This article examines images of Seoul from the 1880s to the 1910s and their roles in formulating varying understandings of the Korean capital, from the undeveloped and queer Eastern kingdom to a reformed and imperial capital, to the modernized but colonized city. After the opening of ports and the reception of Western media, the Korean capital city was visually represented by foreign visitors who recorded the appearance of the palace and streets of Seoul to introduce the unknown Eastern land to the Western world. After the Gabo Reforms of the 1890s, Korean intellectuals employed visual imageries of Seoul to educate the importance of the capital city in the formation of a collective national identity based on shared history, culture, and the space and place inhabited by the Korean people. Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 signalled a major shift in the consumption of visual imageries of Seoul cityscapes where the new and improved appearance of Seoul was promoted to encourage tourism and mass consumerism, and simultaneously justified colonial occupation. In this article, the impact of photography and print media and the development of modern visual culture in the consumption of early modern cityscapes of Seoul at the turn of the twentieth century is addressed, and the changes in the manner of depiction and presentation as impacted by Western Orientalism, nation-building agendas, and colonial governance is analysed.