viz. - Photography Archives

History Written on the Body: Of Another Fashion

Megan Eatman — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:26:31 +0000

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life Magazine, via Of Another Fashion

This week, I want to focus on a site I discovered when I was trying not to work. While browsing fashion blogs, I encountered Of Another Fashion, a digital archive of "the not quite hidden but too often ignored fashion histories of US women of color." In recuperating these women as alternative icons, the site emphasizes the complex historical intersections of public and private as they play out through clothing choices. It also provides needed role models to counter the often problematic and still white-dominated fashion industry.

Personal collection of Lisa Henderson; via Of Another Fashion

The site features both photos from other archives, like the Library of Congress, and images from contributors' personal collections. Blog author Minh-Ha T. Pham includes whatever information is available about the image and its subject, and these stories, even when brief, are one of the most enthralling parts of the project. For example, the image above is of the contributors' great grandmother, Bessie Henderson, who died in 1911 at the age of 19. The contributor tells us

She lived on a small farm with her ailing grandparents. Her arms are burned dark from work in the sun, but she would have shielded her fair face with a bonnet or straw hat. The lockets mystify and sadden me. Neither my grandmother nor her sister ever saw them. They had nothing of their mother’s, save this picture. (Lisa Henderson)

Photo by Francis Stewart, via Of Another Fashion

The image above, taken in 1942, shows a Labor Day fashion show at Tule Lake Relocation Center, an internment camp in California. The image highlights the day-to-day survival strategies of women in a very difficult situation. The staging of a fashion show in particular places the emphasis on beauty, play, and modernity, but also labor. Women within the camp would have made most of the dresses; in some cases, women probably modeled what they made, thereby showing not only their beauty but also their virtuosity.

Personal collection of Rosemary Garrido; via Of Another Fashion

Making fashion the focus of an alternative history gives us a glimpse into the everyday lives of these women and how they were shaped by both personal desires and broader historical forces. For me, this blog really highlights the complex conditions that produce the visual rhetoric of fashion.

Criminal Photography

Michael Widner — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:04:55 +0000

(see image description below for credit)

Who is this dapper gentleman? Who was the photographer who composed this photo? And what is the subject waiting for?

We can assume he's waiting to be fingerprinted. This is a mugshot from the New South Wales Police in Sydney, Australia, taken probably sometime in the 1930s. It's part of the Justice & Police Museum collection,and held by Historic Houses Trust. The collection has, according to the HHT website, an estimated 130,000 images from between 1910 and 1960.

From Historic Houses Trust, Justice & Police Museum collection

Here we see Walter Smith, a man whose face has a lot of character. In the context of mugshots, we consider him a potentially dangerous fellow, but how much does the context influence our impressions of this man? The scars on his nose and chin, the deep lines in his forehead, the offset jaw, and the intense stare tell a story of a man with a hard life, one who has probably been in numerous fist fights, but possibly (if we didn't know he was under arrest here) just another hard-working man of the 30s. Neither of these photos, or the many other beautiful photographs seen here, fit the genre of a contemporary mugshot:

Mugshot from The Smoking Gun

Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gernsheim Collection

ebfrye — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:25:35 +0000

Image Credit: Winifred Casson, Accident, (ca. 1935)

via the Harry Ransom Center

The university's own Harry Ransom Center has been getting a lot of press lately. Although much of the attention involves the opening of the David Foster Wallace archive, many are talking about the center's new exhibit.

"Discovering the Language of Photography: The Gersheim Collection," which runs now through January, displays close to 200 treasures from the Helmut and Alison Gersheim photography holdings, many of them from the 19th century. The collection itself contains more than 35,000 images, much of it available for research. Not only does the exhibit document the Gersheims' efforts as collectors, but it also takes up the weighty task of examining the history and cultural significance of photography. Particular concerns include the evolution of techniques and the ever-shifting attitudes toward the photographic image.

For a video preview, click here.