Description: It would be hard to imagine stepping into a Smithsonian museum today and not seeing a single camera. Digital cameras and smart phones with cameras are so completely a part of today’s museum-going experience that - unless a flash goes off in your face – you probably wouldn’t notice the camera next to you. However, in 1938, you would have seen a very different sight. On August
Description: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Untitled, by Unidentified photographer, c. 1905, Smithsonian Institution Archives"][/caption] In keeping with our summer travel theme, I began to investigate some of the ways in which photographers were first able to travel with their cameras. To give a brief background, the invention of photography in 1839 coincided with
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="237" caption="This is America...Keep it Free!, Dorothea Lange, 1942, National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center, Archives Center."][/caption] More cameras in more places. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the installation of red light cameras and the controversy surrounding their use that’s continuing to spread
Description: Since The Bigger Picture began in early 2009, I’ve written a number of posts about what might be called camera traps, situations where cameras are installed to collect evidence of one kind of unusual or unwanted behavior or another. Red light cameras are a controversial example; across the country and on an almost daily basis, local municipalities and motorists argue about