WRPR 192: Photography & Empire (HC)

The traditional cultures of the Indians of the Great Plains--Lakotas, Cheyennes, Wichitas, Arikaras, Crows, Osages, Assiniboins, Comanches, Crees, and Mandans, among others--are recalled in stunning detail in this collection of photographs by Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952). Curtis is the best-known photographer of Native Americans because of his monumental work, The North American Indian (1907-1930), which consists of twenty portfolios of large photogravures and twenty volumes of text on more than eighty Indian groups in the West. He took pictures of Plains Indians for over twenty years, and his photographs reflect both prevailing attitudes about Indians and Curtis's own vision of differences among the Native peoples whom he photographed.   Curtis's photographs have exerted an enduring influence--both positive and negative--on mainstream American culture. They have inspired countless books, articles, and photographic exhibitions, and they continue to appear on posters, postcards, and other souvenirs. Accompanying the remarkable array of images in this book are essays by leading scholars that place the photographs within their proper critical, cultural, and historical contexts. The scholars contributing to this work are Martha H. Kennedy, Martha A. Sandweiss, Mick Gidley, and Duane Niatum.

One hundred compelling photographs present a series of evocative portraits of Native Americans from the turn of the century, in a large-format visual study enhanced by informative essays on Edward S. Curtis and his work. 25,000 first printing.

'Edward S. Curtis: The Women' is a large-format and attractively priced collection of Edward S. Curtis's portraits of Native American women.

As slaves, African Americans were virtually invisible to history. Even after the Civil War there were not many African American photographers and very few people had the time, money or freedom to sit for a portrait. Consequently only a few hundred such pictures have survived from that time to bear witness to African Americans and the lives they led.

Featuring more than seventy images, "Pictures and Progress" brings to light the wide-ranging practices of early African American photographers, as well as the effects of photography on racialized thinking.

In 1850 seven South Carolina slaves were photographed at the request of the famous naturalist Louis Agassiz to provide evidence of the supposed biological inferiority of Africans. Lost for many years, the photographs were rediscovered in the attic of Harvard’s Peabody Museum in 1976. In the first narrative history of these images, Molly Rogers tells the story of the photographs, the people they depict, and the men who made and used them. Weaving together the histories of race, science, and photography in nineteenth-century America, Rogers explores the invention and uses of photography, the scientific theories the images were intended to support and how these related to the race politics of the time, the meanings that may have been found in the photographs, and the possible reasons why they were “lost” for a century or more. Each image is accompanied by a brief fictional vignette about the subject’s life as imagined by Rogers; these portraits bring the seven subjects to life, adding a fascinating human dimension to the historical material.

Now in paperback, a selection of the very best of McCurry's powerful portraits from South and Southeast Asia This portfolio contains a selection of the best and most poignant portraits by Steve McCurry, a photographer known and loved the world over for his beautiful and enduring images of the landscapes and people of South and Southeast Asia. The collection includes iconic as well as lesser-known portraits of children, monks, pilgrims, and travellers that McCurry has encountered on his journeys throughout Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan, and Tibet.

This is a portfolio of the best of Steve McCurry's photography, showing classical, magical and powerful images from South and Southeast Asia. McCurry takes photographs all over the world, for National Geographicmagazine and his own projects, but it is the people, places, colours and forms of South and Southeast Asia that Steve has found most inspiring. It is in Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Mynamar (Burma) that McCurry has captured his most sublime photographs to create images that transcend their original editorial purpose to become timeless classics of our era. South Southeast features 69 photographs, each one with a full double-page spread to itself. Introducing the book is a succinct text about McCurry, and accompanying the photographs are brief captions. Eight of the photographs are accompanied by short texts written by McCurry himself, telling the fascinating stories behind the striking images. The National Press Photographers Association and the Missouri School of Journalism 'Pictures of the Year Competition' awarded this book First Place in the Best Use of Photography category.