Points of View at the British Library

It might seem to be an unlikely visit for documentary photographers or photojournalists, but the exhibition Points of View currently held at the British Library in London features an outstanding number of seminal works in the field of social documentary, travel and war photography. Along with beautiful vintage prints and original photo books on display, it offers a relevant examination of early documentary photography as an ideological and commercially driven practice where photographic truth is rather a constructed representation. A few highlights:

John Thomson, A Cyprian Maid, Cyprus, 1878.  

The book Through Cyprus with the Camera (1879) of John Thomson is on show, along with images of Street Life in London, an important work that helped establish social documentary practice in the UK. In London, Thomson teamed up with journalist Adolphe Smith and together produced a monthly magazine, Street Life in London, from 1876 to 1877. The project used both text and images to illustrate the lives of the street people and the 'undeserving poor' of London using the very same visual approach Thomson did during his previous travels in China or India. Later, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), administration of Cyprus was ceded to the British Empire and in that context John Thomson wanted to create a "faithful souvenir of an island woefully wrecked by Turkish maladministration" whose illustrations would "afford a sense of comparison in after years, when, under the influence of British rule, the place has risen from her ruins".

Also on the walls is the iconic image of Thomas Annan Close No 118, High street, part of the book The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, a striking precedent for current photographic practices concerned with the documentation of areas undergoing "urban regeneration" programs. In 1868 the city corporation of Glasgow commissioned Annan to photograph the streets and closes of the City Parish slums before being demolished in order to leave room for the construction of brand new tenemental dwellings. Although Annan did not considered himself a social reformer in any sense, the series are held to be the earliest documentation of an urban slum - twenty years before the influential How the other Half Lives of Jacob Riis in New York. 

Edward Sheriff Curtis, Waiting in the forest, Cheyenne, 1910

In the section entitled Documenting Difference there are two prints of Edward Sheriff Curtis. In 1906 Curtis set out to document the existing Native American populations of the US with the political support of Theodore Roosevelt and the financial aid of J.P. Morgan. He took 40,000 images and edited them down to the 1,500 that made it to The North America Indian, consisting of twenty volumes. Curtis however manipulated and staged many of his pictures but this was a quite extended practice at the time, especially taking into account that many documentary photographers, like him, were actually commercial and studio practitioners by trade. Curtis then came up with a "simulated ethnography" of Native Americans supposedly unaffected by Western society with the ideological scope of representing them as a vanishing race. That being said, his images, as the one above, are haunting and extremely arresting but also rich in significance and implications, strongly connected to the artistic trends and ideological values of the time. 

Felice Beato, Interior of the North Taku Fort, immediately after its capture, 21 August 1860

Early war photography features prominently in the exhibition. Works of Robert and Harriet Tyler documenting the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857; images of John Burke during the Second Anglo-Afghan War as an example of a photographer embedded within an invading army; the iconic and controversial A Snapshooter's Last Sleep of Alexander Gardner; and several examples of the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent Paris Commune by Ernst Lucke and Henry Langerock.

Important to note as well are the images of Felice Beato documenting the Second Opium War. Again, thought to be acceptable, he arranged many scenes and a witness to the one above noted: "Beato was there in great excitement, characterising the group as 'beautiful' and begging that it might not be interfered with until perpetuated by his photographic apparatus". But the fact is that military servicemen and colonial officials were among the most loyal customers as his photographic works were regarded as an effective representation of colonial might and power.

 

Alberto Henshel. 1869 - 1870.

There are many other photographers and images that have really drawn my attention: The calotypes of David Octavious Hill and Robert Adamson and their "intimate visual essay" of the fishing community of New Haven in Scotland "anticipating  [as early as 1843] the social documentary role of photography"; the work of Peter Henry Emerson in the Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886) where "blending social documentary with photographic naturalism, he sought to capture a way of life threatened by industrial development, rural displacement and the growing popularity of tourism"; the cartes de visite of Alberto Henschel; the striking images of Richard Buchta, Guillaume Duchenne or Henry Finnis Bloose Lynch, the list can go on and on. The exhibition is vast and it takes a good two hours to cover most of it allowing time to read the thoughtful captions. It is definitely a great opportunity to discover good work linking to contemporary practices. It closes on the 7th of March and I can only recommend a visit. By the way, have you ever seen a camera lucida or a magic lantern?

www.bl.uk/pointsofview

*All quotations are extracted from the exhibition captions.