographers / Carmen Pérez González.

Leiden : Leiden University Press, [2012]

©2012

328 pages : facsimiles, illustrations (some color), portraits (some color) ; 24 cm.

In English; occasional phrases in Arabic with English translations.

Photography is clearly not a mirror of daily life: that images are constructions is especially obvious in 19th-century studio portrait photography. This book explores how indigenous Iranian photographers constructed their own realities in contrast to how foreign photographers constructed Iranians' realities. Through an in-depth comparative visual analysis of 19th-century Iranian portrait photography and Persian painting, the author arrives at the insight that aesthetic preferences correlate with socio-cultural habits and practices in writing, reading and looking. Subsequently, she advocates for a place in a global history of photography for those unknown, local photo histories (such as the Iranian one) and for the indigenous photographers who produced them.

English; Arabic

March 27, 2014

Includes bibliographical references and index.