Description: I was reading one of Holland Cotter’s reviews of an art exhibition in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, when I came across a description of a show that was about to close and wished I’d been able to see. At a space run by the Esopus Foundation, Bob Warner, a New York artist and optician, was opening, one box at a time, the cartons of material that another artist, Ray
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="Heard Museum Gift Shop, by Daniel Greene, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignright" width="216" caption="Slide Carousel: Loading Slides into the Carousel 5, by rosefirerising, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] How does photography change the ways we look and learn about
Description: Savage Beauty, the posthumous and retrospective exhibition of women’s fashions designed by Alexander McQueen (1969–2010) at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art closed early in August. The record breaking event—an official attendance count of 661,509 visitors made it the eighth biggest show in the museum’s history—featured approximately one hundred ensembles drawn, primarily,
Description: [caption id="attachment_2262" align="aligncenter" width="186" caption="Frankenstein by MARX!, by Flickr user TCM Hitchhiker."][/caption] For all the talk about creative seeing and the art of photography, the technical parameters of picture-taking and making have, for the most part, been defined by manufacturers of camera and photographic supplies. That wasn’t always the case;
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Beauty is forever, by Just Warr, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0 Generic."][/caption] At THE BIGGER PICTURE, we often write about the challenges of maintaining the data in digital archives. But a recent article bundled in the informative daily arts newsletter compiled by Jeff Weiss—you can subscribe by sending a request
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="331" caption="14th Street and Broadway, NYC (man with goggles), 1947, by Louis Faurer, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of anonymous donors, 2007.40.61 "][/caption] Earlier this month, Google introduced the Beta and Android-based version of the new and, for some, startling photo-based search feature they’ve calling Google Goggles.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="251" caption="Untitled, 1890, by Thomas Smillie, Cyanotype, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Thomas Smillie Collection (Record Unit 95), Image ID: RU95_Box77_0021."][/caption] It’s inevitable. Whenever someone tries to recount or evoke photography’s impact on visual culture when Daguerreotypes were introduced in 1839, a statement
Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives will be celebrating African American History Month throughout February with a series of related posts on THE BIGGER PICTURE.
Description: [caption id="attachment_4178" align="alignleft" width="206" caption="Levi Hill often photographed color lithographic prints, mostly European images, when attempting to perfect his Hillotype color process. This print of a girl and small animal shows his achievement in capturing natural colors on a daguerreotype plate, circa 1851-56."][/caption] Excepting the 8% of males and