Representation of Power Relations in Court Photographs of the Naserid Era: A Case Study of 50 Photographs from the Album House of Golestan Palace
Keywords:
Qajar photography, Naserid era, representation of power, visual regime, John Tagg, Album House of Golestan PalaceAbstract
Photography in the Naserid era was not merely an artistic or technological phenomenon; rather, it acquired meaning within the discourse of power and became an instrument for representing, consolidating, and surveilling royal relations. The present study aims to examine the representation of power relations in court photographs of this period through a case study of 50 photographs from the Album House of Golestan Palace. The theoretical framework of the study is based on three axes: the concept of the “visual regime” as a visual equivalent of Foucauldian discourse, John Tagg’s theory of “photographic evidence,” which regards photographic realism as a social practice rather than a technical essence, and Foucault’s discourse analysis of power, which emphasizes the production of truth by institutions of power (Foucault, 1972, 1977; Tagg, 1988). The research method is qualitative and follows visual and semiotic analysis. The findings indicate that in these photographs: (1) the king is represented as the “central signifier” of photographic discourse, appearing larger, more centrally positioned, and placed within more privileged frames than others; (2) photographs of servants and enslaved attendants, through submissive poses and direct gazes toward the camera, reproduce a “sense of being under command”; (3) Naser al-Din Shah’s handwritten annotations on photographs, including naming, correction, or the crossing out of individuals’ names, constitute a display of his absolute power over the representation of others; and (4) photographic albums function as visual archives that depict the king’s domain and enable surveillance beyond the spatial boundaries of the palace. The study concludes that court photography in the Naserid era reflects not naked reality, but rather a truth constructed by power; in this context, the “camera” becomes the king’s secondary eye for seeing and for making his subjects visible.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Shima Farzadi (Author); Hayide Khamseh; Maryam Kolbadinejad (Author)
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