Take a gander at the gentleman to the left. Antonios G. Lázou was certainly related to Kataxinouda, whom we have encountered in other stories in the Aegean Stories Vault. He was photographed on April 3, 1866, in Smyrna (Izmir) at the store of Kirkor Zaki Kessikbachian, an Armenian photographer and owner of one of the town’s first photography parlours. Dressed in white dotted pants and vest, overcoat, bowtie, and a fez he sure strikes one as a dapper Ottoman gentleman. Turn now to the man in the right, you see J. J. Johannessen, captain of the good ship August operating out of Larvik in Norway.

What must we make of these comparisons? What kind of dynamics of trade, cultural exchange, and communication lead two men from rather different geographical quadrants to step before a camera lens dressed in roughly similar fashion? How does a small town in Ottoman Lesvos connect to the wider world in the 19th century? Questions such as these emerge from the study of the KFL that the team at the Aegean Stories Vault are working to make available to both researchers and a lay audience interested in the history of Lesvos.

You may learn more about the photo parlours of Smyrna, where Antonios Lazou was photographed, by reading this story.