Digital Conversion Technician Brittany Long added this image to our “Caught Our Eyes” sharing wall a few months ago, with a two-word comment: “Representation Matters.” Brittany encountered the image while working on a team that is going negative by negative through a segment of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection to make …
When Digital Library Specialist Anne Mitchell isn’t wrangling digital files and managing metadata, she can often be seen with her fingers flying as some beautiful new creation emerges from her knitting needles. It’s no wonder that she was particularly adept at finding images of knitters and other practitioners of textile crafts in our collections. Here, …
In the era before the development of social media, how did you get a big message across? Type it out on a giant typewriter! Reference Librarian Jon Eaker ran across this photo while browsing the Harris & Ewing negatives online. It came with very little information. As with many images that catch our eyes, however, …
I ran across this photo several months ago while looking for something else, and immediately laughed and put it in my “don’t try this at home” file. But what I definitely recommend you do try at home, or anywhere else you have an opportunity, is to talk about pictures with others. It almost always adds …
No, this is not a post bemoaning the sultry heat of late summer (sometimes referred to, apparently for astronomical reasons, as the “dog days”). The Prints & Photographs Division’s dog days are prompted by the realization that various staff members highlighted portraits of dogs (some with accompanying humans) on the division’s “Caught Our Eyes” wall, …
Digital Library Specialist Pete Richey spotted this intriguing photograph from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection and added it to our “Caught Our Eyes” wall, where staff share pictorial “finds” from Prints & Photographs Division collections. “When I first saw this photograph it piqued my interest. At first glance this photograph could either …
Photo preservation specialist Donna Collins recently added this photo to the “eye catching” images we share on our conference room wall. Donna noted, “For those of us who’ve shared the joyful experience of inviting an enthusiastic dog (or two) to hop in the car for a ride, the composition of this photo recently caught my …
The first time I browsed through the Prints and Photographs Reading Room Graphics File, I came across a reference copy of a striking triptych of Japanese woodblock prints depicting a crowd of spectators in Western dress observing a balloon ascension. When I looked the image up in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog and saw digitized …
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 …