Portret van drie onbekende mannen van Brahui afkomst met wapens before 1872

This photograph of three Brahui men carrying arms was taken in the late 19th century by Henry Charles Baskerville Tanner. The image is printed using a process called albumen silver print, which was then in common use. What's interesting about this image is the way it encapsulates a particular colonial moment. Photography in this era was not just a matter of documentation. It also involved decisions about composition, posing, and ultimately, representation. The men are shown with weapons, which speaks to the political tensions of the time, with Great Britain expanding its governance in the Indian subcontinent. There's a careful balance struck here, between realism and a kind of staged exoticism, and we are reminded that photography, even in its most documentary form, is always a crafted medium. Paying attention to the materiality and the social context of this photograph allows us to consider how power and representation were intertwined in the colonial era, challenging the traditional distinctions between art and historical record.