Portman, 1890s

British colonial official M.V. Portman became somewhat notorious after he took hundreds of nude photos of Andaman Island indigenous people, mostly men in the 1890s.  The bulk of those photos were like those above and immediately below in that they had some legitimate scientific elements.  (The grid was an effective size standardization method used by others as well.)  The problem was that Portman also staged his subjects in fanciful romantic scenes that were in some cases sexually suggestive.  There were also rumors that the sex was more than just suggested.  The image at the bottom of this group of three was one of the more benign of that second type.