The following is a guest post by Barbara Orbach Natanson, former Reference Section Head, Prints & Photographs Division. Being a woman of a certain age myself, I recently began to wonder how and where older women are depicted in Prints & Photographs Division collections. Naturally, even in embarking on such an exploration, one has to …
One of the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects of research with visual materials is the wide variety of information you can learn from a single image, from the obvious to the unexpected. A photographic portrait, for example, has a primary job of showing you what someone looks like. But beyond that, you could learn about …
Through this blog, staff of the Prints and Photographs Division connect virtually with readers every week with stories about our collections. In the course of this past year, we have tried out new ways to reach out virtually while we are unable to meet in person. To this end, staff throughout the Library have created …
A recent Picture This blog post aptly titled: Posing (and Solving) Mysteries: Harris & Ewing Photographs Invite Detective Work included a photo that did invite some additional detective work! This leads us to this latest entry in our occasional series, Double Take, where we take a much closer look at images in our collections. My …
What do a carousel horse, Theodore Roosevelt, and a lighthouse have in common? Look closely at the drawing below from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial – can you spot two Roosevelts? There is, of course, the large drawing of the Roosevelt statue featured at the memorial on Theodore Roosevelt …
When I envision how to research a photograph or any other image, one methodology I come back to over and over consists of ever-widening circles, with the photo in question at center. Picture, if you will, a stone thrown in a still pond and the ripples flowing outwards, growing ever wider. Today’s stone is the …
In this latest installment of Double Take, the series where we take a much closer look at images in our collections, we will talk about how to date a photograph. Do you have any older photographs, tucked away in boxes or albums? How many have a specific date noted on them? If your answer was …
In this latest entry in Double Take, the blog series where we take a closer look at images in our collections, we will talk about the photo below and how an assumption led to an interesting research journey. What do you see when you look at this photo? What building is behind this couple? Most …
In this installment of Double Take, the blog series where we take a much closer look at images in our collections, we dig a little deeper into the story behind the photo below, featuring a truck – and a trunk! – of unusual design: The White House is in the background, so I know we …