George Eastman House Blog

I’ve just returned from stimulating opportunities to look at photograph portfolios at Photo L.A., sponsored by the Santa Fe Photography organization called Center, and from Fotofusion, sponsored every year in Delray, FL by the Palm Beach Photo Workshop.
These are gatherings where picture-makers gather to share their work with professionals in the field, seeking advice and ideas. There’s passion and commitment in these places that energizes everyone who participates, and a wonderful range of participants, from teenagers to retirees, all eager to commit to making great pictures. And there’s inspiration here, too, from men and women who have found in photography fulfilling opportunity to communicate and share.

Gone this year was any trace of cynicism, any indulgence in irony, the tiresome aesthetic of banality. Present was a good dose of beauty and hope. Present, too, was the strong voice of the amateur. It is true that many who travel to these portfolio review sessions seeks advise about how to connect and advance a career in photography. But many more just want to make better pictures of events and people and places found particularly meaningful - family, friends, and the landscape, for instance. This is about a dignity of expression, a true heart of feeling and meanings. And while these are themes that reoccur, so many images I saw were energized by a search for ways to see uniquely, to more articulately develop ideas, or to connect to the long sound of other voices which have found wonder in a face, a flower, or even a sunset. Continue Reading »

The 6Sight Summit drew leaders in digital imaging from round the world recently for a two day exchange in Monterey, and I had an opportunity to share news about the Leadership Award George Eastman House received from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. The award will allow the Conservation Department at the Museum to create a modified Wiki that we will design and organize to share information on the material aspects of the photograph – information equally necessary to the connoisseur, the collector and the conservator. Click here to read my remarks. The announcement attracted press attention right away, which showed me the general interest in organizing and distributing information about our material culture.

Alexis Girard, leader and founder of 6Sight and its parent institution, Future Image, is organizing a significant gift to Eastman House of early digital imaging hardware and software and associated materials, such as manuals and workbooks. This gift, planned for next year, will point to the need for another Wiki, complimentary to the Wiki on the materiality of the photograph. In fact, the rich and deep documentation that will accompany the Girard gift of pioneer digital objects will create a foundation for data we anticipate will be submitted to the Wiki on digital imaging. Eastman House now has set out to raise funds necessary for both the digital and the legacy Wiki, a task that will be made easier through our association with Future Image. Continue Reading »

I am looking forward to reading your thoughts. For ours is a time rich with the possibility to listen, and to make clear our positions.

As director of one of the great collections in the world, I represent a profound instrument for communication. The photographs and moving pictures, the books and technologies, and the objects that reflect the legacy of George Eastman are vehicles ready to carry the curious to most any intellectual, emotional, spiritual destination they might venture to travel.

This is particularly true today. For where once it could have been said that museums sat back and waited for their audience to come to them, now museums have stepped forward into their communities to ask how best they might serve. In the past, it could have been said that museums believed their prime responsibility ended with the collection and care of objects held in support of mission. Exhibition and interpretation for the public in these museums was a secondary objective. Now it is clear that our responsibilities just begin with collections and their exhibition.

Both museums and newspapers were masters at making declarations. Neither was very interested in the two-way street of communication. Their pronouncements were entirely one way. Continue Reading »