Camera phones and concert photography

           The widespread, amateur use of digital photography and mobile video has had a great impact on documentation of world events.  As discussed at length in the US news coverage of the Arab Spring, the omnipresence of cellphone cameras allows for a speedy, populist dissemination of photographic views of these events.  People take pictures or videos and post them to social networks and other media sharing platforms, creating a visual narrative both faster than traditional news coverage and perceived to be freer from overarching political influence.  The idea is that, when there is a flood of images of a single event, be it a protest or a massacre, there is a greater sense of truth than in viewing a single image or a small set of images, cropped and published by a news agency to go along with a story.  Use of amateur images on social media can also push an even into the public eye that might otherwise have been ignored, or keep avenues of broadcast open when governments or other forces try to stifle them.

            Less discussed is the impact of these devices on more trivial events.  The documentation of personal, family and social events have also been drastically altered by the use of smartphones and social media.  Sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Vine, all of which primarily utilize cell phone photography, are used worldwide to publish a record of everything from weddings to rock concerts, political rallies to baseball games, school dances to sports venues.  Of course, being digital and web-based, the durability of these images is in question, as is the viability of selecting and preserving “useful” images from the overwhelming amount of idiotic selfies.  Accuracy of digital photographs, especially those circulated on social networking sites, is also hard to assess.  All three of these issues, however, are nothing new, merely things that need to be reevaluated and reassessed with the introduction and popular use of new technologies.  In addition, there is value in studying the changing public and personal perceptions of what a photographic image means, what it is for, and when people choose to take them.  José van Dijck of the University of Amsterdam notes a shift in the use of photography from family and group documentation to personal expression and from photographs as memory aids to photographs as interpersonal interpretations of experiences (2008).

            I am personally interested in the documentation of popular culture and chose to look especially at how mobile technology is affecting the documentation of rock concerts.  Some of my favorite photos are from the early punk rock scene in London and New York in the 1970’s, a genre dominated by a few professional photographers.  Individual candid shots must exist, but have largely not survived or not been recognized as having a lasting historical value.  As such, the visual history of this movement is told from only a few specific viewpoints.  Motion picture footage is even harder to come by.  Many notable tours and concerts have no known video making it even harder to reconcile contradicting stories and vague accounts of events.  For example, the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the U.K. tour was a total failure.  One of the top acts, the Damned, were kicked off the tour after only one show.  What happened at that show to cause the split? The answer varies wildly depending on who you ask and there is no video footage or identified photographs to show what that infamous gig was actually like.  Until youtube, there was little to no publicly accessible footage of any of the punk pioneers beyond that which had been carefully edited, decontextualized, and used in documentaries.

Found at hardcoreshowflyers.com

An example of terrible, dubiously labelled (but publicly accessible and probably unaltered!) footage of the Damned at Mont de Marsan, 1977: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwN-XvVMbyA

            Today, every possible angle of pretty much every concert is documented and published to the web.  This tends to be illegal, as most venues prohibit video recording and some prohibit cameras.  In the age of the camera phone, most people carry a video-enabled camera with them at all times and videotaping of concerts has become ubiquitous and the rules are rarely enforced.  This has to do, in part, with why people make these recordings.  As Nokia mobile technology researchers Erika Reponen and Pertti Huuskonen note, people aren't recording a concert to profit from the recording.  Mobile videos’ primary use seems to be personal expression—a way of saying “I was here” (2006). 

            Professional photographers and videographers are often limited to portraying events and musicians as they wish to be shown.  Photographer Jason Wilder recalls that while shooting a Taylor Swift concert, professionals were only allowed to photograph Swift during certain songs.  Concert goes with cameras didn’t have any such restrictions.  Wilder commented that “the problem with this was that while pros were restricted to just one type of photo in one dress that every pro photographer got for the whole tour, this guy got photos of every costume change” (Munn, 2013).

            What does this mean for the Damned?  On their 35^th anniversary world tour, there were hundreds of personal videos and photographs taken and a youtube search for a single show (in this case October 20^th, 2011 at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA) turns up videos by different concert goers in different parts of the crowd, recording pretty much every song from pretty much every angle.  There is little doubt or ambiguity as to the events at the Middle East that night—you can even tell in a few videos that I was there.

References

Batty, D. (2011). Arab spring leads surge in events captured on cameraphones. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/29/arab-spring-captured-on-cameraphones

Duffy, M. J. (2011). Smartphones in the Arab Spring. IPI Report. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/1911044/Smartphones_in_the_Arab_Spring

Munn, S. (2013). From Jagger To Bieber: The Evolution of Concert Photography. Aesthetic Magazine Toronto. Retrieved from http://aestheticmagazinetoronto.com/2013/02/28/from-jagger-to-bieber-the-evolution-of-concert-photography/

Reponen, E., Huuskonen, P., Mihalic, K. (2006). Mobile video recording in context. Interactions, Volume 13 ( Issue 4).  Retrieved from: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1142191

Van Dijck, J. (2008). Digital Photography: Communication, Identity, Memory. Visual Communication, Volume 7. Retrieved from: http://dare.uva.nl/document/138874

Charles Moore's Civil Rights Photography

In front of the Alabama state capitol, marchers (those who went the entire way wear vests) sing "We Have Overcome" and listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., who told them that "segregation is on its deathbed." The Selma March, 1965. (Durham 204-205)

Charles Moore was working as a photographer for Life magazine when he captured some of the most influential images of the American South during the 1960s.  Some photographs, like the one pictured above, show the overwhelming power of people who stand together for what they believe.  However, the overwhelming majority of his most memorable images show the depths of human suffering during the Civil Rights movement, and those photographs have a different kind of power entirely.  Moore's striking images, which earned him the first annual Kodak Crystal Eagle Award for Impact in Photojournalism in 1989, have been credited with not only successfully publicizing the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., but also for kindling a national outrage for the atrocities committed against Civil Rights advocates.  The nation's anger eventually culminated in President Lyndon B. Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Moore's Life photographs were given due credit for helping to influence the legislation's passage. (Kaplan 127)

Moore was himself an Alabama native, so I think he definitely felt compelled in his work, capturing events on camera that he admitted were sickening for him to watch.  He gained a reputation for always seeming to be right where the action was taking place, a position he compared to being a war photographer on the front lines.  He picked up the philosophy of combat photographer Horst Faas, saying "You have to know when to duck and when to shoot. Or you'll die." (Kaplan 137)  I do not think his war comparison is far off, especially after reading Susan Sontag's perspective on this issue, with her discussion of "photography as shock therapy" (Looking at War).

As demonstrators lie on the sidewalk to protect themselves, firemen hose them down with high-pressure jets of water./Demonstrators huddled in a doorway seek shelter from the hoses.  The water is propelled at a force of one hundred pounds per square inch. Birmingham, 1963. (Durham 94-95, 99)

The fact that Moore's images are so painful to study means that they are having an effect on the viewer, which is of course the desired result.  They were not created to simply record history, but to utterly shock the on-looker into having an emotional response, hopefully leading them to take action.  Once they are published, ignorance of such activities becomes a choice, not so different from denial.  Thankfully, history has shown that these photographs were successful in delivering their truths: John F. Kennedy spoke about how the Birmingham riots had disgusted him just a month after publication of Moore's photographs of the event, Malcolm X gave a speech mentioning the attack dogs used against protesters that were pictured in Moore's images, and a year after Moore's photographs were first published in Life, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (Kaplan 134)

Even though I believe that Charles Moore's intentions were pure when photographing his subjects, it cannot be denied that his position as a photojournalist makes him part of a culture that thrives on controversy and thirsts for dramatic images such as these, because that is what sells.  Sontag writes about humanity's "appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain" and the "satisfaction at being able to look at the image without flinching.  There is the pleasure of flinching." (Looking at War)  Even though Moore's images were not posed like some war photography of the past, they still turn these horrible, real-life events into a spectacle on display for all to see.  They skirt the fine line between providing evidence of these events as they took place in front of the camera, and inviting the viewer to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the image.  One of Moore's most disturbing images of police dogs attacking a man in the street was even replicated in a completely aesthetic work, a silkscreen painting by Andy Warhol.

A man looks calmly over his shoulder as a police dog rips his trouser leg, then braces himself as two other dogs attack him. Birmingham, 1963. (Durham 104-105(

Andy Warhol, Red Race Riot, 1964

I think Warhol's representation of Moore's work speaks loudly about many things Sontag also addresses in her writing.  For one, the multiplication of the image and its subsequent fading can easily be seen to represent the numbing effect that repeated exposure to even horrific images can have on a person; it having less and less impact on our minds which are already full of such images. I think Sontag would say that Warhol is effectively "demystifying" the image by removing it from reality, by doing so he is also taking away it's power over our emotional response to it. (On Photography 27)  

Many factors combined in order to make Charles Moore's photography have the positive effect it did on the American public in the late 1950s and into the 1960s.  His handheld camera allowed him the freedom to capture images of events as they were occurring that would have been impossible in earlier stages of the camera's development.  The immediacy of his photographs publication in Life magazine let the whole county know what was really going on while it was still happening, giving people the opportunity to take action when it was most necessary.  Also, Moore's willingness to put himself in physical danger for the sake of those who were suffering should not be taken lightly.  

I was moved while looking through his photographs in Powerful Days.  Seeing them one after another created a narrative of the events that I think made captions almost unnecessary.  I decided to include the captions for the images I shared just so everyone could see them, but I really think the images speak louder on their own.  And despite Susan Sontag's theories about sensationalizing photographs and the numbing effect they can have--theories which I do happen to find very compelling--Moore's images clearly stood out to the whole nation, and their effect remains just as strong today, as representations of images that resulted in much-needed change.

Works Cited

Durham, M. S. (1991). Powerful days: The civil rights photography of charles moore. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc.

Kaplan, J. (1999). The life magazine civil rights photography of charles moore 1958-1965. Journalism History, 25 (4), 126-138. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?vid=3&sid=ad9a9a5d-61c1-4c23-b38e-6a33e134f666@sessionmgr4005&hid=4203&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=

Sontag, S. (1977). On photography. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

Sontag, S. (2002). Looking at war: Photography's view of devastation and death. The New Yorker.

Hubble Deep Field

Over Christmas 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed towards a seemingly empty patch of sky within in the constellation of Ursa Major.  The resulting image is nothing short of remarkable.  While staring into this empty patch of space, Hubble took 342 exposures (each typically 15 to 40 minutes long) over a period of ten days in “ultraviolet, blue, red, and infrared light" (HubbleSite, 1996).  All of these separate images were combined to create the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) photograph.

The Hubble Deep Field image shows almost 3,000 galaxies! This photograph shows these galaxies as they would have been, in some cases, a mere half a billion years after the Big Bang.  This photograph is literally a window into the past.  Some of these galaxies are so young that many of them haven't even had the chance to form stars. We see the galaxies this way because of the time it takes light to travel to us (or, in this case, to Hubble).  Some of the objects in the HDF photo are easily identified as spiral galaxies, even to people like me that have zero experience with astronomy.  According to NASA, a select few of the objects in the foreground of this image are stars that are in our own Milky Way Galaxy while the rest are galaxies unto themselves (ESA/Hubble). Some of the objects in the image are faint because, in this case, they're so far away.   

So, why is this image (and the images that followed it) important?

Not only did this photograph change the world, but it changed our understanding of ourselves and the universe.  In 1995, this was the farthest that we had ever seen into space. NASA pointed Hubble into an empty patch of sky the size of a dime 75 feet away and saw galaxies - thousands of galaxies!  This is an extremely small sample of the universe (estimated at about one 24-millionth of the sky) and in it we can see thousands of galaxies.  Though this is such a small sample of the sky, astronomers consider this to be representative of the "typical distribution " of galaxies throughout the universe. This was substantiated when NASA took another photograph, Hubble Deep Field - South, which took a similar picture in the opposite direction as this original image (ESA/Hubble). 

The HDF image gave astronomers and other scientists valuable insight into how the universe works.  I'm not a science person so, to be honest, I don't understand all of the scientific implications that this image had (but I know that there were many).  Putting these scientific advancements aside,  I think that this image changed the world because of how it changed the way people see the universe.  The HDF provides photographic evidence of how small we are.  We're one planet in a universe full of millions (and possibly billions) of other galaxies.  The potential for civilizations other than ours is not completely out of the question (which I'm sure Fox Mulder would be happy to hear). 

The most significant thing about this image is that it gives us a visual.  Astronomers have estimated that the universe has about 100 billion galaxies in it (Goddard Space Flight Center, 2002).  It's beyond our mental capabilities to visualize that number.  Even visualizing a million is difficult for most of us.  Therefore, when astronomers tell us about all these galaxies outside of ours, that information becomes meaningless because we just can't see it.  The Hubble Deep Field image(s) allow us to see that.  The HDF photograph of 1995 shows 3,000 galaxies photographed in an area the size of a dime! Being able to see the immensity of the universe changes, at least for me, how I think about the universe and the smallness of Earth.

Lastly, I think that we need to be explorers. Columbus crossed the Atlantic, Americans moved West, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and we sent a rover to Mars.  Space really is the final frontier.  The Hubble Deep Field gives us an picture (or map, if you will) of where we might someday go. 

Works Cited 

Hubble Deep Field Team and NASA/ESA. "The Hubble Deep Fields." Accessed March 29, 2014. http://www.spacetelescope.org/science/deep_fields/

Williams, R. "Full WFPC2 Mosaic - Full Resolution." The Hubble Deep Field Team and NASA/ESA. Accessed March 29, 2014. http://spacetelescope.org/images/opo9601c/

Goddard Space Flight Center. "Ask an Astrophysicist." November 27, 2002. Accessed March 29, 2014. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/021127a.html

Williams, R. "Hubble's Deepest View of the Universe Unveils Bewildering Galaxies across Billions of Years." American Astronomical Society Meeting Release, January 15, 1996. Accessed March 29, 2014. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1996/01/text/

The Instagram Effect

Source

When digital point and shoot cameras first came on the market for mass consumption the world of photography was irrevocably changed. For this blog post I wanted to look at the more contemporaneous impact that technology has had, and presumably will only continue to have, on photography. The development of higher quality cameras in mobile devices had continued that change even further. People then began to have the ability to carry a camera around in their pocket to snap photos at their discretion and if they so chose send those photos via text or email to friends and family.

Then the phenomenon of the development of mobile photo-sharing applications like Hipstamatic, launched in 2009 and Instagram,launched in 2010, has had an impact on the world of photography. With the development of these ‘insta-share’ applications for mobile phones now people who seldom took pictures (ever) suddenly are documenting their daily life encounters, and continue to photograph the world around them on a daily basis, which may then lead to increasing and discovering a love for photography. “The sharing and communication functions of Instagram recall the telegram (as registered in the name) and the available filters cite familiar aesthetic modes of film-based photography. Instagram photographs are visually distinctive”  (Champion, 2012).   

 

Instagram has the ability to help photographers connect with an audience organically and offers different options for sharing such as creating parallel narratives with larger projects, sharing behind-the-scenes experiences, opening a dialogue with our audience, and cross-platform geo-tagging and mapping integration. The primary function of photography, in it’s original form of negatives developed on to paper, was to facilitate reminiscence; a theory can be seen across all different styles of photography from daguerreotypes and memento mori photographs. And Instagram perpetuates these ideas of nostalgia by making photos snapped on an iPhone camera look like a 1970s Polaroid, with one click to create that filter effect.  

                          

Source

It appears that in the opinion of some professional photographers and photojournalists, technology has taken the specialness out of photography and reduced it to a medium where it has become, paradoxically, a private memento shared in a public forum. Instagram and similar applications mark a shift in the relationship between the terms previously assumed to mediate between the personal, the private and the public (Champion 2012). Many photographers wonder if Instagram will continue to “feed the devaluation of photography as a craft and continue to contribute to the destruction of this field as a viable way to make a living” (Laurent, 2012). Meanwhile countless others have lauded and embraced Instagram as a platform that has allowed photographers to create a deeper connection with the public because it brings direct access to an audience..

In addition to how Instagram has changed the role of photography in society it is also changing the rules of photography as an art. Instagram has effectively created a new visual language in photography (Guttenfelder, 2014).  Many visual artists have problems with the Instagram phenomenon because it allows just about anyone (with a smartphone) to upload photos onto the app, add an effect, filter, and/or frame and call themselves a photographer. This kind of photo-snapping is considered an antithesis to photography which requires time and skill. Some photojournalists say that Instagram and similar applications are ruining photography- because it is destroying the integrity of quality images. Such as one art critic, Michael Glover wrote, "Photography has become so thoroughly prostituted as a means of visual exchange, available to all or none for every purpose under the sun (or none worthy of the name), that it is easy to forget that until recently one of the most important consequences of fearless photographic practice was to tell the truth about power" (Glover, 2012).

However, some institutions, such as the National Geographic have embraced Instagram and other photographers created accounts on Instagram because the app provided them with “opportunities to make photographs virtually at any moment and share them with the world” and then other users have the ability to get a glimpse of ‘behind the scenes’ of a photographers process in a slightly more accessible medium than say a blog post. (Laurent, 2012). The multitude of ways that content can be digitally displayed and distributed are critical for photographers in reaching broader audiences and finding more creative ways to engage their audience and in inviting them to participate in their process.

Works cited

 

Glover, Michael. “Photography: Lives through the lens.” The Independent. September 17, 2012, Accessed March 30, 2014. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/photography-lives-through-the-lens-8142845.html

 

Laurent, Olivier. “The New Economics of Photojournalism: The Rise of Instagram.” The British Journal of Photography. September 3, 2012. Accessed March 30, 2014. http://www.bjp-online.com/2012/09/the-new-economics-of-photojournalism-the-rise-of-instagram/

 

Laurent, Olivier. “Shift in Power: David Guttenfelder on the impact and importance of smartphone

photography.” Fltr. February 4, 2014. Accessed March 31, 2014. http://www.fltrlive.com/2014/02/shift-in-power-david-guttenfelder-on-the-impact-and-importance-of-smartphone-photography/

 

Today’s Technology Leaving It’s Mark on Society. “Has Instagram Changed the World of Photography as We Know It?” January 30, 2013. Accessed March 31, 2014. http://sstaffor03.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/has-instagram-changed-the-world-of-photography-as-we-know-it/

 

Prives, Guy. “Instagram and it’s Impact on the World of Photography.” Digital Photography School. Accessed March 31, 2014. http://digital-photography-school.com/instagram-and-its-impact-on-the-world-of-photography

Champion, Charlotte. “Instagram: je-suis-la?” Philosophy of Photography. Volume 1 No. 3. 2012. Accessed March 31, 2014. http://cenestpas.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Charlotte-Champion-Instagram-je-sui-la.pdf

The Final Frontier

Maybe it’s all the Cosmos I’ve been watching lately, but when it came time to do my essay on a photograph that changed the world, I didn’t look much father than space itself. The first image taken in space, to be specific. This image [below] was taken October 24, 1946 from an American-launched Nazi rocket and it was the first photograph to ever be taken in space.

The photo, which was taken of the Earth itself, is the culmination of the work of Clyde Holliday, who developed the camera and Freiherr von Braun, a defected Nazi scientist. What’s truly funny about this mission was that the photograph wasn’t really the point, it was more a byproduct, as the missions real objective had to do with cosmic rays. But when Holliday saw the reaction that the photograph caused, he rightly predicted that space photography was going to change the way we looked at the universe.

Taking the first photograph of space was no easy job either. The rigged 35mm camera was completely destroyed upon re-entry, but luckily Holliday had rigged the film with a steel casing that protected it from the brunt of the impact and allowed the photograph to be developed. The camera was rigged to go off every 1.5 seconds, so the scientists were left with many to choose from, but Holliday though this one was the winner because it was from the perspective of an astronaut coming home, which he thought would capture the most wonder and attention. 

According to the 19 year old recruit sent to retrieve the film, when the scientists found out that the film survived, they “started jumping up and down like kids” and later “went nuts” upon seeing it for the first time. Afterwards, Holliday became enthralled with the world [no pun intended] of space photography. He also played a rather large part in demanding respect for photography amongst scientists. One colleague of his noted "in an environment with super-Ph.D.s, and he wanted to make clear that photography was a science, too." 

The photograph, which was taken 65 miles above the surface of the Earth (anything above 62.5 miles being considered “space” and our closest attempt before was a mere 13.7 miles), captivated the American public and scientist community alike.

But how can I prove that this photograph had an impact on the world? Well, firstly the photographs were so popular that many other V2 rockets [above] were sent up to collect pictures. Over a thousand earth pics were collected between then and 1950, a relatively short span considering the bulk of images. Then, a mere 5 years after that we saw the start of the Space Race, the most productive era in American rocket science to date. Without this photograph, this grainy, boring photograph taken from a 35mm camera launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico, who knows if we would have reached the moon in 1969?

Thanks to Holliday and many other brave space photography pioneers, the cosmos are ready for their close up, as photos of space number in the millions today and there is a new attempt to reclaim pride in the scientific community (I’m talkin’ bout Cosmos. Can you dig it?)

Works Cited:

Diaz, J. (2012). This is the First Picture Ever Taken From Space- And It Was Taken

From a Nazi Rocket. Gizmodo. http://gizmodo.com/5955348/this-is-the

first-picture-ever-taken-from-spaceand-it-was-taken-from-a-nazi-rocket

Reichhardt, T. (2006). The First Photo From Space. Air & Space Magazine.

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/the-first-photo-from-space-13721411/

G. Maillard Kesslère photographs, 1925-1952 (bulk 1925-1946) finding aid, NYPL

G. Maillard Kesslère photographs, 1925-1952 (bulk 1925-1946) finding aid

G. Maillard Kesslere Photographs, 1925-1952 (bulk 1925-1946) is located at the New York Public Library.  It is a collection that details G. Maillard Kessele’s profession as a portrait photographer and portrait artist of the entertainment field from 1925-1952.  It also includes biographies of actors who were subjects of Kesslere.  This is a large finding aid and is 38 linear feet and 44 boxes.  I found this finding aid to be a good example of a finding aid but could definitely be improved.

About the finding aid:

The G. Maillard Kesslère photographs, 1925-1952 (bulk 1925-1946) finding aid starts out with information about the repository, the title and dates of the collection and lists processing information.  It then goes on to include a table of content page, which describes where the summary, provenance note, biographical note, scope and content notes, arrangement notes, and series description and container lists are located.  The finding aid goes more into depth about the summary of the finding aid, which includes information on the main entry, title, size, source, an abstract, access information, copyright information, a preferred citation, special formats and an provenance note. The finding aid continues with a long paragraph on the biological note, which discusses George Maillard Kesslere’s life and then has a long scope and content note, which describes what this collection consists of.  The finding aid then discusses the arrangement of the finding aid.  The finding aid is arranged first by portraits of performing arts personalities, 1925-1952, unidentified portraits, 1925-1952, and then biographies, 1951-1952.  For each of these series it includes dates, the size of the series and a description of the series.  The series then describes the container list, which are described to the box and folder level.  In each of the series very few are described at the item level.    I think this finding aid is a great finding aid.  The finding aid goes into great detail to describe the collection but there is definitely some things that could be included that would enhance the user’.

Pros

This finding aid is a great finding aid.  It is easy to find and understand.  The detail in this finding aid is impressive and rich.  I think the summary, biographical note, scope and content note, arrangement and series description are strong and the information is well documented.

Cons

Although this is a great finding aid, I think that if the finding aid went into some more depth it would have been an even richer finding aid.  I was shocked that this finding aid didn’t include any subject headings.  It definitely should have also included either subject headings or at least some related topics!  This finding aid also should have described the material/techniques/ and dimensions of the photographs, the locations of the photographs, and related information such as related finding aids. This would have made it easier for users to search and find this finding aid.   I also think the container list should have had some more item level description. 

Conclusion

Although this was a great finding aid, the G. Maillard Kesslère photographs, 1925-1952 (bulk 1925-1946) finding aid could have been even stronger with more detailed information. 

Citation

G. Maillard Kesslère Photographs, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.

http://archives.nypl.org/uploads/collection/pdf_finding_aid/kesslere.pdf

Bettye Lane Gay Rights Movement Photographs at NYPL

A Finding Aid for a Photograph Collection

First of all, a lot can be said for the actual search process when looking for a finding aid of a photographic collection, but for the purposes of this blog post I will only go into an analysis of the description in the finding aid I chose to look at.  I focused my attention on the finding aid of the Bettye Lane Gay Rights Movement Photographs at the New York Public Library.  This is no fancy finding aid, but it is a very thorough one and I think it is a good example to look at to see if finding aids can provide the necessary description for users. 

An overview of the finding aid:

The Bettye Lane Gay Rights Movement Photographs finding aid begins with a title page with repository information, collection title, collection dates, collection number, and processed date.  The second page includes the fields: main entry, title, size, source, access, copyright information, preferred citation, and special formats.  The finding aid continues with more information about the collection as a whole with fields related collections, biographical note, and a scope and content note.  The remainder of the finding aid describes the contents and container information.  Most images are described to the item level, however some images are only described at the folder level.  I think this finding aid is very thorough and provides a lot of information for a researcher.  But is a finding aid the best way to describe a collection of photographs?

The Pros

Overall, I found the finding aid to be a good descriptive tool for the photograph collection I looked at.  This may have something to do with the fact that I am familiar with finding aids, but I think it does the job it sets out to do, letting a user know that this collection exists and what they can find in the collection. 

I think the context provided in finding aids is a helpful tool for image collections.  This provides a researcher with general information that may be useful for them.  I this case it provides information on the photographer Bettye Lane and an overview of the collection itself.  This collection level description sometimes gets lost when we catalog photographs at the item level and then deposit them in a database.   I think the context provided by a biographical or historical note is also important when the creator is unknown or there are multiple photographers represented in a collection.

In the finding aid it is stated that the Bettye Lane collection is still protected under copyright.  None of the images have been digitized so the finding aid is the only digital access to the collection.  The description in this finding aid provides enough information through the scope and content note along with the description of the photographs to let a researcher know if the collection is worthwhile to investigate further.

The finding aid for this collection does provide very detailed description of most of the images.  All have folder level descriptions and most have item level descriptions, however, in some cases images are collectively described at the folder level.  For example, in the folder titled “Christopher Street March,” some images have titles and some do not.  The finding aid format allows for flexibility in the level of description you want or need to go to when writing about a photograph collection (or any collection really). 

This finding aid includes a section that cites other related collections.  It lists three other collections that have either only photograph collections of Bettye Lane or the papers of Bettye Lane.  This is especially helpful in this particular case because this collection is not digitized and this lets a user know there are more access points to Bettye Lane material than this one collection.  I looked at another finding aid Bettye Lane Photographs at Schlesinger Library and it does not have the related collections information.  Based on the dates, I do think the Schlesinger Library collection is one of the first to publish for Bettye Lane so this could be a reason why there is no related information.  I think it is a nice option and a great informational tool for researchers.

The Cons

I did notice some aspects of the finding aid that do not lend well to a collection of images.  First of all, I do think finding aids limit the searchability of a collection.  A finding aid may not be an ideal discovery tool for individuals that may not know exactly what they are looking for.  There is no great browsing feature with finding aids.  I believe that a browsing feature might be a good access point for many photograph collections.  This would be especially helpful for browsing different topics.  That way you can find images in multiple collections, rather than looking at photographs collection by collection. 

Which leads me to the next downfall of this finding aid--the lack of subject terms.  This is not always the case with all finding aids, however it is the case with this Bettye Lane collection and the finding aid for the collection at Schlesinger.  This leaves people working in reference and researchers at a huge disadvantage with this collection.  Individuals must read through the entire contents list to find names of people in photographs and subjects that may be depicted in the collection. 

I noticed on both the NYPL and the Schlesinger finding aid that there are notes on copyright and use restrictions.  These notes state to contact the photographer for copies of images, however the photographer passed away in 2012.  This leads me to believe that these records are not updated very often, if at all.  Once a finding aid is completed, it is often forgotten because people have moved on to processing other collections.

The physical description of the collection in a finding aid is not very informative.  In the Bettye Lane Gay Rights Movement Photographs it states there are three boxes, but how are we supposed to know how many images that is?  The only way is for users to count the number of images that are listed.  This seems very unhelpful for a researcher.  It would be much more useful for researchers if the finding aid notes the number of photographs in the collection.  The finding aid of the Bettye Lane collection at Schlesinger does provide the number of images in the collection, so this may not be a problem with all finding aids as opposed to the lack of information in this particular finding aid.

I think the biggest drawback to using a finding aid to describe a photograph collection is the fact that it is a finding aid.  To begin with, most inexperienced users have no idea what a finding aid is.  And once they actually get to it, it can be difficult to understand.  A user does not even see the description of photographs until the fourth page.  It is not the most intuitive of documents.

Conclusion

While I actually liked the format of the finding aid, this may not be the case for people that are not familiar with them.  As we have learned, photograph collections are incredibly difficult to provide access to.  A finding aid may be more useful to users who want to study a particular collection or photographer.  An image database may be best for users looking for a certain type of content depicted.  I thought the format of the finding aid helpful, however this format is difficult to read for people that are not familiar with the format of finding aids.  I think one of the biggest pros for a finding aid is when a collection has restrictions on digitization.  This allows a repository to give general and descriptive notes about the collection for researchers to see online, which informs the researcher if they want to explore the collection further. 

Sources:

Bettye Lane Gay Rights Movement Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. http://archives.nypl.org/uploads/collection/pdf_finding_aid/mss17915.pdf

Lane, Bettye. Photographs, 1969-1981: A Finding Aid.  Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00230