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Post by Californian on Oct 22, 2018 23:47:47 GMT -5
Elias Atkinson Bonine was born in 1843 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Elias Bonine was one of three brothers, all of whom were photographers. In 1876, Bonine sold a sawmill he owned and moved to the Southwest along with his cameras. He traveled throughout California, operating a tent photography business as he went. His travels from 1880 to 1883 took him to Yuma, Arizona, where he photographed the Yuma, Mohave, and Cocopa Indians. He subsequently settled in Lamanda Park, near Pasadena. Bonine was one of the most prolific photographers of Native American portraits in the carte-de-visite format. Unlike the earlier work of government survey photographers or of early anthropologists who used photography as field research, Bonine's images were made for public audience increasingly enthralled by native subjects. His several trips to Arizona in the 1870s and 1880s produced hundreds of portraits of members of the Yuman tribes, including Maricopas. Photographing his subjects in a temporary studio, Bonine attempted to add "natural" touches such as rocks or logs rather than the usual props of chair or curtain. Bonine's photographs were staged, calculated for a buying public who preferred the romance of the disappearing Indian to a more truthful and authentic presentation. Bonine died in 1916 in Pasadena, California. No known portrait of E. A. Bonine has been identified. Attachments:
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