In 2019, I came across my French grandfather's photo album documenting his 1965 road trip through Morocco. As I flipped through the pages, I noticed that the album features several images of Moroccan water carriers, known as Guerrab. The French photographer, a colleague of my grandfather's, had paid particular attention to this profession in various locations during the trip. His tourist snapshots of the Guerrab adopt the compositional style of carte de visite photographs (figs. 1–2) and picture postcards (fig. 3), which were produced for European tourists travelling in North Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For these photo formats, European photographers would often stage people, sometimes for a fee, in front of a studio backdrop or out on the street. The resulting pictures offered European tourists, postcard recipients, and armchair travellers a compact, portable visual souvenir of their travel destination, encapsulating their expectations of the 'foreign' within distinct, easily recognisable categories.


In the early years of photography, it was rare that the momentary reaction of the photographed person could disrupt the photographer's gaze, and thus also the pre-defined motif intended for a European audience. This kind of disruption wasn't just unlikely due to the relatively long exposure times; it was also prevented by the colonial and commercial circumstances in which staged photographs were produced. In light of this context, this study of tourist snapshots of water carriers from the 1960s considers the critical discourse on Orientalism, as well as the snapshot's potential to capture the momentary and unpredictable — what Walter Benjamin calls 'das winzige Fünkchen Zufall, Hier und Jetzt' ①.


For the case study, particular attention is drawn to the presence or absence of the so-called reverse gaze of the person photographed: an active gaze or gesture by an individual towards the camera, claiming power over the image-making process and its outcome, even rejecting the gaze of the photographer who is attempting to produce a familiar, well-known motif. Instead of disappearing behind the camera, the photographer is drawn into the image by the reverse gaze of the photographed person. (fig. 4) Consequently, the study highlights how the presence of a reverse gaze draws the attention of the photographer and the image viewer to the possible power imbalance underlying the photographic situation. Roland Barthes' ② phenomenological distinction between studium and punctum serves as a conceptual framework into which studies of tourist photography as well as research on Orientalist photography from West Asia and North Africa are introduced.

Original title B.A. thesis: 'Momente der Kontingenz in touristischen Reiseaufnahmen von Marokko aus dem Jahre 1965. Eine Analyse des reverse gaze des Fotosubjekts als retardierendes und kontrapunktierendes punctum innerhalb des orientalistischen studiums am Beispiel von Momentaufnahmen des marokkanischen Guerrabs (Wasserträger)' (2020), supervised by Dr. Volker Wortmann and Dr. Daniel Gad (Stiftung Universität Hildesheim).


The photo album traces the journey of four French men to Morocco in 1965. The photographs have been preserved as prints (landscape format: 8.8 × 13.8 cm) in four small albums with ring binder and cardboard cover (landscape format: 9.2 x 14.9 cm). (fig. 5) The first album contains views of Spain, Gibraltar, Tangier and Tetouan, while the photographs in the second album show the cities of Meknes, Fes, Rabat and Casablanca, as well as the ancient site of Volubilis. A third album features images of Ouarzazate and Marrakech. The fourth album shows a Moussem with Tbourida and Z3lula and an irrigation system with wells.


There are no labels in the album to indicate places and events. However, it can be assumed that the four French men travelled from Gibraltar by ferry to Tangier, then in their own car via Tetouan, Fes, Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, Volubilis, Meknes, Rabat, Ouarzazate and Marrakech to Casablanca and finally by ship back to Europe.