LibGuides: Middle East Photography: Online Collections

Online Collections

American Geographic Society Library, Photographic Collections: http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/AGSL/phot.html
Collections with Middle East photographs include the Roeming Collection and the Harrison Forman Collection. The latter includes 733 slides of daily life, historic sites and architecture in Afghanistan in the late 1960s, 195 of which are online.

Aramco Services Company, Digital Image Archive: http://www.photoarchive.saudiaramcoworld.com/

Casselman Archive of Islamic and Mudejar Architecture in Spain: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Arts/subcollections/CasselmanImageAbout.html
Contains over four thousand color slides and black and white photographs of medieval Spain taken by the late Eugene Casselman (1912-1996) during his thirty years of travel throughout the Iberian peninsula. The images span over one thousand years of architectural history, from the seventh to the seventeenth century. The majority of the slides focus on the Mudejar style, an ornate court style largely inspired by Spanish Islamic architecture that was shared among Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures during the later Middle Ages in Spain.

Historical Photographs of the Land of Israel (U Haifa): http://lib.haifa.ac.il/collections/isratage/index.php/en/

Images and Graphics on the Middle East (Columbia U. Libraries): http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/global/cuvl/middle_east_studies/graphics.html

Israel Government Press Office - flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/government_press_office/

Library of Congress: Abdul-Hamid II Collection: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/ahii/

Library of Congress: Matson Photograph Collection: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/matpchtml/matpcabt.html

The Middle East in Early Prints & Photographs (NYPL): http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/ dgexplore.cfm?col_id=179

Middle East Photograph Archive (U. of Chicago): http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/mideast/PhotoArchive.html

The Oriental Institute, U. of Chicago. Photographic Archives: http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/collections/pa/

The Rev. Claude L. Pickens, Jr. Collection on Muslims in China: http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/harvard-yenching/collections/pickens/

ProjectSAVE: Armenian Photograph Archives, Inc.: http://www.projectsave.org/

Royal Geographic Society Picture Library: http://images.rgs.org/
Holdings include about 3,000 photogaphs of Iran, images from the Society's sponsored research expeditions, and special collections related to Arabia, incl. pictures documenting the 1932 crossing of the Empty Quarter, and early images of Mecca. A selection of about 1,200 photographs of the Middle East are available online.

Underwood & Underwood Egypt Stereoviews (AUC): http://digitalcollections.aucegypt.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15795coll8
The Underwood & Underwood Egypt Stereoviews digital collection includes 101 images of Egypt commissioned by the Underwood & Underwood publishing company in the 1890s. The photographs, originally sold as a boxed sets, document 19th century Egyptian culture and the history of travel in the Middle East. The wide geographic scope of its subjects spanning along the Nile River, the Suez Canal towns and the Egyptian deserts render a thorough introductory visual representation of Egypt as opposed to the contemporaneous amateur and subjectively compiled albums of its time. Of particular interest are the brief descriptions and the six language translated captions on the back of each card which, content wise, often contain inaccuracies that may be interpreted as colonial approaches on the part of the publishing company. The collection was originally purchased in 1985 by American University in Cairo President Richard F. Pedersen. Two years later, Pedersen expanded the collection by purchasing the full set of stereoscope slides.

Williams Afghan Media Project: http://contentdm.williams.edu/wamp/
Three photo collections that document in image and sound Afghan history and society from the late 19th century through the Soviet occupation represent the heart of the WAMP website:
* The Khalilullah Enayat Seraj (KES) collection of photographs taken between the late 19th century and 1930,
* The Louis and Nancy Hatch Dupree collection of slides taken between 1949 and 1987, and
* The Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC) collection of photographs and slides taken between 1987 and 1992.