In Allan Sekula’s “The Body and the Archive,” he explores how photography and its evolution has impacted the practice of photographing those who are considered to be The Other. Sekula also dives into the repressive and positive uses of photography in relation to archives and classifications of people, criminals and The Other; “We can speak then of a generalized, inclusive archive, a shadow archive that encompasses an entire social terrain while positioning individuals within that terrain… The general, all-inclusive archive necessarily contains both the traces of the visible bodies of heroes, leaders, moral exemplars, celebrities, and those of the poor, the diseased, the insane, the criminal, the nonwhite, the female, and all other embodiments of the unworthy.”[1] He then continues his exploration by discussing two important contributors of photography as a record-keeping practice: and Francis Galton. In France, Alphonse Bertillon used his photography knowledge and skills “to create an elaborate system for criminal identification using 11 essential features for profiling repeat offenders.”[2] Meanwhile in England, “Francis Galton had already developed his own particular use of the archive, with which he was able to create composite images of what he believed to be the various universal criminal and ethnic types.”[3]  The practice of using photographs to catalog people or The Others developed from the practice of phrenology and physiognomy. Both of these practices involved people photographing specific parts of others bodies to analyze and supposedly ultimately lead them to discover that person’s personality traits, character, emotions, etc. The above practices connect to positivism in that many of these photographs were considered not only to be scientific, but also to be completely truthful, or as Duchenne de Boulogne said “as truthful as a mirror.”[4] Many photographers and doctors also used these photographs as ways to measure people’s emotions, reactions, and mental instabilities for the purpose of cataloging and archiving.

The Other can be understood as when people create stereotypes and alienate groups of people in our societies simply based on how they look, their actions, or ultimately anything else that signifies them as being different from another group. It is easily connected with the idea of classifying others as being strange, socially deviant, or even simply different from themselves. One of the keys to understanding this concept is understanding that it quite often refers to one other than oneself and throughout history has been capitalized on in various manners. Allan Sekula brings up this point of view in his essay when he writes “the potential for a new juridical photographic realism was widely recognized in the 1840s, in the general context of these systematic efforts to regulate the growing urban presence of the ‘dangerous classes’.”[5] This branch of photography began developing when doctors started photographing their mental patients and using them to discern emotions and personality traits. This use of photography was also used as a form of truth telling, a method of identification, and a way to determine someone’s propensity for murder and other habits. An example of this was Boulogne’s work titled “Study of muscles in the face and emotion” completed from 1852 to 1856. In these experiments, he used electrical rods to stimulate various muscles in his patients faces to try to recreate specific facial expressions in relation to emotions.Duchenne de Boulogne though wasn’t the only scientist during this time who studied those mentally ill; Doctor Hugh Welch Diamond also photographed his mental patients, especially women, with the intent of discovering the physical symptoms of madness in the 1850s. As a result of these experiments and others, people began obsessing over the idea of those who are different and the practice of experimenting on them. Those that were experimented on were often The Others in society and these studies were not to benefit them as a group or as individuals. These experiments were more for the benefit of the doctors and their social agenda.

Positivism can be defined as a nineteenth century concept or philosophical theory that states that absolute truths can be demonstrated or verified only through scientific procedures and discoveries. It also states that such knowledge can always be measured. It therefore states that knowledge that is derived from life experiences through ones senses is the ultimate source of all certain knowledge. During this time it became connected with the practice of photography by way of supposedly diagnosing mental illnesses and other physical illnesses. This practice was especially prevalent in the scientific fields of phrenology and physiognomy where peoples skulls would be photographed and compared to the “ideal” prototype. Both fields “shared the belief that the surface of the body, especially the face and head, bore the outward signs of inner character.”[6]

Through photography and using positivism, people could potentially be influenced when seeing someone’s photograph who they consider to be an Other (i.e. a mugshot, photograph of mental patients etc.), and based on their experiences in society with those same/similar groups, they could  form a pattern of who they believed are criminals/mentally ill and what they look like. In other words, it began to create stereotypes in relation to those who did not conform or fit into society as some think they should. Sekula explains, “Thus photography came to establish and delimit the terrain of the other, to define both the generalized look — the typology — and the contingent instance of deviance and social pathology.”[7] 

In a very similar manner, this practice and stereotype making also relates to what many other scientists were doing at this time which was making so called composites of what they thought the perfect or average American doctor looked like, soldier looked like, and so on. One man who was using photography in this manner was Henry Pickering Bowditch in the 1890s. Two of such composites that he created were titled “Twelve Boston Physicians and Their Composite Portrait” as well as “Saxon Soldiers”. For both of these pieces of work, Bowditch took photos of twelve different men who he felt well represented their field, took photographs of each, then combined them making a composite to show the average man in that profession. Not only does this play into racism and stereotyping, but it is also greatly related to the practice of eugenics. Francis Galton is considered to be the founder of this practice and came up with term in 1883 defining it “as the use of science applied to the qualitative and quantitative improvement of the human genome.”[8] By creating composites such as those of the physicians and the soldiers, Galton was trying to create a narrowly defined image of what he defined as a suitable man so that women looking for husbands could easily discern who would be their best match or best suited to them and their class. This method is dangerous as it overlooks the diversity in one’s character and in humankind as a whole.

Alphonse Bertillon and Francis Galton were both photographers during this time period who used their photographs to diagnose or identify people based on various parts of their body, especially faces. Alphonse Bertillon specifically focused on photography as a form of identification and often photographed specific parts of ones body while taking measurements, such as someones ear. From this practice came the invention of the mugshot and record of someone’s appearance by the police.On some of the earliest mugshots, one is able to see a photograph of the criminal, from the side as well as straight on, as well as measurements of various parts of the body. Meanwhile, Francis Galton was photographing the entire faces of men and combining them to create composites of a specific class of people in the hopes of perfecting and purifying the human race. One such composite that he did was of criminals in 1885 titled “Violent Criminals Composite”. For these compilations, Galton would take images of various men and layer them onto each other in order to expose the stereotypical appearance of a group of people, such as criminals, or those of another race or religion, for the propose of being able to identify them easier. This practice and school of thought is appalling and has ultimately lead to a multitude of atrocities in our country’s history, such as racism, discrimination, and genocides.

In many senses, these two men used photography for a very similar goal, to define the stereotypical appearance of a certain population. That being said, there certainly were various differences in some of their other motivations for pursuing photography as well as the manner in which they went about it. One contrast in their methods was, as mentioned above, the fact that often Bertillon only photographed specific part of his subjects’ body such as their ear whereas Galton photographed the subjects’ face in whole. Another contrast between the two photographers’ methods is the fact that Galton focused on more than identifying criminals, and even went as far as to try to divine the stereotypical man of a specific race as portrayed in “The Jewish Type”. Once again, this ties into his abhorrent study and practice of eugenics as a way to identify and eliminate those of inferior races or abilities. As Allan Sekula suggests in his essay, “the photographic portrait in particular was welcomed as a socially… repressive instrument.”[9] This is wholly problematic and immoral as this school of thought, eugenics as a motivator of the repressive nature of photography, can be attributed to the actions the Nazis took in World War II as well as numerous genocides around the world. “The past history of eugenics has been appalling, with gross abuses in the USA between 1931 and 1945 when compulsory sterilization was practiced; and in Germany between 1933 and 1945 when mass extermination and compulsory sterilization were performed.”[10]

Finally, yet another difference in the two men’s ultimate goals lies in the fact that Francis Galton tied his photographs and practice to the medical idea of eugenics in an attempt to define what various suitable men look like, for the purpose of easier identification. Galton writes that by using the composites of siblings or family members, one would potentially be able to discover and “compare the average features of the produce with those of the parentage.”[11] By doing this, Galton felt that with both animals as well as humans, scientists or even just the average citizen would subsequently be able to decide which matings or unions would be best fitted for each animal and which would produce the “best” offspring as a result.

Despite Galton and Bertillon’s differences, both men’s results and work in this area of photography contributed to the idea of positivism and societies’ attempts to regulate and identify those that were, in their opinion, socially deviant. Both of these men used their photography to define humans and human nature while simultaneously putting them into boxes and categories. As a result of these practices and photographs, they provided society with not only stereotypes of various human populations, but scapegoats. While they may have approached the idea of positivism differently, both ultimately were great contributors to the idea in the late 1800s.

In modern day time, there are countless problems with the practice of surveillance that have stemmed from Bertillon and Galton’s uses of photography of people. One such issue arises when government agencies in particular still use photographs and video surveillance as a way to identify and stereotype people, such as potential terrorists. This issue is especially prevalent and visible in the times that airport security surveillance flags Muslim men who they think to look suspicious. In a sense, these video surveillances are using composites because they simply see the average Muslim man and assume him to be the worst kind rather than first assuming that he is simply an American citizen or a visiting tourist. Arguably, when police stations also release “wanted” photos without enough information, they are doing the same thing as using a general composite to catch their suspect. This frequently occurs with African American suspects and often leads to the interrogation and sometimes death of innocent men and women all because of a broad and undefined photo/drawing of the supposed average African American. While these two photographers may have had noble intentions from a scientific viewpoint, the evolution of this practice has inadvertently resulted in intrusion into citizens lives and privacy and has led to stereotyping of populations.