"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera."-Lewis Hine A stunning view of America as captured by groundbreaking photographers American history is punctuated by defining moments-some proud, some tragic, some beautiful. Photography has made it possible for these moments to be captured and shared with the public. As the craft has evolved from unwieldy glass negatives to digital imagery, the photographs themselves have changed the way we see the world. From Mathew Brady's startling Civil War photographs to NASA's stunning images of the universe, America Through the Lens by Martin W. Sandler highlights twelve photographers whose work has truly changed the nation.
A close reading of photography yields a groundbreaking cultural biography; reveals photography's impresario, Alfred Stieglitz, as he has never been revealed before and looks at his photographs as they have never been looked at before.
What is American Indian photography? At the turn of the twentieth century, Edward Curtis began creating romantic images of American Indians, and his works—along with pictures by other non-Native photographers—came to define the field. Yet beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, American Indians themselves started using cameras to record their daily activities and to memorialize tribal members. Through a Native Lens offers a refreshing, new perspective by highlighting the active contributions of North American Indians, both as patrons who commissioned portraits and as photographers who created collections. In this richly illustrated volume, Nicole Dawn Strathman explores how indigenous peoples throughout the United States and Canada appropriated the art of photography and integrated it into their lifeways. The photographs she analyzes date to the first one hundred years of the medium, between 1840 and 1940. To account for Native activity both in front of and behind the camera, the author divides her survey into two parts. Part I focuses on Native participants, including such public figures as Sarah Winnemucca and Red Cloud, who fashioned themselves in deliberate ways for their portraits. Part II examines Native professional, semiprofessional, and amateur photographers. Drawing from tribal and state archives, libraries, museums, and individual collections, Through a Native Lens features photographs—including some never before published—that range from formal portraits to casual snapshots. The images represent multiple tribal communities across Native North America, including the Inland Tlingit, Northern Paiute, and Kiowa. Moving beyond studies of Native Americans as photographic subjects, this groundbreaking book demonstrates how indigenous peoples took control of their own images and distinguished themselves as pioneers of photography.
