The project aimed to advance the-state-of-the-art through the novelty of its research question, data set and methods. In terms of the research question, it shifted the focus from visual representation to reception, and instead of focusing on what the Ottomans captured with their cameras or how they became subjects of photography under the Western orientalist gaze or state’s surveillance, it explored how different imperial groups grasped the photographic medium in the context of cultural and epistemic interactions between the Ottoman Empire and the West. In terms of data, the project uncovered and explored previously unstudied materials consisting of publications on photography written by Armenians and Turks. In terms of methodology, it developed a cultural-historical approach to the study of the history of photography in the Ottoman Empire and adopted a contextual and comparative approach in analysing each group's attitude towards photography against the background of their relationship with Ottoman modernisation and the West. In doing so, it also revealed previously unexplored links between the Ottoman Empire and the West through photographic practices. It also brought the expertise of different disciplines to bear on the analysis of the subject. The project also challenged the prevailing tendency in the historiography of Ottoman photography, as well as in Ottoman studies in general, to assume a uniform imperial experience across different ethnic groups, reducing the Ottoman experience to that of Muslim Turks and ignoring the substantial roles played by non-Muslim imperial subjects. In this way, the project highlighted how the label Ottoman, in the context of the history of photography, represents an amalgamation of a variety of experiences.
