Exterieur van een casino te Biarritz 1862 - 1876

Jean Andrieu made this photograph of the exterior of a casino in Biarritz using the 19th-century process of albumen printing. The appeal of photography in the 1800s lay in its seeming indexicality, that it was produced by light, not by the hand of an artist. In this way, it seemed an objective record of the world. But of course, even then, the photographer had many choices: composition, vantage point, exposure time, and the conditions of developing and printing. Andrieu set up his camera to show the full grandeur of this building. It’s a testament to the burgeoning resort industry, which depended not only on architecture like this but also on newly efficient means of transportation. In effect, a photograph like this one was part of the same system as the casino itself. So next time you look at an old photograph, remember that it is not just a depiction of the world, but also evidence of a whole social and economic order.