“Carte de Visite: Los Orígenes del oficio fotográfico en la Región de Murcia (1860-1910)”.

This book explores the history and trajectory of the first professional photographers who worked in the Region of Murcia. In doing so, it offers information about the foreigners and nationals who exercised their profession as itinerant photographers, as well as the first studios that, little by little, were established in the main towns of the province: Murcia, Cartagena, Lorca, etc. The backbone of this journey is the carte de visite format. Spread in the region at the beginning of the 1860s, this revolutionary procedure allowed the costs of the photographic technique to be reduced, achieving a great diffusion portraits among the middle and upper classes. This led to an increase in demand, which led to the establishment and development of a new profession: that of the photographer. Given its importance, the first part of the book is devoted to an analysis of the carte de visite format, from its material structure to its main genres and themes. The second part is devoted to the main photographers who worked with this format, from its heyday in the 1860s to its decline at the turn of the century.

Asensio Martínez Jódar (Murcia, 1986)

PhD in Art History from the University of Murcia, where he currently, and since 2020, works as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Letters (Art History).

He has published several articles and books on 19th century photography from the Region of Murcia. His research on the Murcian photographer Juan Almagro Roca and the origins of photography in the Region stand out.

As a cultural manager he has worked in the cataloging and research of several public collections. Among them, the Spanish Civil War collection of the National Library, several collections of old photography from the General Archive of the Region of Murcia and the collection of images from the Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia.