User:Munfarid1/Photography in Myanmar

Photography in Myanmar

the development of photography in Burma from the early colonial period to the end of the 1980s. It explores the relationship between early studios and the training of Burma-born photographers, the expansion of the photographic economy in the 1950s, and the challenges created by nationalisation after 1963.

The Oxford Companion to the Photograph, 2005, p. 91f

Burma, early  photography  in. In contrast  to  *India,  where evidence  of  photographic  activity  is  apparent  from  soon  after  its European  announcement  in  1839,  the  medium  appears  to  have  been slow  to  penetrate  the  reclusive  Burmese  Empire. The earliest  surviving images  appear  to  coincide  with  increasing  European  embroilment  with the  country,  in  the  form  of  a  small  series  of  photographs  taken  by  John *McCosh  during  the  Second  Anglo-Burmese  War  (1852-4),  a  conflict that  placed  Lower  Burma  under  British  control. Similarly associated with  British  interests  is  the  more  substantial  series  of  120  large-format views  (mainly  of  architectural  subjects)  taken  by  Linnaeus  *Tripe during  the  diplomatic  mission  sent  to  the  Burmese  court  at  Ava  in 1 855. While an  apparently  abortive  attempt  to  establish  an  amateur photographic  society  in  Moulmein  was  made  in  the  same  the  lack of  any  substantial  European  market  in  Upper  Burma  severely  restricted the  growth  of  commercial  photography  in  subsequent  decades. Early studios such  as  that  of  Jackson  &  Bentley  were  trading  in  Rangoon  by 1865,  and  Philip  Adolphe  Klier,  perhaps  the  longest  surviving  and among  the  most  prolific  photographers  of  the  country,  had  opened  a studio  in  Moulmein  by  1871. A significant  proportion  of  early photographic  activity  before  the  1880s,  however,  was  characterized  by the  practice  of  Indian  commercial  photographers  such  as  *Bourne  & Shepherd,  who  made  photographic  tours  of  the  country  without committing  themselves  to  permanent  studios. In fact,  the  development of  photography  continued  to  be  closely  associated  with  British  colonial expansion:  the  absorption  of  the  whole  of  Burma  into  Britain  s  Indian Empire  after  the  campaign  of  1885-6  led  to  an  influx  of  European administrators,  military  personnel,  and  private  traders  which  in  turn stimulated  a  hitherto  sluggish  photograph  market. The demands  of tourism  were  also  becoming  a  measurable  factor  by  the  1890s,  and this  decade  saw  a  significant  increase  in  the  numbers  of  commercial studios. Perhaps the  most  distinguished  of  these  was  that  of  the  veteran war  photographer  Felice  *Beato,  who  had  arrived  in  Mandalay  c.  1887 and  was  to  spend  the  final  years  of  his  career  in  the  new  dependency, trading  as  both  a  photographer  and  a  manufacturer  of  tourist  goods and  furniture. The rising  demand  for  photographs  from  both  residents and  visitors  is  clearly  evidenced  by  the  large  quantities  of  surviving work  from  firms  like  Klier  (whose  business  survived  until  the First  World  War),  while  the  Ceylon  firm  of ’'‘Skeen  &Co. clearly felt by  the  late  1 880s  that  the  opening  up  of  the  country  justified  the establishment  of  a  Burmese branch,  which  operated  from  1 887  as  the partnership  of  Watts  and  Skeen. While several  Indian  photographers (most  notably  D.  A.  Ahuja)  also  established  themselves  in  Burma towards  the  end  of  the  1 9th  century,  the  work  of  indigenous  Burmese photographers  remains  relatively  scarce  in  this  period.

The intimate  connection  between  photography  and  the  introduction of  colonial  rule  to  Burma  is  further  emphasized  in  the  work  of  some significant  amateur  photographers:  Willoughby  Wallace  ^Hooper’s most  celebrated  work,  later  published,  records  the  progress  of  the 1885-6  military  campaign  which  saw  the  overthrow  of  the  Burmese monarchy,  while  another  military  officer,  Arthur  George  Edward Newland,  recorded  the  subsequent  pacification  operations  in photographs  that  were  published  in  The  Image  of  War  (1894). The colonial administrator  Sir  James  George  Scott  (‘Scott  of  the  Shan Hills’)  also  produced  an  impressive  photographic  documentation  of tribal  life  during  his  career  as  Resident  in  the  Northern  and  Southern Shan  States  between  1890  and  1910. jf

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Bourne &  Shepherd,  the  most  successful  commercial  firm  in 19th-  and  early  20th-century  India,  established  in  Simla  in  1863  by Samuel  ‘Bourne  as  ‘Howard,  Bourne  &  Shepherd’,  and  becoming ‘Bourne  &  Shepherd’  by  1865. It opened  further  studios  in  Calcutta (1867-present)  and  Bombay  (1870-c.  1902). Following Bourne’s departure  in  1870,  much  of  the  new  photographic  work  was undertaken  by  Colin  Murray  (1840-84),  although  during  the  1870s Charles  Shepherd  continued  to  photograph  and  at  least  sixteen Europeans  are  listed  as  assistants. Between 1870  and  1911  the  firm  sent photographers  to  ‘Ceylon  (Sri  Lanka),  ‘ Burma,  ‘Nepal  and  Singapore, as  well  as  extending  its  coverage  of  India. The firm  still  survives  in Calcutta  today,  although  in  a  much  reduced  form.

Beginnings in the 19th century


The Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, mentions photographs of the last Burmese kings Mindon and Thibaw, and states that no daguerrotype s of them have survived.

The earliest existing photographs were taken in the course of British military expeditions: In 1853, John MacCosh, an experienced amateur photographer and surgeon with the East India Company recorded ethnographic portraits and landscapes during the Second Anglo-Burmese War. In 1858, some 120 large paper negative s of landscapes and buildings taken three years before by Linnaeus Tripe were published by the colonial government.

Around 1865 German photographer August Sachtler visited Burma and made a portrait of a Burmese carpenter with a hand saw and a pick axe. in

Originally trained by the military, J. Jackson established his commercial photography studio in 1865 in Rangoon. From 1885 to 1890, Jackson worked in partnership with Philip Adolphe Klier (1845 – 1911), a German immigrant photographer, who spent most of his life in British Burma. His photographs, taken both in his studio as well as on location, were mainly sold as postcards for foreign visitors and expatriates. They have been published in the 1908 edition of Thomas Cook & Sons travel guide Burma, as well as in several later books on Burma. Collections of his works are also held in public archives, such as the British Library and the National Archives in the United Kingdom, as well as by the Smithsonian Institution and Getty Images in the United States.

Willoughby Wallace Hooper (1837-1912), another amateur photographer working for the military... His photographs of the war in Burma are considered “one of the most accomplished and comprehensive records of a nineteenth century military campaign”. They were published in 1887 as Burmah: a series of one hundred photographs illustrating incidents connected with the British Expeditionary Force to that country, from the embarkation at Madras, 1st Nov, 1885, to the capture of King Theebaw, with many views of Mandalay and surrounding country, native life and industries. There were two editions, one with albumen prints, one with autotypes, and a set of lantern slides was issued. The series is also notable for the political scandal which arose following allegations by a journalist that Hooper had acted sadistically in the process of photographing the execution by firing squad of Burmese rebels. The subsequent court of inquiry concluded that he had behaved in a “callous and indecorous” way and the affair raised issues of the ethical role of the photographer in documenting human suffering and the conduct of the British military during a colonial war.

One aspect of the Indian famine relief effort of the 1870s, which has passed virtually without comment by historians (as has, largely, the relief campaign itself), was its use of stark photographic images of famine victims. Willoughby Wallace Hooper, a British military officer stationed in India, had taken a series of photographs of the famine camps and, more strikingly, of emaciated men, women and children. 19 Hooper's motivation for taking these particular images remains unclear, although he had previously produced portraits for the ethnographic survey The People of India (1868–75) and later attracted controversy for his graphic photographs of the execution of Burmese prisoners during the Third Burmese War in the 1880s. The Queen's Baths

John Falconer, ‘“A Pure Labour of Love”: A Publishing History of The People of India’, in Colonial Photography: Imag(in)ing race and place, ed. Eleanor M. Hight and Gary D. Sampson, New York: Routledge 2002, 51–83.

John Falconer, ‘Willoughby Wallace Hooper: “A craze about photography”’, The Photographic Collector, 4:3 (winter 1983), 258–86.Felice Beato

"At the time Beato settled in burma, in 1887, commercial photography was beginning to expand there. The earliest surviving photographs of the country dated from the second Burmese war in 1852 to 53, but by the 1870s, the photographic studio of Bourne and Shepherd was offering views of the country. J.N. Johannes and Co. (active 1880s to 1890s), the German Adolphe Philip Klier, who operated one of the most successful studios in Mandalay, and the commercial firm of Watson and Skeen, already well established in Rangoon, were Beato's main competitors."

Felice Beato in Burma from 1886 to 1905. It examines, on one level, his photographic business in Burma through a consideration of his portfolio and his business practices. On a more important level, it examines Beato's representation of Burma through visual and contextual analysis of his photographs of the Burmese people. It discusses this topic in the context of Beato's entire photographic career, his non?photographic preoccupations, and nineteenth?century commercial photographic production and consumption, as well as considering ways in which his photographs were used in travel literature. The core argument of this study is that Beato's desire to cater to consumer demands was a key element in shaping his photographic production, both in terms of his imaging strategies and his business practices. His photographic representation of Burma was thus closely tied to the context of its production and consumption. Essentially, Beato's representation of Burma can be understood as a commodification of the Burmese experience for the consumer. This commodification entailed depicting Burma in picturesque conventions ? as a series of familiar, pleasing, and ultimately saleable pictures.

Captain-Surgeon Anthony Newland (1857-1924) first published a series of photographs depicting a British’s subaltern’s life in Burma in the Journal of the Photographic Society of India in 1892.Newland, Anthony George Edward. The Image of War, or Service on the Chin Hills. Illustrated with 191 photographs by the author. With an introductory historical note by J.D. MacNabb, Political Officer, S. Chin Hills., Calcutta, Thacker, Spink & Co.; printed by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company. 1894 First edition. 4to (29 x 22.5 cm), pp.[iv], 90, 40 [publisher's adverts], 38 plates, 154 text illustrations.

"An unusual photo-book, recording the experiences of the British military expeditions in the Chin Hills in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The plates and text illustrations are all after photographs taken by the author in the field: they include portraits, landscapes, scenes of daily life in camp and on the march, and images of the Chin and their customs. McNabb’s introduction sketches the effectively annual cycle of tribal raids and British retribution which saw British troops marching through the Chin Hills, “being picked off by an invisible enemy.”

In the author’s words: “Our object is not to weary the reader, but rather to entertain him by the few rambling notes we shall jot down, which will, we hope, help him to understand the pictures and to gather an idea of what service on these hills is like.” The text is a series of anecdotes, not an official history, grouped under headings such as “Our Servants make us Swear!”, “The Best Way to Climb a Hill”, and “Yu and its virtues,” an account of the local beer. None of the illustrations depict casualties or acts of war, despite the title.

In 1892, German-born architect and archaeologist F. O. Oertel took a trip through large parts of Burma, exploring Burmese architecture and later published his notes and 41 photographs in his Note on a Tour in Burma in March and April 1892. Sent by the Government of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Oertel visited Mandalay, Amarapura and Sagaing, from where he travelled down the Irrawaddy to Pagan and Prome (today Pyay). Back in Rangoon, he travelled South to Pegu (today Bago), Moulmein (today Mawlamyaing), Martaban (Mottama) and Thaton. On his return, he wrote a lengthy report illustrated with original photos which was published the following year. The photos which he took during this journey also illustrated George W. Bird's book Wanderings in Burma, published a few years later, along with photos by Felice Beato.

Picturesque Burma by British businesswoman Mrs. Ernest Hart contained some of Beato's images.

"a series of 99 negatives from an unknown commercial photography studio in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar). Mostly dated to 1890–1910, they are largely studio portraits of Indian and Burmese men, women, and children as individuals, couples, or groups. Showing diverse social, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds, some images are taken in a photographic studio with props and painted backdrops, while others are taken outside against walls or simple fabric backdrops. Some images show the streets of Mandalay in which graves, store fronts, horse drawn carriages, and railway cars are visible. This collection is unique in that it preserves a body of work (rather than only single surviving images) by an unknown Burmese photography studio. It also makes visible the migrant Indian community and the ways in which they occupied a hybrid cultural space in colonial Mandalay."

D.A. Ahuja, a Punjabi photographer and also a major postcard publisher in Rangoon.

H. Arnoux?

Sixteen views and portraits in Burma by an unknown photographer between 1890 and 1906, on albumen and gelatin silver prints were sold in a 2009 auction by Bonhams in London.

"Washing for Rubies in the Burmah Ruby Mines, 1906"; a study of Orchids in Rangoon; the steamer Rangoon on the way to Mandalay; view of Strand Road; view of the cantonment gardens.

In the 1920s, British photographer James Henry Green photographed ...

2000 and beyond
"Yangon youth are discovering the slow, unpredictable and life-affirming qualities of analogue film photography"

Myanmar Photo Archive
The Myanmar Photo Archive (MPA) is both a physical archive of photographs taken between 1890 and 1995 as well as an ongoing project for the public awareness of the country's visual culture. Through various exhibitions, an online presentation and a publication programme, MPA has become known for spreading Myanmar’s rich photographic culture, both on a local and an international level. With a collection of more than 30.000 images and other related materials, MPA has become the largest archive for Myanmar's photographic history. MPA has also published several books on the history of photography in Myanmar and former Burma and has been engaged in public events and artistic re-evaluation of the archive's collections.

In 2019, American monthly trade publication for professional photographers Photo District News commented on this archive: "The Myanmar Photo Archive is currently the only anthology specializing in local Burmese photography and one of the largest collections of Burmese visual identity. It shows the Burmese people, by the Burmese people. In order to ensure these images continue to speak to the present day context, Birk constantly activates the archive."

An amateur photographer, whose work only exists ..., was U Than Maung.

The Czech travel photographer Jaroslav Poncar published a photographic travel account with his pictures taken between 1985 and 2013. In a 2022 article, The Guardian reported about documentary photography in the context of protests in Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.

Literature
Bieber, Joey, Melting the Stars: An Exhibition of Photographs of the People of Burma, Christies, London, 2001

Brackenbury, Wade, The Last Paradise on Earth: the vanishing peoples and wilderness of northern Burma (Flame of the Forest, Gold Beach, 2005)

Briels, Edwin, Yangon (Rangoon): The City I Live. Yone Kyi Chet Book House, Yangon, 2004

Chan Chao, Burma - Something Went Wrong: The Photographs of Chan Chao (Nazraeli Press, Tucson, 2000)

Dell, Elizabeth (ed), Burma: Frontier Photographs, 1918-1935: The James Henry Green Collection (Merrell, London, 2000)

Hannavy, John (ed.), Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Routledge, London 2013, ISBN 9781135873271, pp. 1317-1318

Lacoste, Anne. ''Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010.'' ISBN 1-60606-035-X.

Moe Min, In Buddha’s Land: Visions of Buddhist Myanmar, Orchid Press, Bangkok, 2007

Newland, Anthony George Edward. The Image of War, or Service on the Chin Hills. Illustrated with 191 photographs by the author. With an introductory historical note by J.D. MacNabb, Political Officer, S. Chin Hills., Calcutta, Thacker, Spink & Co.; printed by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, 1894, pp.[iv], 90, 38 plates, 154 text illustrations.

Poncar, Jaroslav: ''Burma/Myanmar. Reisefotografien von 1985 bis heute.'' Edition Panorama, Mannheim 2013, ISBN 978-3-89823-463-4. (in German)

Singer, Noel Francis, Burmah: A Photographic Journey, 1855-1925. Kiscadale, Gartmore, 1993

Suga, Hiroshi, The Golden Paradise of Myanmar. n.p., Tokyo, 1997

Tun Tin, Frankie, Through Myanmar Eyes. Viscom Editions, Singapore, 1997