The Origins of the Mug Shot
US police departments began taking photographs of people they arrested in the 1850s.
The Delectably Indulgent History of Perfect Food Photos
Instagram didn't invent photos of culinary masterpieces designed to inflame the appetite. Cookbooks have been at it for centuries.
How Hollywood Sold Glamour
The complicated notion of glamour in classic Hollywood, suggesting that stars were aloof and unknowable, was also a means to sell products.
Nurses Have Always Been Heroes
Nothing drives that home more than this amazing photo collection from the Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing.
How Spirit Photography Made Heaven Literal
Are the departed watching over us, and if so, what are they wearing? Victorian spiritualists believed that ghosts could be captured on film.
Photographer Francesca Woodman’s Haunting Dissolutions
Woodman's imagery engaged with architectural and natural landscapes that were themselves in a state of change and decay.
Alfred Stieglitz’s Art Journal
"The best one can say of American art criticism is that its CLEVERNESS OFTEN CONCEALS ITS LACK OF PENETRATION," Alfred Stieglitz wrote.
How the Brownie Camera Made Everyone a Photographer
Eastman Kodak used folklore to sell a modern technology, and ended up creating new communities and forms of expressions along the way.
Photography Changed Americans’ Ideas about Nature
Many of our ideas about nature, wildlife, and conservation have their roots in the birth of nature photography.
Why David Hockney Makes Both Paintings and Photographs
In a 1991 interview with singer Graham Nash, David Hockney explained how he applied his drawing skills to photography via the computer.