Local Portraiture [electronic resource] : Through the Lens of the 19th Century Iranian Photographers / Carmen Perez González.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Visual literacy : the relationship between the direction of writing and composition -- The written image : text and photography -- Pose, gesture and objects held by the sitter -- Arrangement of space -- Interactions between Western and Iranian photography.

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.

In English; occasional phrases in Persian with English translations.

Description based on print version record.