Photography

National Archives Launches New Online Print Shop

admin

The National Archives has announced that it is partnering with Pictopia in a new online Print Shop. Prints of more than 1,200 historical and contemporary photographs, World War I and II posters, drawings and sketches, maps, and ship plans are now available for purchase online. The images are reproduced on archival paper from digital files housed at the National Archives.

Customers can order a print, custom framed or unframed, in a variety of sizes, as well as gift items such as mugs, ornaments, and puzzles that feature the image of their choice. New images will continue to be added to the collection regularly.

Highlights of the introductory collection include:

* Portfolios of some of the nation’s finest photographers, including Ansel Adams, Mathew Brady, Lewis Hine, and Dorothea Lange

* Photographs of the American City—its development and its people and their way of life from the early 19th century to recent times

* Drawings of early sailing ships from the Charles Ware collection

* Architectural drawings of Cape Hatteras, Cape Canaveral, and Execution Rocks lighthouses among others

* Patent drawings for household products, design trademarks, and curious inventions

* Photographs and watercolor sketches of famous American monuments, including the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Statue of Liberty

* Watercolor illustrations of 19th-century landscapes of the American West

* World War I and II posters from the records of the U.S. Food Administration and the Office of Government Reports

Photo: A U.S. Coast Guard drawing of the lighthouse on Montauk Point, Long Island.

Who Shot Rock And Roll Photography Exhibit Opens

admin

Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present, which will run from October 30, 2009–January 31, 2010 at the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor of the Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway) features more than 175 works by 105 photographers, including many rare and never-before-exhibited photographs, that gave the music its visual identity. The exhibit is being billed as the first major museum exhibition on rock and roll to put photographers in the foreground, acknowledging their creative and collaborative role in the history of rock music. From its earliest days, rock and roll was captured in photographs that personalized, and frequently eroticized, the musicians, creating a visual identity for the genre.

The photographers were handmaidens to the rock-and-roll revolution, and their images communicate the social and cultural transformations that rock has fostered since the1950s. The exhibition is in six sections: rare and revealing images taken behind the scenes- tender snapshots of young musicians at the beginnings of their careers- exhilarating photographs of live performances that display the energy, passion, style, and sex appeal of the band on stage- powerful images of the crowds and fans that are often evocative of historic paintings- portraits revealing the soul and creativity, rather than the surface and celebrity, of the musicians- and conceptual images and album covers highlighting the collaborative efforts between the image makers and the musicians.

Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present is organized by the Brooklyn Museum with guest curator Gail Buckland.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated book by Gail Buckland titled Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955-Present, published by Alfred A. Knopf, with support from the Universal Music Group.

Photo: Henry Diltz (American, b. 1938). Tina Turner, Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles (detail), October 1985. Chromogenic print. © Henry Diltz

NYS Museum Photo Exhibit On Great Depression

admin

A new traveling exhibition opens at the New York State Museum on October 17 showcasing the works of a legendary group of photographers who documented the lives and struggles of Americans enduring the Great Depression. &#8220This Great Nation Will Endure,&#8221 open through March 14, 2010, features more than 150 images of America taken between 1935 and 1942 by the legendary photographic unit of the Farm Security Administration (FSA). This remains the largest documentary photography project ever undertaken. The photographs include some of the most familiar and powerful images of the nation to emerge from the Depression era. Many have reached iconic status in American culture.

Curated and designed by staff at the Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) Library and Museum in Hyde Park, the exhibition features images from every region of the nation, culled from the enormous FSA photography collection (numbering tens of thousands of images) at the Library of Congress. Included are photographs taken during the 1930s and
1940s by Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott and Jack Delano.

The FSA was a New Deal agency created by President Roosevelt in 1937 to help American farmers and farm laborers who were confronting economic depression and natural disaster, including the ecological disaster known as the Dust Bowl. It developed out of an earlier agency called the Resettlement Administration (RA) for which its director, Rexford Tugwell, had established a publicity department to document rural poverty and government efforts to alleviate it. That department included a photographic unit called the “Historical Section,” administrated by former Columbia University economics instructor, Roy Stryker. To accomplish the agency’s goals, Stryker enlisted a group of men and women who today comprise a virtual “Who’s Who” of 20th-century documentary photography. The RA and its “Historical Section” were merged into the newly created FSA in 1937. Many of its
photographers later forged careers that helped define photojournalism at magazines like Life and Look.

Most of the photographs in the exhibition depict rural life and hardships but they also include many images of town and city life. The FSA created a very diverse
record of American life during the 1930s and early 1940s, including images of hardship, endurance, hope, recovery, migration, recreation and community life. The photographs provide visual affirmation of President Roosevelt’s bold assertion in
his first inaugural address, delivered at the lowest point of the Great Depression: “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper … the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

The exhibition also includes a specially commissioned, short documentary film that explores the work of four of the most prominent FSA photographers. There also is a soundtrack of folk music sung by migrant workers that was recorded in migrant worker camps in California in 1940-41. An interactive computer program allows visitors to explore entire series of images shot by FSA photographers during individual
photo assignments. Also featured is a short silent video that depicts the ways in which FSA photography was used in newspapers and magazines of the 1930s and 1940s.

Photo: Lower Manhattan seen from the S.S. Coamo leaving New York, by Jack Delano.Courtesy Library of Congress

Managing Your Historical Photographs Workshops

admin

The New York State Archives is offering two new workshops on managing historical photographs. The first, offered at three locations around the state in October is intended to present strategies for taking physical and intellectual control of photographs to ensure their long-term access and use. Participants will hear methods of organizing and making accessible photographic material, and preservation guidelines for photographs, along with reference, exhibition, and outreach strategies will be outlined. The workshops are free and open to the public. The second workshop in the two part series, &#8220Digitizing Your Historical Photographs,&#8221 will be available next year.

Schedule and Registration

October 13, 2009, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Hanford Mills, East Meredith, NY
Presenter Ray LeFever, Coordinator of Archival Advisory Services, NYS Archives Register by downloading a registration form from Upstate History Alliance

October 20, 2009, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
New City Library, New City, NY (Rockland County)
Presenter Ray LeFever, Coordinator of Archival Advisory Services, NYS Archives
Register by emailing Dianne Macpherson at Greater Hudson Heritage Network.

October 20, 2009 9:15 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.
Schenectady County Library Schenectady, NY
Presenter Denis Meadows, Regional Advisory Officer, NYS Archives Region 4
Register online with the State Archives.

For more information e-mail [email protected].

Photo: Bart Warren and helper in his blacksmith shop, West Sand Lake, NY c. 1900
@greaterhudson.org>

Governor Hugh Carey Photos Go Online

admin

In an ongoing effort to make records more accessible, the New York State Archives collaborated with former New York Governor Hugh L. Carey’s director of communications, William F. Snyder, and the Carey family to create an online digital collection from the Archives’ gubernatorial records of Hugh Carey in celebration of the governor’s 90th birthday in April 2009.

Archives staff worked with Snyder and the Carey family to select and identify approximately 400 photographs from Carey’s two terms as state governor, his family pictures, and his congressional career. Governor Carey’s legacy was firmly established in the early years of his administration when he provided the strong leadership needed to rescue New York City from bankruptcy. A lifelong Democrat, Governor Carey is also remembered for his fierce advocacy on behalf of the disabled and for the I Love New York campaign that energized tourism in New York.

The photos can be found at http://www.archives.nysed.gov/d/.

Photo: Governor Carey with Frank Sinatra.

A New Decorative Objects Online Resource

admin

The Smithsonian has announced online access to the E. F. Caldwell & Co. Collection which &#8220contains more than 50,000 images consisting of approximately 37,000 black & white photographs and 13,000 original design drawings of lighting fixtures and other fine metal objects that they produced from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries.&#8221

According to the site: Edward F. Caldwell & Co., of New York City, was the premier designer and manufacturer of electric light fixtures and decorative metalwork from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries. Founded in 1895 by Edward F. Caldwell (1851-1914) and Victor F. von Lossberg (1853-1942), the firm’s legacy of highly crafted creations includes custom made metal gates, lanterns, chandeliers, ceiling and wall fixtures, floor and table lamps, and other decorative objects that can be found today in many metropolitan area churches, public buildings, offices, clubs, and residences. A majority of these buildings were built in the early 20thcentury, a time of tremendous growth in construction and when many cities were being electrified for the first time.

The New York Public Library has additional materials [pdf].

In Stoddards Footsteps at Adirondack Museum

admin

His career spanned the settling of the Adirondacks, the heyday of the guide, the steamship, and the grand hotel. Pioneer photographer Seneca Ray Stoddard produced over 8,000 images of a changing landscape &#8212- the largest documentary record of regional life in the late nineteenth century. Adirondack photographer Mark Bowie followed in Stoddard’s footsteps more than a century later, faithfully photographing once again the exact locations of many of his classic images.

Join Bowie on Sunday, February 15, 2009 at the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York as he compares the Adirondacks of today with Stoddard’s. The comparisons are fascinating, sometimes surprising, in every case, illuminating.

Mark Bowie is a third generation Adirondack photographer. He is a frequent contributor to Adirondack Life and Adirondack Explorer magazines. His photos have been published in Natural History, as well as by the Sierra Club, Conde Nast Publications, Portal Publications, and Tehabi Books.

Bowie’s first book, Adirondack Waters: Spirit of the Mountains (2006) is a landmark regional publication. In Stoddard’s Footsteps: The Adirondacks Then & Now was recently published. He has recently completed work on a third book, The Adirondacks: In Celebration of the Seasons, to be released in the Spring 2009.

Mark Bowie leads digital and landscape photography workshops, has produced several multi-format shows about the Adirondacks and has been featured on the Public Television programs &#8220Adirondack Outdoors&#8221 and &#8220Insight.&#8221 He lives with his wife, Rushelle, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

The program, &#8220In Stoddard’s Footsteps&#8221 will be the second in the museum’s popular Cabin Fever Sunday series. Held in the Auditorium, the presentation will begin promptly at 1:30 p.m. Cabin Fever Sunday programs are offered at no charge to museum members. The fee for non-members is $5.00. There is no charge for children of elementary school age or younger. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, please call the Education Department at (518) 352-7311, ext. 128 or visit the museum’s web site at www.adirondackmuseum.org.

LIFE Magazine Picture Archive Hosted at Google

admin

Google and LIFE Magazine have teamed up to present the magazines photo archive online. Strangely, a search for New York turned up nothing- a search for New York History turns up hundreds of photos, including the shot of men paving a street in Brooklyn in 1890 by George B. Brainerd which was not found in the search results for Brooklyn.

Those problems aside, the archive does include iconic images taken by famous photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, and Dorothea Lange. The project is similar to &#8220The Commons&#8221 launched by Flickr which now includes photos from the Library of Congress. LIFE has said that as many as 97 percent of the photographs have never been seen by the public before.