Singapore Through 19th-Century Photographs is a comprehensive photographic record of Singapore from the early 1840s to the 1900s. Paired with lively commentary, the more than 120 rare photographs from leading institutional and private collections recreate a compelling portrait of 19th-century Singapore. Emphasising the topographical and architectural landscape of the city and its surrounding environs, this visually irresistible city tour transports the reader back to the Singapore of an earlier age, a city that has now changed beyond recognition. The vibrant old metropolis is brought back to life through insightful captions and mostly albumen prints, the dominant photographic medium of the second half of the 19th century. Moreover, also documenting the growth of photography in Southeast Asia, this book reveals a watershed moment. The rise of international trade and the push for immigration led many Western studio photographers to seek their fortunes in the East, during a period that coincided with a rise in tourist travel, sparked by improvements to transportation networks. These propitious conditions set the stage for the intense production of commercial photographs of Singapore, and the book captures this unique moment of rapid development, both with the photographs shown and the perceptive analysis offered in the text. Illustrating the city at its most striking, Singapore Through 19th-Century Photographs records a dynamic moment of development for both photography and of Singapore, the pre-eminent colonial port-city of Southeast Asia.

The Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of world photography up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It sets out to be the standard, definitive reference work on the subject for years to come. Its coverage is global – an important ‘first’ in that authorities from all over the world have contributed their expertise and scholarship towards making this a truly comprehensive publication. The Encyclopedia presents new and ground-breaking research alongside accounts of the major established figures in the nineteenth century arena. Coverage includes all the key people, processes, equipment, movements, styles, debates and groupings which helped photography develop from being ‘a solution in search of a problem’ when first invented, to the essential communication tool, creative medium, and recorder of everyday life which it had become by the dawn of the twentieth century. The sheer breadth of coverage in the 1200 essays makes the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography an essential reference source for academics, students, researchers and libraries worldwide.

Featuring an unmatched collection of topographic prints and glorious full-colour paintings this delightful volume takes readers on an intimate and revealing tour of Singapore through its first century of being. Often published diversely in Europe and America in the accounts of scientific voyages, travel books, and in bound folios, these works portray the experiences of 19th century travellers, reflecting their impressions, prejudices, and insights of life in the new colony. Distinguished by exceptional detail, Singapore Through 19th Century Prints & Paintings is an intriguing and insightful visual record of Singapore¿s past.

This richly illustrated catalogue examines the power of photography and its mobilisation within systems of knowledge and representation across Southeast Asian societies. Rather than just thinking about what photographs show, Living Pictures explores what photographs do, acknowledging that photographs have lives—they move and they act—and in the process, they affect the world around them. This groundbreaking catalogue accompanies the world’s first-ever survey of the medium’s histories across Southeast Asia, from its earliest beginnings in the 19th century until its diverse contemporary manifestations. It traces the creation, circulation and consumption of photography and how these processes have shaped the visual regimes of the region, through essays by the Living Pictures curators, interviews with artists and photographers featured in the exhibition, comprehensive plates including never-before-published images, and new research by leading international scholars focusing on the interdisciplinary intersections between photography and art history, archaeology and cultural theory.

Imagining Singapore is the first comprehensive study on the history of Pictorial photography in Singapore. Drawing from interviews, unpublished historical data and newly discovered photographs, the book unveils a fascinating aspect of visual culture and its links to global Pictorialism.