Ethnic Photography

Ethnic photography originally began as "objective" photography. Early photographers traveled to exotic lands, studying the people and their environments, giving the everyday person a new photographic view of worlds, previously only known through paintings. This also gave researchers a chance to perfect the negative-positive photographic process. Little more than 100,000 ethnological studies were produced in the period between 1870-1898.

By 1900, world maps began to precisely indicate population density, race, religion, and commerce around the world. This information allowed travelers with cameras to easily find the least exploited people, offer them small amounts of money, and in return, take many photographs.

Refinement in the developing processes, allowed photographers to expand their camera visions to "erotic views" of exotic people. These exotic ethnic images became a very fashionable subject, influencing all areas of European culture.

The people in these "newly discovered" countries found they could earn money by posing (and /or prostitute) for foreign travelers. People from foreign lands began to travel to Europe in the hopes of a better life. This new industry became a lucrative business.

The most noted of the ethnic studies photographers:

* Flandrin; placed in Casablanca (Morocco) postcard reporting to top officials in Marseilles, 1905

* J. Geiser; Alger, most noted for his series on the presidential trip of Emile Loubet, 1903

* J. Barbier; ethnic studies sent back to France in the form of postcards

* Colonel General Edmond Fortier; 1862-1928, placed in Dakar, 1904, to postcard document West Africa for France. He is estimated to have produced 2,000 photographs during his stay.

Rudolf Franz Lehnert 1878 - 1948 Austria & Ernst Heinrich Landrock 1878 - 1966 Germany

Rudolf Lehnert and Franz Landrock were both born in 1878. They met in Switzerland in 1904. They were both 26 at the time, the former Austrian, the latter German. Both discovered they had a dream of visiting and working in the "Orient". Lehnert went to Tunis alone first, photographing his journey. Overwhelmed by the beauty of North Africa, Lehnert and Landrock became partners and worked together from 1904 to 1930.

In the role of the two artists as they worked together, Lehnert was the photographer. Landrock was the businessman. He managed the laboratory making the photographs, running the shop established in Tunisia, 1904-1914, and later, one in Cairo.

The original Lehnert & Landrock photo shop was situated in Avenue de France, Tunisia. It lasted 10 years before being forcibly closed in WW I, by order of the French governor. At the time, Lehnert was on one of his lengthy treks. Upon his return to Tunisia, he discovered the shop had been closed and the property confiscated. Lehnert was briefly made a prisoner and sent to an internment camp in Corsica.

Meanwhile, Landrock was stranded in Switzerland and desperately trying to find ways by which to rescue his friend. Before long, the two were re-united in Davos, where Lehnert met Eugenie Schmitt, whom he wed. After the war, the Lehnerts found themselves unwitting citizens of the newly created Czech Republic. Fortunately the new homeland was an ally of France, and Lehnert eventually regained his confiscated glass plates.

In 1920, they moved to Cairo, establishing the "Oriental Art Publishing House". In 1924, postcard fever hit Europe. Lehnert and Landrock established a business for postcard reproductions, selling to vendors in Vienna, as well as, other publishers in Europe. They worked together until 1930 when Lehnert returned to Tunisia. Landrock continued the business until 1938. Lehnert died in Tunisia, 1948; Landrock died 1966 in Kreuzlingen.

Postcard images by Lehnert and Landrock are still available today. There is a small shop in Cairo, run by the grandson where tourists can purchase postcards and other memorabilia. The family holds the copyrights to the Lehnert and Landrock photographs.

Bibliography:
Egypt; Landscape, Life of the People, Herbert Ricke, Ludwig Borchardt, 1929
Neudin; Book of Postcard Marks History, 1995
Lehnert & Landrock: Orient 1904-1930, Charles Favrod, André Rouvinez, 1999
Lehnert & Landrock: L’Orient d’un photographe, Philippe Cardinal, 1987

Information provided by Pam at Tallulah's