Portret van een Indonesische man 1857 - 1880

This portrait of an Indonesian man was made by the studio of Woodbury & Page using photographic methods common to the 19th century. Consider the materiality of photography itself. Light-sensitive chemicals on a treated paper surface create the image. The tones, the resolution – all these are products of a chemical process, but also of a social one. The photographer, the subject, and the whole enterprise of image-making in colonial Indonesia. The photograph captures the man’s clothing – from his hat to his sarong and sabre. There is a wealth of cultural information embedded in this attire, and the photo itself speaks to the exchange of technologies across cultures. The ease of photographic reproduction also contributed to a new world of commerce in images, shaping perceptions of people and places. So, next time you look at an old photograph, think not only about the person, but about the entire world of production that made the image possible.