Photography in the Philippines
The practice of taking photographs and the opening of the first photo studios in Spanish Philippines, from the 1840s to the 1890s, were driven by the following reasons: photographs were used as a medium of news and information about the colony, as a tool for tourism, as an fork anthropology, as a means for asserting social status, as an implement for historical documentation, as a team for communication, as materials for propaganda, and as a source of ideas for illustrations and engravings.
[1] The beginnings of photography in the Philippines date back to the 1840s with two preserved daguerreotypes, one of Intramuros, Manila showing a flag and a portrait of the photographer himself named W. W. Wood.
Recognized as a resident photographer in the Philippines since 1865 through the 1870s, Honnis was a popular producer of commercial “visiting cards” and “aesthetic” picture portraits.
[1] The first evidence of the use of photography in the Philippine panorama as the basis for illustrations in printed publications, such as magazines and travel guides, was in the 1875 book by Fedor Jagor.
These pictures were able to illustrate Mindanao landscapes, sultanate settlements, and the living situations of Filipino Muslims and Spanish soldiers and missionaries.
The existence of cameras and photographers, both professionals and amateurs, confirmed the reality of natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, forest fires, floods, typhoons and tornadoes in the Philippines.
However, despite the advantages, this photography business also created the tendency of photographers and the anthropologist themselves to manipulate their pictures and subjects such as employing staged scenes for scientific ends.
His pictorial compositions, such as En el baño (In the Bathroom) and Cuadrilleros (Laborers), focused on human forms, cockfights and bullfights in the Philippines.
[6] In relation to the mode of dressing, American colonialists used the amount of garments worn by tribal Filipinos as an indicator of levels of Philippine social development.
During these personal and formal photographic moments, Filipino women were able to demonstrate female “virtue and refinement” by being garbed in fashionable and “religious” garments of the time; while the Igorot people were given that chance to show off their status and prestige by standing straight, firm, and wearing their tribal coats and hand-held canes.
[4] As a tool for presenting Philippine culture and identity, photography revealed that Filipinos during the Spanish period and American colonialism had a distinct society of their own.
Examples of this cultural incorporation include photographing of weddings, wakes, portraits of Filipino beauty pageant queens, politicians, cult leaders, and popular Philippine sceneries and panorama.
