This small collection of lantern slides refers to actually a much larger collection of photographs, taken by Dr. Friedrich Behme in Tsingtau (Qingdao, Shandong province), China, between 1897 and 1903. Behme's comprehensive documentation of the early development of the town of Tsingtau is probably unparalleled in the history of photography as exercised by a westerner in China. Some years ago I sold my Behme-collection of ca. 400 slides and glass negatives to the German Historical Museum (Deutsches Historisches Museum DHM) in Berlin, where they can be accessed and viewed. An article on Behme and the photographic legacy of his years in China was published in the Tsingtau - exhibition volume of the DHM, but the text and a small number of embedded images are also available
on-line here.
The lantern slides presented in this gallery were left over from the transaction to the DHM and may serve as a visual introduction to Behme's work. They cover Nikko (Japan), Singapore, and - broadly speaking - the Orient (from Egypt to Turkey), and are dated 1903.
Scanned with an Epson 4990 at 1200 dpi in TIF format, and converted to lossless JPG. The quality of the original images (and of the scanner) made post-processing unnecessary.
Thomas H. Hahn, Ithaca, NY
January 15, 2007
