This paper proposes a visual ethnography about the daily life of the former crew members of the SMS Dresden during their stay on Quiriquina Island between 1915 and 1919. It does so through photographs that still remains of their stay on the island, in the vast majority taken and printed by a single professional photographer based in Valparaíso, named Adolfo Casten. The latter produced dozens of albums with these photographs, which were sold in different formats and media, as a souvenir of the retention and residence of the sailors on the island. These sophisticated visual works (albums and photographs) are today found in libraries, museums and private hands throughout Chile and in other countries, especially in Germany.