Lehnert and Landrock in Egypt

September 20, 2009

Two photographers, Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Landrock, set up shop in Egypt during the 1920s, and by the looks of their collection of prints they got around pretty well. They made images that became classic postcard prints. A wide collection of their prints is now available online through the website of CULTNAT (Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage). The goal of this institution is to document the "tangible and intangible" cultural heritage of Egypt. It takes a little poking around, but a persistent viewer will come upon a dynamic presentation of the photos of Lehnert and Lambert.

I have mixed feelings about the style of the presentation. The images swirl in a helix that can be sped up or slowed down by the viewer. Individual photos can be clicked on to view in a slightly larger format. Since this is all embedded within a Flash file, it's difficult to do anything with the image files.. there's no way to download them or magnify them so far as I see. And that is to me a real drawback. I just don't get the utility of putting up a catalog of photographs that nobody can do anything with. A site like this can only be treated as a museum gallery.. something to be viewed on its own and then walked away from.

Strangely a Google search for the terms "Lehnert Landrock Egypt" does not turn up this site in the first few pages, which indicates that it is pretty well buried on the CULTNAT site. Too bad! What does come up in a search is the excellent TIMEA site (Travelers in the Middle East Archive) administered by Paula Sanders at Rice University. This entire site is governed by a Creative Commons License so material is open for use with proper attribution. And I can put in an example of a postcard by Lehnert and Landrock:

This freedom of use allows someone to do something with the photo, even if it is only to make a few comments on the unpaved streets and lack of cars. I don't complain about this lack of openness with images solely as a blogger who likes to use images; I look for visual sources that allow students to use the images and perhaps use them as examples in a paper.

I just don't get why people are so interested in padlocking material. I can understand it from a profit point of view: someone is looking to sell access and make money. But for a non-profit it makes no sense and defeats the goal of disseminating the information and allowing educators to use the material in classes. CULTNAT appears to be working on a lot of projects, and it can only be hoped that in the future it will keep a looser grip on its material. If they continue to present material in Flash format (as they also do with the related Description de l'Egypte site), they might consider providing an alternative format with accessible image files.. and for God's sake make use of a Creative Commons license so that there are defined parameters of re-use!