MetaFilter posts tagged with photography and history

Another year in pictures

allkindsoftime — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:17:11 -0800

The year 2009 in photographs (boston.com, parts 2 & 3 coming tomorrow and the next day) prev

Wisconsin Death Trip

Kattullus — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:22:36 -0800

Charles Van Schaick was a photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the late 19th and early 20th Century. His work was made famous by Michael Lesy in the book Wisconsin Death Trip in which the photographs were juxtaposed with local newsreports of murder, suicide, disease, insanity, animal mutilation and other calamities plus the occasional non-morbid event. Flickr set of photos used in Wisconsin Death Trip. Some of the texts from Wisconsin Death Trip. Robert Birnbaum interviews Michael Lesy about Wisconsin Death Trip and other things. Over 2500 photographs by Charles Van Schaick owned by The Wisconsin Historical Society. [Warning: Some of the photographs are of deceased infants]

Iconic Photos

Joe Beese — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:05:10 -0800

Iconic Photos

Women Veterans Historical Collection

tellurian — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:01:59 -0800

Jean M. Fasse (Red Cross during WWII, and later the Special Service). Shirley Ann Thacker (WAVE). Just two of the interviews from the extensive collection of material (photographs, letters, diaries, scrapbooks, oral histories and posters) at the Women Veterans Historical Collection.

Vivian Maier's Photography.

chunking express — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:46:51 -0800

Vivian Maier's Photography. "This [site] was created in dedication to the photographer Vivian Maier, a street photographer from the 1950s - 1970s. Vivian's work was discovered at an auction here in Chicago." There is more information about this on the Hardcore Street Photography Flickr group, where I found this site. LPV discusses the find as well, with links to some more discussion about the find and the photographer.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

mudpuppie — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:34:46 -0800

They're responsible for the slang terms "hip" and "dive."¹ Among many other traditions, Chinese immigrants brought opium dens to the Western world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde all embellished the existence of opium dens in Victorian England. In the expanding US, Chinese railroad workers brought opium dens to outposts as far-flung as El Paso. By the 1880s, US readers were familiar with the stereotypical opium den of urban Chinatowns like San Francisco's (pdf) -- where it was made illegal for white people to smoke -- and New York's (pdf).²

Learn more about opium dens, and see the photos, at the online Opium Museum. ¹ Warning: Commercial site that sells large quantities of poppy seeds. May not be appropriate for the workplace or for parolees. ² Another warning: Extremely culturally insensitive account from the New York Times, 1880.

Les Freres Lumière

netbros — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:14:13 -0800

The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean, were among the earliest filmmakers. Their father, Claude-Antoine Lumière, ran a photographic firm and both brothers worked for him. It was not until their father retired in 1892 that the brothers began to create moving pictures. They patented a number of significant processes leading up to their film camera — most notably film perforations as a means of advancing the film through the camera and projector, and the cinématographe. Their first public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on December 28, 1895 in Paris. This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory). Each film is 17 meters long, which, when hand cranked through a projector, runs approximately 50 seconds. Lumière Brothers - The Little Girl And Her Cat Lumière Brothers - The Serpentine Dance Lumière Brothers - Indochina: Children Gathering Rice Lumière Brothers - Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog Lumière Brothers - Sky Scrapers of New York City first films video review Lumière Brothers still photography - (previous MeFi post)

Normandy: Then and Now

Ufez Jones — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:41:43 -0800

Normandy: Then and Now Photographs of Normandy in 1944 meticulously juxtaposed with how the area looks today by French historian Patrick Elie.

Fading towns of coastal British Columbia

Rumple — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:48:29 -0800

Land's End: Photographer and writer Christopher Grabowski documents the fading industrial towns of the British Columbia coast. Interview, and some of his other Photo Essays at Geist Magazine.

Everyday life in the USSR

Rumple — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:50:06 -0800

Real USSR is a blog containing commentaries on everyday life in the former Soviet Union. The liberal use of family and other amateur photos provides unusual insight into the daily experience of Soviet life. Topics range from 1940s homemade double-exposure photography to queueing to USSR - the birthplace of feminism. via

Is there no problem the internet can't solve - Flickr finds only known photo of Phineas Gage

jessamyn — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:43:41 -0800

While many quirky news buffs may be aware of the story of Phineas Gage -- the Vermont railroad foreman who had a three foot iron rod penetrate his skull as the result of an explosion and lived to tell about it -- fewer know that the only known photograph of him was recently discovered. Fewer still know that the identification of that photograph happened via a Flickr comment. (no thanks to you LA Times, previously) - More on Gage from the owners of the photograph - other interesting pictures from their collection - Wikipedia article on Gage - "The American Crowbar Case and nineteenth century theories of cerebral localization" - More stories like this over at Flickr Discoveries - Other cool stuff over at the Harvard Medical School's Warren Museum - obligatory slideshare deck (actually pretty interesting)

"Ja som aquí"

adamvasco — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:56:40 -0800

A daily photoblog of the mediterranean island of Mallorca. Checking the tags is a good way to trawl the archive.
food; history; customs and traditions; art

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

Danvers

zarq — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:43:24 -0800

A website has been launched to preserve the history of Danvers State Insane Asylum. The Asylum, which opened in 1878 in Danvers, MA (site of the Salem Witch Trials) and closed in 1992, was featured in the horror movie Session 9, and may have been the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum. Its Kirkbride Wings, which once held the institution's living quarters, now house a 400+ unit apartment complex. Unfortunately, Avalon Communities destroyed most of the hospital in order to build their apartments. Danvers is also not the first asylum to be turned into consumer residences. The Danvers gallery includes excellent, evocative images from John Gray, who specializes in photographing "abandoned architectural environments." The "Kirkbride Buildings" link was part of a former FPP. Fascinating stuff. Pennsylvania psychiatrist Thomas Kirkbride literally wrote the book (pdf link) on the construction of massive mental hospitals through the "Moral Treatment". In all, approximately 30 US hospitals were designed according to the Kirkbride Plan. More on Danvers. Previously on MeFi.

Visual history of nurse uniforms

Joe Beese — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:18:32 -0800

This site is dedicated to those hardworking and underpaid Angels of Mercy who, over the years, have made a stay in hospital that much more bearable. It's a growing collection of images of Nurses taken from Film, TV and The Media from the 1930s to the present, showing how uniform styles have changed over the years.

Color photographs from early 1900s Russia

mudpuppie — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:53:04 -0800

"Exactly one hundred years ago a Russian photographer, began a remarkable project. With the blessing - and funding - of the Tsar, Nicholas II, he embarked on an extraordinary journey to capture the essence of Russia in full color photographs." More photos from the collection. Previously. Via Neatorama.

The Practice of Photography in Sites of Incarceration

mediareport — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:31:55 -0800

Pinhole Photography by Incarcerated Girls at Remann Hall, Washington State. Prison Baseball. Guantanamo: Directory of Photographic and Visual Resources. Painted photographs of forgotten incarcerated Russian youth. 19th century prison ships. Pete Brook's Prison Photography blog links to lots of great stuff.

Sign of the time, so out of line

Joe Beese — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:35:33 -0800

National Geographic's photographic history of monkeys in space.

We were so free

tellurian — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:43:01 -0800

Moments in Time 1989/1990 - The Fall of the Wall and reunification. Films and photos from private collections. With woodpeckers.

Short Ken Burns-like video essays about famous historical photos

stbalbach — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:49:44 -0800

Mechanical Icon is a new project by Marshall Poe (previously). It will eventually be 200 short Ken-Burns-like video meditations on famous photographs from history. The first six-minute "Introduction" in particular is very good.

Pictures don't lie

Miko — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:27:24 -0800

Photomontage timeline, 1850-2007. Spirit photography, trick photography, comic montages, Photoshop, etc. I only wish you could enlarge these images. But I'm glad to have learned about the Cottingley Fairies.

Early images of Egypt

dhruva — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:21:36 -0800

Early images of Egypt (via)

WWII in Color

desjardins — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:46:24 -0800

World War II pictures in color. Some favorites: Soldiers at the Coliseum. A WAC discusses sailing with an old hand. A canine "soldier" dons a gas mask during training. African-American MPs on Motorbike Patrol. Other galleries: WWII in Color. | A searchable database of color slides.| Library of Congress collection (also includes Depression-era photographs) | WWII in pictures (mostly Germans; one graphic photo halfway down)

A survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms

nthdegx — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:05:05 -0800

A survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms

120,000 words

allkindsoftime — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:12:58 -0800

The year 2008 in photographs (boston.com, parts 2 & 3 coming tomorrow and the next day)