احتفاء that produced a negative from which multiple positive prints could be made. His experiments charted an alternative path for photography— one that would ultimately prove fundamental to its reproduction and circulation.
The Arab Image
Early history of photography coincided with an intense Western fascination with the Arab world and the wider Orient. Like painters and travelers before them, photographers were drawn to the region’ s landscapes, holy sites, architecture, people, clothing, and its perceived exoticism. Despite carrying heavy equipment and under difficult conditions, the earliest photographers produced some of the first photographic records of places and communities still largely unfamiliar to European audiences.
The history of photography in the Arab world, however, cannot be reduced to the gaze of foreign photographers. The region subsequently developed its own photographic practices, archives, studios, collections, and visual histories. Yet, as Dr. Shaker Abdel Hamid observes in The Age of the Image, the Arab world did not contribute a major photographic invention to the medium’ s early technical development. Instead, it largely encountered photography as a technology already emerging elsewhere, adopted and used it, and eventually transformed it within its own societies.
This history makes the question of photographic preservation even more pressing. In 2014, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture( AFAC), in partnership with the Prince Claus Fund and the Magnum Foundation, launched the Arab Documentary Photography Program( ADPP) to support and develop creative documentary photography across the Arab region.
The program has focused on important yet often underrepresented social and developmental narratives, seeking to approach them without relying on stereotypes or conventions. It has also supported emerging photographers by providing resources, professional guidance, and intensive workshops to develop their projects. In doing so, it has contributed not only to contemporary photographic practice but also to preserving shared memory and making visible stories that might otherwise go undocumented.
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Arab documentary heritage accounted for only about four to five percent of the materials registered in the International Register of Memory of the World.
A group of Lebanese emigrants gathered around a board inscribed with lines of poetry, posing for a commemorative photograph. © Mohsen Yammine Collection
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