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Category: Photographs

Photo of double rainbow taken over desert landscape in Arizona along historic Route 66.

Caught Our Eyes: Capturing Rainbows

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

I recently came across this photograph when perusing some images from the Carol M. Highsmith Collection, and, hailing from the American West, I was cheered by its familiar landscape – not to mention the symmetry of the rainbow. As the title of the image indicates, the hint of a second rainbow is visible above the …

Naja working with images related to Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Photo by Naja Morris, 2022.

Adding Details to Improve Access

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following is an interview with Naja Morris, the Prints & Photographs Division’s current Archives, History and Heritage Advanced (AHHA) intern. Melissa: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to intern in the Prints & Photographs Division? Naja: I went to Mississippi State University as an undergraduate where …

Soldiers with cannon on small railroad car.

Revisiting Rights-Free: U.S. Civil War Images

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The Prints & Photographs Division’s U.S. Civil War collections are impressive, spanning a number of collections. Our core bodies of material related to the Civil War are conveniently featured in one place in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Probably the best known collection of Civil War material in the division consists of original glass …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Mapping Anthony Angel’s Photographs of Manhattan

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Photographer Angelo Antonio Rizzuto – or Anthony Angel, as he called himself –  captured a variety of people, structures, and places in Manhattan over the eighteen-year period from 1949 through 1967. Collectively, the thousands of images by Angel in the Prints & Photographs Division offer a window into life and the built environment in a …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Unlocking the Color: Photographs by Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii, 1909 to 1915

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following interview with photographer Walt Frankhauser is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief of the Prints & Photographs Division. Back in 1948, the Library of Congress acquired close to 2,000 rare glass-plate negatives created by the Russian photographer Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944). We knew that what appeared to be black-and-white images could be …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Exploring Fact and Fiction in Civil War Imagery

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

The following is a guest post by Paloma Ronis von Helms, Prints & Photographs Division Stanford in Government Liljenquist Fellow. As this year’s Summer Liljenquist Fellow in the Prints & Photographs Division at the Library of Congress, I reviewed ambrotype and tintype images, carte de visite photographs, lithographs, and other formats depicting soldiers and battlefield …

Through the Lens of Laura Gilpin

Posted by: Melissa Lindberg

Join Curator of Photography Micah Messenheimer this Thursday, August 4, for a presentation on the landscape work of acclaimed 20th century photographer Laura Gilpin in the collections of the Prints & Photographs Division. The talk will highlight Gilpin’s craft, stylistic changes, and the range of sites, subjects, and people she photographed in the 1920s and …