There’s a new digitized open-access collection of photos of Egypt by an Italian photographer Facchinelli taken 1875-1895. It’s mostly pictures of Cairo architecture.I wanted to dissect it a bit

But first, a picture of a gate to al-Azhar: http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/items/show/243 

I really like this collection and the project itself does so many things well....that said...it is a foreign gaze, a European gaze, an orientalist gaze, that took these photos, but I also want to think about digital collections and how to use orientalist photos.

I will critique the use of orientalist photography towards the end of this thread. I judge digitized collections by the content, the standards by which they’re stored and displayed and by accountability, as well as the holding institution.

Courtyard: http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/items/show/609 

Disclaimer: I’m not a historian of photography or of cities. I have not published on archivy. I’ll include some good readings by archivists and others later today

The collection itself is mostly of Egyptian architecture. No doubt it’d be highly useful to urban & architectural historians but it has broader applications, including to designers, conservators. The site has geotags on each entry which will help ( @MENALibAHS mentioned this!)

Facchinelli’s photographs are stored in several institutions (AUC, Geneva etc), so this collaboration was no mean feat. What impresses me is that everything has a reference number & multiple transliteration standards! Remember to put the ref number in your footnotes & captions

A photo break. The mosque of Qaytbay near ibn Tulun; I enjoy this one because of the scaffolding. I’m going to mention this to a historian of engineering I know and get their opinion on it.

http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/items/show/625 

That’s the strength of this collection & what deserves to be praised. The metadata is highly useful: the reference number, the ability to download the metadata in different formats, the description of the BACK of the photograph, the medium, the size of the object, & keyword tags

Search design is also hugely important & HARD. This one works fairly well & I anticipate that the next iteration of this will have an advanced search & more tagging. This handy map search function is also useful: multiple pathways to content is important

http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/geolocation/map/browse

Another point of praise: they have a bio of Faccinelli, which is so useful to reading the photographs. Bigger point of praise: the site GIVES CREDIT to the individual who wrote it!

http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/beniamino_facchinelli

On this note, they mention the entire team behind this. This takes WORK and lots of different people to do properly. It’s not as easy as you might think. Acknowledging labor is also hugely important.

The same page discloses that they use Omeka.

http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/credits 

Note:there are standards for digital photo display & digitization & metadata that I’m not getting into here. It’s not that they’re not important. It’s just a minefield & there is literature on this available open access.

I would like to write a thread w/o 30 caveats

Molding, from the Museum of Islamic Art, part of a series done by Facchinelli on their collections.

http://facchinelli.huma-num.fr/items/show/954 

Before we end, I did want to address the issue of orientalist photographs. Yes, they are problematic. Were the people being photographed ever asked? Very likely no. I’m getting iffy about even circulating historical photos of people I don’t know online.

Do many of these photographs focus on architecture? Isn’t that a problem with gaze itself? Absolutely. Many of the photographs in this collection in particular focus on the buildings. Even though that avoids the human subjects, there’s something sticky here.

I will say...I would need to read more about the photographer to understand why their focus was such. But I also thinking fetishizing architecture is a thing. I’m definitely guilty of it, be it art deco store fronts or 16th century mosques.

There’s been much writing on this, on what this does for the visual history of the region. I personally find photographs useful because sometimes I need a detail that isn’t in a narrative text, or that isn’t implied by smudging in a manuscript.

So I break down the photographic source and its gaze where I can and then mention the detail (which is often a rahla or a printing press) and move on. I try to focus on using photographers from the places the photographs are taken when I can. If I can’t, I acknowledge it.

There’s also, again the sheer fact, that having open access collections means they’ll get to Egyptians who need them for design, conservation or cultural heritage purposes. The language is an issue –website’s in French– BUT GoogleTranslate produces a somewhat manageable product

I do feel really strongly about the fact that open access isn’t open access without having it accessible to those whose history it is. There are very few good image archives that are in Arabic and it breaks my heart. The transliteration (w/o Arabic) makes it even more difficult

One other thing. I want to think of this collection with consideration of other collections. I definitely think historical photographs of Cairo and Egypt (and Turkey) are over-represented in digital collections. I do think that’s changing.

It’s important to note because Egypt dominates our field. I don’t always think its for the right reasons. But that’s another convo. No more caveats.

K bye.

PS. The people behind any project like this are important: I saw two people I know and trust on the masthead but isn’t the whole story. The responsible thing to do is ask them. Lecture series, projects, etc...their ethics aren’t always what they say they are.

This, by Temi Odumosu, is an excellent critique of digitization and museum policies, all centered around a photograph of a child in a Danish collection. CW: colonialism and the history of enslavement. https://www.academia.edu/44542725/The_Crying_Child_On_Colonial_Archives_Digitization_and_Ethics_of_Care_in_the_Cultural_Commons

...this article includes an instance of a call for de-accessioning by a living relative. This is HUGELY important and remember, if you come across a picture of a relative in an archival collection, you can ask to have it removed.

I meant ‘removed from digital collections” but also more. De-accessioning is tricky.