The following is the fourth in a series of guest posts by Micah Messenheimer, Assistant Curator of Photography, Prints and Photographs Division, that discuss the parallel development of two technologies in the 19th century: railroads and photography. A previous blog post examined Andrew J. Russell’s background as a photographer during the Civil War and his …
In the first entry in this occasional series, Profiling Portraits, we examined occupational portraits, a type of portrait designed to tell the viewer a specific fact about the sitter: their occupation. We will now look at another type of portrait, one which is very popular today, thanks to the advent of smartphones with cameras: self-portraits, …
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. It’s a remarkable achievement for any social media program to still be going strong after ten years. But the most important part of the Flickr Commons is the opportunity to talk about pictures without the barriers of time and place. A …
The following is an interview with Kit Arrington, Digital Library Specialist in the Prints and Photographs Division, about a project to scan the entire Popular Graphic Arts collection, for which she served as project manager. About a month ago I had a conversation with Senior Cataloger Woody Woodis about his work on the same project. …
I can never resist a demonstration that the subjects of photos sometimes undermine the efforts of even the most professional photographers. The original caption for this photograph emphasizes charity, but the expressions on the two young boys’ faces suggest that they were feeling anything but charitable towards the photographer. The photo is one of thousands …
