First of the photojournalists

January 23, 2008 4:55 PM

Japanese placesand people photographed by Felice Beato, a pioneer 19th century photographer who documented the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the Anglo-French military intervention in China before opening a studio in Yokohama in 1863. He also seems to have been the first photographer in Korea.Wikipedia NYPL archive First two links are units in MIT's Visualizing Cultures project.
posted by Abiezer (12 comments total)

The places and people links, at first scan, look absolutely marvelous. Some of those "people" photos are pretty well known, like the lady with the mirror. And, damn, Yokohama sure was full of trees back then!

Handsome sites, too: I like sideways scrolling for photography galleries. More like a book.

Thanks for posting.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:12 PM on January 23, 2008

Oooo thanks Abz! I love seeing these old pictures of places I know - like flapjax said - Yokohama used to be full of trees!!!

Unlike flapjax, I loathe sideways scrolling with a passion and will be extracting punishment accordingly.
posted by gomichild at 5:25 PM on January 23, 2008

Seminal example of the MeFi mix of brickbats and bouquets!
The rest of what's currently at the Visulaizing Cultures project all seems to be Japan-related, which should be fun for youse two as well, though I've not really explored that yet as I arrived at this via reading about the quite amazing Mr Beato.
posted by Abiezer at 5:29 PM on January 23, 2008

Great stuff—I never heard of this guy, and now I want to know more. Thanks, Abiezer!
posted by languagehat at 5:57 PM on January 23, 2008

lh - it was this Google book that made me aware of him; might have something you're interested in there.
posted by Abiezer at 6:09 PM on January 23, 2008

utterly fascinating. great stuff.
posted by gnutron at 6:13 PM on January 23, 2008

Wonderful images!
posted by nickyskye at 6:19 PM on January 23, 2008

I love this.
posted by everichon at 7:29 PM on January 23, 2008

Nice context for the period samurai movies I've been watching. This is of course later, but similarly bucolic and pre-modern. Nice find!
posted by bullitt 5 at 8:38 PM on January 23, 2008

One of the pictures in the collection is that of the La Martiniere College in Lucknow, one of the two educational institutions in the world to receive a battle-honour, for its students' role in the Revolt of 1857 ("The First War of Indian Independence"). They were under a seige, and showed enough ingenuity to build an amateur semaphore from instructions in an encyclopedia.

_{Trivia overload, and this is an absolute and complete navel-gazing effort, but found it amusing that the lead general involved in the incident, General Outram, lends his name to a locality I frequent in Singapore called 'Outram Park'.}

This is how it looks like now.
posted by the cydonian at 9:53 PM on January 23, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Excellent, thanks Abiezer!
posted by carter at 6:09 AM on January 24, 2008

Stunning, I'm in love with these images! thankyoux1million
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 6:23 PM on January 24, 2008