Text engl. - „The most exquisite memories of the Ottoman history are brought back to life with an album of photographs from the Yildiz Collection. In the 1880s upon an order of Sultan Abdülhamid II, Mecca and Medina, the two sanctuaries of Islam, were photographed and catalogued, together with thousands of other frames that portrayed the Ottoman lands. There are over 80 photographs in the album showing us what these blessed cities looked like in the 19th century and what they have lost over the course of time. Contents: "The Ka'ba and the Grand Mosque in Mecca“; "The Prophet's Mosque in Medina“; "Cemeteries of Jannat al-Mualla and Jannat al-Baqi“; "Tombs of Khadija and Hamza“; "Ajyad Fortress and Ottoman Barracks“; "Mina, Mount Arafat, and pilgrimage“.“ (www.amazon.de/Yildiz-Albums-Sultan-Abdulhamid-Mecca-Medina/dp/1597840548/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=524ABWT2VRQQQ7RDPDNZ; seen 02.2018).

Text fr. Includes bibliographical references. - "Cette exposition, conçue et réalisée par l'Institut du monde arabe, est présentée du 21 février au 1er avril 2007."

Text engl. - „The Middle East played a critical role in the development of photography as a new technology and an art form. Likewise, photography was instrumental in cultivating and maintaining Europe’s distinctively Orientalist vision of the Middle East. As new advances enhanced the versatility of the medium, nineteenth-century photographers were able to mass-produce images to incite and satisfy the demands of the region’s burgeoning tourist industry and the appetites of armchair travelers in Europe. In this way, the evolution of modern photography fueled an interest in visual contact with the rest of the world. - Photography’s Orientalism offers the first in-depth cultural study of the works of European and non- European photographers active in the Middle East and India, focusing on the relationship between photographic, literary, and historical representations of this region and beyond. The essays explore the relationship between art and politics by considering the connection between the European presence there and aesthetic representations produced by traveling and resident photographers, thereby contributing to how the history of photography is understood.“ (www.amazon.com/Photographys-Orientalism-Colonial-Representation-Debates/dp/1606061518; seen 07.03.2018).

Text engl. - The birth of photography coincided with the expansion of European imperialism in the Middle East, and some of the medium's earliest images are Orientalist pictures taken by Europeans in such places as Cairo and Jerusalem - photographs that have long shaped and distorted the Western visual imagination of the region. But the Middle East had many of its own photographers, collectors, and patrons. In this book, Stephen Sheehi presents a groundbreaking new account of early photography in the Arab world. - The Arab Imago concentrates primarily on studio portraits by Arab and Armenian photographers in the late Ottoman Empire. Examining previously known studios such as Abdullah Frères, Pascal Sébah, Garabed Krikorian, and Khalil Raad, the book also provides the first account of other pioneers such as Georges and Louis Saboungi, the Kova Brothers, Muhammad Sadiq Bey, and Ibrahim Rif'at Pasha - as well as the first detailed look at early photographs of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. In addition, the book explores indigenous photography manuals and albums, newspapers, scientific journals, and fiction. - Featuring extensive previously unpublished images, The Arab Imago shows how native photography played an essential role in the creation of modern Arab societies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon before the First World War. At the same time, the book overturns Eurocentric and Orientalist understandings of indigenous photography and challenges previous histories of the medium.“ (www.amazon.com/Arab-Imago-Portrait-Photography-1860-1910/dp/0691151326/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0691151326&pd_rd_r=KXAHAG13FP975WM472B8&pd_rd_w=0Ujd4&pd_rd_wg=LvCgS&psc=1&refRID=KXAHAG13FP975WM472B8; seen 07.03.2018).

Text engl. - „In the decades after its invention in 1839, photography was inextricably linked to the Middle East. Introduced as a crucial tool for Egyptologists and Orientalists who needed to document their archaeological findings, the photograph was easier and faster to produce in intense Middle Eastern light—making the region one of the original sites for the practice of photography. A pioneering study of this intertwined history, Camera Orientalis traces the Middle East’s influences on photography’s evolution, as well as photography’s effect on Europe’s view of “the Orient.” - Considering a range of Western and Middle Eastern archival material from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ali Behdad offers a rich account of how photography transformed Europe’s distinctly Orientalist vision into what seemed objective fact, a transformation that proved central to the project of European colonialism. At the same time, Orientalism was useful for photographers from both regions, as it gave them a set of conventions by which to frame exotic Middle Eastern cultures for Western audiences. Behdad also shows how Middle Eastern audiences embraced photography as a way to foreground status and patriarchal values while also exoticizing other social classes. - An important examination of previously overlooked European and Middle Eastern photographers and studios, Camera Orientalis demonstrates that, far from being a one-sided European development, Orientalist photography was the product of rich cultural contact between the East and the West.“ (www.amazon.com/Camera-Orientalis-Reflections-Photography-Middle/dp/022635640X/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=022635640X&pd_rd_r=RYCMD287VJMKVN6DVRJG&pd_rd_w=Ewjm3&pd_rd_wg=By11g&psc=1&refRID=RYCMD287VJMKVN6DVRJG; seen 07.03.2018).