Photography and Cinematography of Qajar Era Iran: 27 August-1 September 2011

In Iran, the history of photography and cinematography is mired with doubts and ambiguities. The first photographic apparatuses were given to the Iranian Qajar (1794-1925) monarch, Muhammad Shah (1808–1848), somewhere between 1839 and 1842, by the two colonial powers in Iran - England and Russia (Behdad 2011). Also, cinematography was introduced for the first time to another Qajar monarch, Mozaffar al-Din Shah (1853–1907), some time between 1899 and 1900 (Adle 2001). Taking this into account, it is clear that the Qajar kings were in great part responsible for the birth of photography and cinematography in Iran, and also that the development of these technologies was influenced by the personal tastes of these monarchs. Whilst academic debates have focused on Qajar photography and cinematography from the viewpoint of historical analyses and technical aspects, there does not appear to be any anthropological, and particularly, visual anthropological research on these two important visual mediums. As a result of this simple but crucial observation, our aim is to encourage and invite scholars who are working in fields such as visual anthropology, ethnographical film, media and visual studies, and whose interests coincide with this symposium’s, to present their work. This two-day symposium and film season aims to discuss and develop ideas deriving from social and visual anthropological research and to discern and debate the diverse types and aspects of photography and cinematography of the Qajar era in Iran, and not exclusively through monarchic art.