180 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

THE WORLD’S FIRST PHOTOGRAPHY TRIP TOOK PLACE IN 1839, PRIMARILY IN THE OTTOMAN GEOGRAPHY AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE INVENTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS AFTER THIS TRIP, 10 PHOTOGRAPHERS FROM TURKEY INTERPRETED THE STOPS ON THE SAME ROUTE FROM THEIR OWN PERSPECTIVES. THE EXHIBITION A ROAD STORY: 180 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY INVITES AUDIENCES ON A VISUAL JOURNEY.

August 19, 1839, marks an incredibly important day in the history of art. Chemist, artist, and inventor Louis-jacquesmandé Daguerre of the French Academy of Sciences announced to the world his discovery of a photography technique. The discovery that was named after the inventor was daguerreotypy. The quest of achieving permanent images, dreamt about for centuries by humans, had finally ended. Advanced images were now obtainable on a metal plate placed in a dark box (camera obscura). It was now possible to convey the “reality” that authors, painters, and engravers endeavored to reveal to the masses as it actually was for the first time in world history.

It is October 21, 1839. Strong winds carry the violent waves of the Mediterranean to Marseilles. Waves that strike the jetty of the city port turn the water into foam. There are intense preparations going on at the port. An impatient crowd is waiting to board the ship Scamandre to set out on a long voyage. Among the passengers are three people who are to have their names forever associated with the history of photography with this voyage. Accompanied by their daguerreotypy equipment, French artist Émile Jean Horace Vernet, his nephew painter Charles Marie Bouton, and the daguerreotypist Frédéric Auguste Antoine Goupil-fesquet are preparing to go on the world’s first photography trip. When the ship with Captain Maffre at the wheel departs from the port

of Marseilles, Goupil-fesquet writes these words in his travel book: “We are three tourist companions. We have set out on this journey strong and healthy, with enough money and very little luggage.” This trip is extremely important for Western artists that could only envision the East through books and the observation notes of travelers.

There are 31 stops on the route of these three companions.

The traveling companions are to pass through Livorno, Malta, Syros, Paros, Naxos, Santorini, Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor, Suez, Mount Sinai, Gazza, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nablus, Sidon,

Deir al-qamar, Damascus, Tripoli, Baalbek, Beirut, Larnaca, Rhodes, Kos, Izmir, Çanakkale, and Istanbul. In 1840, they are to return to Marseilles via Rome after stopping off at Malta. While Horace Vernet and Charles Marie are occupied with painting their observations throughout this “trip of discovering the

East” which lasts six months, Goupil-fesquet is to attempt to capture the daguerreotypes of these places. Goupil-fesquet later transfers the observations of this journey into his book titled Voyage d’horace Vernet en Orient (Horace Vernet’s Voyage of the Orient).

The reason for remembering this historical trip today is the exhibition A Road Story: 180 Years of Photography opened at the Pera Museum, 180 years after the first photography trip. This exhibition is shaped around the destinations of the first photography trip, and brings together the work of 10 Turkish photographers depicting the same historical cities of the original route interpreted by using new photography techniques, up-to-date perspectives, and individual approaches. Engin Özendes, the exhibition’s curator spoke about the project that took exactly two and a half years to complete and the exhibition. “In that period, a majority of the