the burden (and freedom) of photography

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Social Scientist

The Burden (And Freedom) of PhotographyCamera Indica: The Social of Indian Photographs by Christopher Pinney; Picturing Empire:Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire by James R. RyanReview by: Vinay LalSocial Scientist, Vol. 28, No. 5/6 (May - Jun., 2000), pp. 91-101Published by: Social Scientist

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91

REVIEWARTICLE VINAYLAL*

The Burden(andFreedom)of Photography

Pinney, Christopher. Camera Indica: The Social of Indian

Photographs.London:ReaktionBooks,1997;Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1998. 240 pp. $29.00

Ryan, James R. Picturing Empire: Photography and theVisualizationof the BritishEmpire.London:ReaktionBooks,1997; Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1998. 272 pp.

The TasmanianAboriginalswererendered xtinct in the second half

of the nineteenthcentury,much less than one hundredyears aftertheyfirstcame nto contactwiththewhite man.Decimatedbydisease,hunted by dogs, and shot by white convicts who were let loose inwhat was conceived to be terranullis, the odd dozen Aboriginalswho survived his onslaughtof Western ivilizationweredrivento asettlementnearHobart,wheretheywereheld incaptivity.Theywerethen photographedand, in a mannerof speaking, 'displayed' inLondonat theInternationalExhibition n 1862. Doubtless,from the

perspectivef thewhite

man,thiswas muchbetter han

beingscalped,and the Aboriginals houldhave beengrateful.Butsincenativesare

characteristically ngenerous, heyslowlycrepttowardstheirdeath,andonlya handful emained livewhen thenextroundof photographswas shown at the InternationalExhibition in 1866. When JamesBonwick'sLastof theTasmanianswas published n 1870, it includeda photographof an Aboriginalwoman who, in the previousyear,had become the sole remaining urvivor. Trucanini erselfdied in1876, theyearthat the one hundredth nniversary f theDeclaration

of Independence, many of whose signatories shared a family

*Universityof California,LosAngeles,USA

Social Scientist, Vol. 29, Nos. 5 - 6, May - June 2000







93

the impressionbecamewidespread hathuntingwas perhapsnot themost indeliblemarkerof masculinity,t was suggested hatit requiredgreatercourageand masculineprowessto drawup close to big catsand other wild animals,and shoot the cameraat close range (pp.130-32). SusanSontaghasdescribed he cameraas a sublimation fthegun ,andRyanremindsus thatthevocabularyof picture-taking- 'loading', aiming', shooting' hasbeen argelyderived romhunting(p.99).

Ryan exploresthe placeof photography n big-gamehuntingas

partof his largerstudyof whatEdwardSaidcalled the imaginative

geography of the Britishempireandthe work donebyphotographyin surveyingheland,enumerating ndclassifying henatives,wagingmilitary ampaigns, pening he colonies o British xplorers,ravelers,andtraders,and enhancing he pedagogicuses of geography. t wasone thingto point out to school childrenon a map the areas of theworld under heUnionJack,butaltogethermore mpressiveo providea photographicrecord of the vast tentaclesof the Britishempire.Ryan's work is animated by the now-commonplace thesis thatcolonialism entailed far more than economic gain and military

triumph: he colonized hadperforce o be represented, s theywereconceived to be quite incapable of representingthemselves, and

nothingwas calculated o perform he work of representation etterthanphotography.Enlisted nperforminghe various asks of empireandgiving mperialismuccor,photography xpressedandarticulatedthe ideologies of imperialism (p.13). The Victorians, Ryan avers,invested a great deal in photography: not only was the camera a

technological marvel,endowing its possessor with an inalienable right

(againin Susan

Sontag's words)to collect the

world ,but it was an

instrument of exactitude, absolutely trustworthy (pp. 17, 23-24).

Ryan's own work is founded on different premises: as he points out,it is imperative to understand how the authority ascribed to

photography was constructed, and the manner in which photographycreates the very objects it purports to represent. Photographs do not

speakfor themselves,Ryanstates,and he similarly rejectsthe common-sense distinctions between photography, cartography, painting, and

writing (p.19). An earlyphotographof the- DarkContinent depicted

a wall of impenetrable, twisted vegetation (p.38), and similarlyphotographs of Abyssinia, taken by the British during the AbyssiniaCampaign, showed barrenlandscapes, therebyimplying not only thatthe British were largely conducting a war agains the hostile forces of

nature, but that there were no indigenous peoples in harm'sway (pp.







94 SOCIALSCIENTIST

92-3). Considering the tenor of his own arguments, it is not entirelyclear why Ryan rejects the view, other than to say it is totalizing ,that photographyis to a verygreatextent a construction of discursive

power (p. 18). Where most studies of photography fail to situatethe images within their wider historical and cultural settings , the

Foucauldian-inspiredcolonial discourse analysis, Ryan argues, omitsto take the images seriously, viewing them merely as anotherinstantiation of power relations (p.19).

It is Britishexplorers who carriedthe camera with them to Africa,India, and the Pacific islands. The camera was seen, predictably, as

illuminating dark places, as probing the deep recesses of the nativemind as much as the landscape, and as gifting the indigenous peoplewith what David Livingstone called the oxyhydrogen light ofcivilization (p.31, 54). the scope of photography was truly imperial:as the pioneer photographer Samuel Bourne wrote in 1863. There isnow scarcely a nook or corner, a glen, a valley, or mountain, muchless a country, on the face of the globe which the penetrating eye ofthe camera has not searched (p. 47). Ryan rehearses the familiar

argument that much of the endeavor was also to domesticate foreign

landscapes (p.51), translate unknown spaces into familiar scenes(p.72), and render colonized territories more fruitful for commerce

(p.65). The camera, accordingly, captured the advance of Europeancivilization, an argument that Ryan encapsulates with terse

descriptions of the works of British photographers in places such as

Hong Kong, where the European settlements with their civicmonuments were photographed as beacons of light in an otherwisedark moral landscape (p.67). John Lindst, who accompanied an

expeditionto New Guinea in 1885 as the official

photographer,lovingly photographed a mission house as it offered irrefutableevidence of how even in savage New Guinea the blessed light of theWord of God is gradually dispelling the darkness of barbarism andcannibalism (p. 72). The camera was also preeminently theinstrument for recording a nation's essence: thus the Great Wall wasdescribed by the photographer John Thomson as expressing the

insularity and deep hatred of foreigners encountered in China (pp.68-9).

Nowhere is the association between colonialism and photographymore clear than in the military applications of photography. Ryanfocuses on the Abyssinian Campaign of 1867-68, but British India

presentsperhapsa richer terrainfor understandinghow photographyserviced the militarycampaigns that were from time to time launched







95

againstrebelliousor recalcitrant eopleor to presentan appropriateshowof force.The camerawas introduced o India hrough heBritish

army,and the pioneers of photography n India - John McCosh,CaptainW.R. Houghton, LieutenantH.C.B. Tanner,CaptainH.J.Barr,and CaptainL. Tripe,amongothers- were almost invariablymilitary men.1 In 1855, the East India Company had included

photography in the curriculum at its Military Seminary at

Addiscombe,butonlyafter he Rebellionof 1857-58 werethe officialuses of photographyo befullyexplored,asthearmyroutinelybeganissuing photographic equipment to its officers.2 The massive

photographicexercise in typology.The Peopleof India,which hadbeen initiated at the instance of Governor-GeneralCanning,wastransformedby the Rebellionof 1857 into an officialprojectof the

State, and placed under the control of the Political and Secret

Department.3TheRebellionwas surelynot crushedbyphotography,buttheBritishriumph t armswasmadeknownthroughphotographsthat immediatelyreceivedwide circulation:no Britonwas likely to

forgetthe heroic defenseof the Residencyat Lucknow,andsimilarlyphotographsof the attack on Delhi or the punishment nflicted on

rebels were designedto impress upon the native the might of theBritish orcesand theirappetite orrevenge.When,not longafterthe

Rebellion,photographswere taken of Kuka rebelsbeingtied to themouthof thecannonandthen blownto bits,Indiansmust havebeen

suitably truckbythelongarmof British hastisement. amuelBourne,who arrived n Indiain 1863 andproduceda series of photographsof KashmirandtheHimalayas,openlyexpoundedon theterror hat

photographycould inflict on thecolonized: From he earliestdaysof the

calotype,thecurious

tripod,with its

mysterioushamberand

mouthof brass, aught he nativesof thiscountry hattheirconquerorswere the inventorsof other instrumentsbesidesthe formidablegunsof theirartillery,which,thoughas suspiciousperhaps n appearance,attainedtheirobjectwith less noise andsmoke (p. 75).

The lengthiestchapterin Ryan'sbook is on the deploymentof

photographyin anthropometry, thnology, and anthropology,on

photographyand the depictionof natives andthepoor of Londonalike (pp. 140-82), but here he traverses erritory amiliarto many

scholars. t is thischapterwhich ntersectsmostcloselywiththe workof Christopher inney,particularlyhefirstchapterof Camera ndica:The SocialLifeof IndianPhotographs.n onerespect,Pinney's anvasis not so wide: whereRyanconsiders he uses of photography n the

geographic xpansesof the British mpire,Pinneyoffersa fragmented







96 SOCIALSCIENTIST

historyof photography n India;whereRyanrelies on the trope of

spatiality,Pinneyruminateson the altered notions of temporalityintroducedby photography;whereRyanstressesthe association ofphotographywith geography,Pinneyreflectson photography nd its

place in the constructionof historyand memory.CameraIndica s,of course, an allusion, even homage, to Roland Barthes'Camera

Lucida;yet, asPinneysays, attheverymomentof genuflection ,heseeksto moveawayfromtheinsular ecurityof theEuro-Americancultural region - the ground upon which nearly all work on

photographyhas been built. The botanicalreference, ikewise, is

somewhatmisleading,orPinney'snterest ies notonlyinquestioningthe taxonomies which inform the study of photography,but in

endeavoring o providea view of the complexchangingecology of

photography (p. 8). It is this ecology of photography whichbeckonsus to takeseriously heview,which was expressedoften byclientsin the smalltown of Nagdain centralIndiawherePinneydidhis fieldwork,thattheywouldpaya full feeforfull-lengthportraits,halfthe fee for halfportraits,andonlya quarter or head shots(p. 9);it is the same commitment o theecologicalsurvivalof plurality,and

not onlytheanthropologist'setishforfindinganenclave hathe canclaimas hisown, whichsuggestswhyPinney indsthe workof studio

photographers n an obscure Indian town as full of insights for amorenuancedhistoryof photography sthecelebratedphotographyof an AnselAdamsor a SebastianSalgado.

Pinneybegins, conventionallyenough,with photography n thecolonial period- but this is by way of movingfrom taxonomy o

ecology ,as shallpresentlybe seen.ThoughPinneycommentsonthe

importanceascribed o

visualityin modernsocieties,he

arguesthatvisualityassumedan evengreaterplacein India,since the other

signs by which Indiamightbe readwere seen as being unreliable,mysteriousanddeceptive p.17).TheBritishheldwidelyto the viewthat no nativecouldbeexpected o abidebythetruth; extshadbeen

deliberatelydistortedby the connivingBrahmins;and all evidence

profferedby nativeswas tainted.Photography, ycontrast,fulfilledtheyearning or a stern idelity it proposed o offerto thecolonial

gaze an India that could be surveyed,explored,mined for revenue,

indeed an Indiathat could, in a mannerof speaking,be seen andpossessedstrippedof its inhabitants,or an India wherethe nativescould, along with the flora, fauna, naturalresources,and culturaland natural andmarks,beenumerated, ategorized,andrendered itas specimens ora Linnean-type f investigation.Theprincipal irtue







98 SOCIALSCIENTIST

representing gods and goddesses. Early Indian photographersreproducedcolonial photographic practices, but already,by the

manner n which they were deployingpainton pictures,they wereshowing their departure rom European raditions.They often didnot merelytouch up theirnegatives,or use paint as a supplement;rather,hepaint even obscured hephotographsp. 79). Where hecolonial fixation on types betrayedan anxietyabout preservingthe orderof Indiansocietyand thepurityof taxonomiessupposedlyderived from Western science, the practice of overpaintingphotographsraisedanotherorderof anxietyaboutpollution: n the

words of JudithGutinan,authorof ThroughIndianEyes, paintingon photographssuggestsa kind of impurity- on the one hand anexcuse forfailing o reachmoreperfectheights,on theother,a deviceforwateringdown what should bea purelyphotographic tatement'

P.82).TheIndoreStatePhotographers, amachandra ao andPratapRao, produced photographicprintsof paintingsof mythologicalsubjects ,and theirimages,as those of otherIndianphotographers,

spring rom a representational trategy hat is concernednot with

categorizationandthe closureof identity[aswas thePeopleof India

project, or the anthropometric photography of colonialadministrators, ethnologists, and census-takers] but with the

manipulationof a repertoireof signs signifying possible states of

being (pp. 88, 91). Their work gesturesat almost unself-consciousforms of hybridity; t has roomwithin it for a widerconceptionof

beingoneself,and t suggestsdifferentmodesof transcendence. inneyargues, urther,hatthe Indian onceptionof photographic ortraiturewas not based on the idea of moralphysiognomy ,or the idea,

capturedorinstance n H.H.

Risley'sormulation f the nasalndex',

or in JohannCasperLavater's laim that structural eaturesof theface unlockedthe characterof a person,that the moralworth of a

person could be deduced from his or her externalcharacteristics.Indiandeas,whichareplayedoutinphotographysinotherdomains,were determinedmoreby the indigenousnotion of darshan,whichentailsa dialecticalnteraction etween hegazethatthehumandirectsatthe divineandthegazedirectedat the humanbythedivine(p.106).The local people with whom Pinney spoke in the town of Nagda

distinguishedbetween the notion of vyaktitva,which refers to theexternalcharacteristics f a person,andcharitra,whichis a referenceto the biographyof the soul, a voyage into moral interiority;and

theywerequiteadamant n statingthatphotographyhadnothingto

sayabouta person'scharitra pp. 198-99).







99

It is in the thirdchapter pp. 108-209), whichcompriseshalfhis

book, thatPinney akesthe reader ntomorepromisingandenticingdirections,andso putson offer aworkon Indianphotographyhat isunusual for its daring, imagination,and politics. A slightly moredetailedsociological portraitof Nagda,whichhas six mainstudios,might have helped the readerto understandhow far this town ischaracteristicf urbanandsemi-urbanettlementsnnorthandcentral

India, and whether the photographic practices he discusses as

prevailing here arelikewise'typical'or somewhatanomalous.The

point, quite simply,is that the work to which Pinneydevotes his

attentionhas never beforebeen consideredworthyof study,and hisexploration of the everydayworld of Indian photographyshows

unequivocally that imagination and innovation are scarcely the

prerogativeof those with formaltraining n photographyor accessto the workof world-classphotographers ndgalleries.Pinneyoffersa detailedaccount of how Nagda photographersmake theirliving;the adventof video;weddingphotographs;ouristphotography;heuseof photographsat homeandforworship;and commontechnicalfeatures of Indian studio photography,such as painted pictures,

composite color prints, collages, and superimpositions.The socialhistoryof the photographs is not alwayssatisfactorilydrawnout,but nonethelessthe subtitle of Pinney'swork, the Social Life of

Photographs ,s not to be takenin jest, as one of those obligatoryinvocationsof social , or hisphotographsake us intolivingrooms,the fieldsof the farmers,andthe interior ives of people.

Among the most interestingdiscussions s one on temporality.Whenvideofirstcameto Nagda,stillphotographersoundthemselves

beingmarginalized;utfor a

varietyof reasons,the initial

euphoriagreatly ubsided,andbeginningntheearly1990s familiesonceagainopted to have marriages in the family documented by still

photographers.Drawingon the work of the Frenchsemioticianof

cinema,ChristianMetz,Pinneyargues hata photographallows theviewerto lingeron it, whereasthe videospectator s the prisonerof a temporal egime wherein he orhe haslittlecontrol.He quotesapprovinglyMetz;sdictum, Where he film lets us believe n more

things, photographylets us believe more in one thing (p. 124).

Anotherdimension f temporalitysintroduced yPinney's uggestionthat the wristwatch n Indianphotographscan be readas an overtand oraculardisplayof power,notonlyas a signof the 'modern' pp.177-78). Pinneytakes us a long way from the colonial notion of

moralphysiognomy ndthe typology of races,as thediscussion







100 SOCIALSCIENTIST

of a famous photograph, based on an original lithograph, of the

freedom fighter Chandrasekhar Azad shows. In the most standard

representation of him, Azad is shown with the sacred thread of an

upper-casteHindu across his bare chest, twirling his moustache and

sporting a largewristwatch. Incalendarimages, Azad, who was killed

in an encounter with the police, is often shown with Bhagat Singh,who was sent to the gallows and is revered as a martyrto the cause of

Indian independence. Azad was a Hindu, Bhagat Singh a Sikh, and

Britons conditioned by anthropometric obsessions would have

expected a fundamental difference between them, a separation

that could be testified by sartorial, physiognomic and physiologicalincompatibility. Yet, in popular representations, largely the work of

a Muslim artist, H.R. Raja, Azad and Bhagat Singh appear identical,

distinguished only by the presence of a hat [on Bhagat Singh] or a

wristwatch and sacredthread . This image, Pinneyargues, suggestsan oppositional practice, a political critique of the divisiveness of

British policy and much of its imperial science (p. 209).

Enticing as is Pinney'sdiscussion of Nagda portraiture, he stopsshort on occasion of asking fundamentalquestions about the cultural

politics of representation. Among the many photographic practicesthat Pinney encountered in Nagda, the use of multiple framing is

striking. The cover of the book depicts a man, Ramlal, holding aframed photograph; within that frame, his brother, Hira, who waskilled by a train, is shown holding another framed photograph oftheir father, Ganpat. Pinney has nothing to say about the possibleindigenous inflections of this representationalpractice. Might it have

something to do, for instance, with the common Indian narrative

strategy, encountered in the Panchatantra, the Puranas, and the

Mahabharata,of the storywithin the storywithin the story? Similarly,Pinney does not allow the multiple, simultaneous notions of timewhich are the bedrock of the Puranas to inform his discussion of

temporality. Farmore than most social historians, Pinneyallows thatIndian categories have something vital to tell us about photography,but his discussion of bhav (emotion or sentiment) is quite inadequate.The marvelous photograph of members of the family of one RaguRavidas in front of a heavily coiffured Shiv taken in a traveling

studio in Nagda attests to Pinney'srichly nuanced understanding ofhow divinities enter into (and exit from) photographs, but he doesnot push his query far enough to ask: what do photographs do toIndian gods/goddesses? do they give birth to them and allow othersto die? But that Pinney'sbook even encourages us to frame questions







101

in this fashion is a sign of how far superiorit is to any work onIndianphotographyand indeedto most social historieswhich take

India as theirsubject.

NOTES

1. See Ray McKenzie, 'The Laboratory of Mankind': McCosh and the

Beginnings of Photography in British India , History of Photography 11,No.2 (April-June 1987): 109-118, and Ray Desmond, Photography in

Victorian India , Journal of the Royal Society of ARts 134 (Dec. 1985): 48-

61.2. Desmond, Photography in Victorian India , p. 53, and G. Thomas, The

'Peccavi' Photographs , History of Photography 4, No. 1 (January1980), p.49.

3. Christopher Pinney, Classification and Fantasy in the PhotographicConstruction of Caste and Tribe , Visual Anthropology 3, Nos. 2-3 (1990),

p. 262; the work in question is J. Forbes Watson and J.W. Kaye, The Peopleof India: A Series of Photographic Illustrations, with Descriptive Letterpress,of the Races and Tribesof Hindustan, 8 vols, (London: India Museum, 1868-

75).

4. See Vinay Lal, critical introduction to M. Pauparao Naidu, The History ofRailway Thieves in India (4th ed., Madras: Higginbotham Limited, 1915,

reprint ed., Gurgaon, Haryana: Vintage Books, 1996), and esp. pp. xvi-xixfor a discussion of photography in relation to the colonial sociology of

knowledge.

the burden (and freedom) of photography

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