{"id":4649,"date":"2023-09-26T23:54:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T22:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inlen.photo\/?p=4649"},"modified":"2024-03-07T08:38:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T07:38:59","slug":"first-historical-snapshots-in-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inlen.photo\/vi\/archives\/first-historical-snapshots-in-vietnam","title":{"rendered":"First historical snapshots and street photography in Vietnam – Indochina period"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This album is a rare archive containing snapshots and instant photos made by M. Barbet on his trip from Marseille (France) to Hanoi (Vietnam formerly Indochina ) in the early 20th<\/sup> century on the steamliner of the company Messageries Maritimes .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually at that time, photography practice was made by professional photographers because the process involved heavy and voluminous gears to be setup. The low sensitivity of the film also needed a long exposure time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting picture was static, staged, and well composed, a result of a technical constraint, unable to seize the motion of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Brownie box camera introduced by Kodak in 1900, photography became more accessible to the large public. Advertised with the slogan “celebrate the moments of your life” and find a “Kodak moment”, photos were not anymore considered as a work of art but a mean to capture moments in time without concerns for a perfection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this album, we can guess clearly that photos are \u201camateur\u201d by the style of the framing and the composition. In one image \u2013 the photo made in Hanoi – , because the shadow of the photographer is appearing in the final picture, we can see he held an \u201cinstant\u201d camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This camera seems to be the Folding Pocket Kodak which was available at the time of the trip. It is supposed also to be held like a normal camera, close to the eye for framing and used the film 105mm , the same format ratio of the resulting pictures in the album<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beside the enjoyable pleasure to discover the travel to the Far-East passing by Port-Said (Egypte), Aden (Yemen), Colombo ( Sri Lanka formerly Ceylan), Singapore, and Vietnam in the early 20th century , this album provides an invaluable testimony in the History of Photography made in Vietnam (Indochina period) in the infamous style of snapshots of the street photography style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notes : the presented photos below are colorized to add a better contrast as the original ones have completely faded away<\/p>\n\n\n

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More insights<\/p>\n\n\n\n