Zanzibar / Summer 2023
I wasn’t trying to find a camera obscura in the maze of Stone Town streets. I was surprised to find one. I guess I had narrow-mindedly assumed that Zanzibar was an unlikely site for this, but in fact Africa and the Middle East has a long history of photography and the camera obscura or Al-Bayt al-Muthlim in Arabic. No one could tell me much about this one, but In 1883, Sultan Barghash bin Said, ruler of Zanzibar, included it as part of his new palace which he called The House of Wonders—wondrously Zanzibar’s first building to have electricity, an elevator and running water alongside marble floors, paneled walls and imposing columns. In those days it was both fashionable and a sign of embracing the frontiers of science to have a private camera obscura, and the Sultan was a well-travelled man.
Some photos have survived that might have been taken in this room but there is no evidence that this was a true camera obscura. That is, that it was a darkened space that acts as the inside of a camera itself where you can watch the outside world projected via a small lens onto the walls, ceiling and floor—flipped upside-down and inverted. But it might have been, as the House of Wonders was built to be seen, to display and to amaze. It is said that wild animals were on display in front of the building. The clock tower that housed the camera obscura was added in 1897 and would have been for the family, women and special guests of the household, designed and angled to watch the bustling streets below.
I went looking for an old photography studio and was thrilled to find Capital Art Studio, running continuously since 1930 where I met photographer Ramesh Oza, the son of the studio founder. His father became the semi-official royal photographer of Sultan Khalifa, a known patron of the arts and letters. Ramesh confirmed the camera obscura story but no details. He sat stoic, surrounded by his and his father’s creativity, watching his town teetering between continuity and a money-driven transformation into a boutique tourist destination.