For more about Graham Nash’s visit:

Listen In to a podcast of his Dryden Theatre talk.

See highlights from his George Eastman Honorary Scholar award ceremony on our You Tube Channel.

Browse our Facebook Photo Album.

View ‘Graham Nash Becomes Eastman House Honorary Scholar’ video clip on Rochester YNN.

I saw parts of the Eastman House in different ways this past weekend, as photographer and musician Graham Nash shared with me what he was seeing throughout the mansion and museum, through his keen and creative photographer’s eye. He was intrigued by Eastman House, from the architecture to the collections, engaging with our conservators and archivists to learn more about daguerreotypes and photograph conservation.

Graham Nash with the framed art awarded to him upon receiving the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar, presented by Tony Bannon, the Ron and Donna Fielding Director of George Eastman House, and Lisa Brubaker, an officer of the Easmtan House Board of Trustees.

Graham joined us, accompanied by his son, Will, to receive the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar, for his contribution to photography as an artist and innovator.

He told the sold-out audience, “To be standing here today at George Eastman House is totally, totally amazing. This is an incredible honor. I’ve been a photographer longer than I’ve been a musician and my first passion is photography.”

Director Tony Bannon introduces Graham Nash before the press conference in the “Taking Aim” gallery.

If it were only through Graham’s music – his lyrics, his arrangements, his compositions –we might say and agree he has made an important part of the culture of our time. But let’s add to that an estimable career as a photographer, one who has imaged the music scene but also the totality of life around us.

While best known for his legendary music career with Crosby, Stills, and Nash as well as The Hollies, for which he has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Graham has been taking pictures for more than 50 years and collecting photographs since the 1970s. His visit to Eastman House was timed to coincide with the museum’s current display of the “Taking Aim” rock-photo exhibition he curated.

In the photography archives at Eastman House, Graham and Will experienced the earliest daguerreotype of Daguerre himself (1844) and a daguerreotype of an American cemetery in Shimoda, Japan, believed to be the earliest photographic image of Japan (1855). In the Kay R. Whitmore Conservation Lab, they witnessed a demonstration of a device that detects and maps an image formed on a daguerreotype 170 years ago, even though the original image has long since faded away.

Moved by these experiences, Nash was outspoken at both a press conference and the audience in encouraging support for Eastman House, calling the museum “a complete jewel that is preserving our collective physical and visual memory.”

Graham’s passion for fine-art photography led him to establish Nash Editions, a pioneering and celebrated printmaking studio that produces state-of-the art digital images for a long list of master photographers and artists. Eastman House created and debuted the world premiere of Nash Editions’ “Digital Frontiers” exhibition in 1998. Eastman House toured the exhibition, curated by Therese Mulligan, internationally for five years.

For this pioneering work in photography, The Smithsonian Institution cited Nash Editions for its role in the invention of digital fine-art printing upon acquiring the company’s original equipment and ephemera in 2005. And for services to music and charitable activities, the British-born superstar was named in 2010 an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen of England.

For more than 28 years I have been educating the world about George Eastman and his contributions to the world of photography and film, as well as his philanthropic efforts. And while I am the curator of the Eastman Legacy Collection at George Eastman House, the one and only person I can turn to, to answer questions on Eastman that I cannot, is George Eastman historian and biographer Elizabeth “Betsy” Brayer.

Betsy Brayer

She is the one who elevated Eastman’s legacy in Rochester, decades after his death in 1932, by researching archives at Eastman Kodak Company to bring his story to life—first in newspaper stories and ultimately in a 637-page book George Eastman: A Biography. 

Betsy has also humanized Eastman, the father of popular photography and motion picture film and for decades the greatest benefactor of American education — beginning with dozens of local newspaper articles she wrote in 1979 and 1980 and ultimately the biography published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 1996 and reprinted in 2006 by the University of Rochester Press. Betsy’s research on Eastman began as a newspaper reporter writing about the architecture along Eastman Avenue. When she set out to write about historic Eastman House, she learned there was not a lot that was known. The more she learned about Eastman, she uncovered one fascinating story after another, and was encouraged to write his biography.

Betsy has told me she is pleased Eastman’s legacy has been fostered through her research and writing, noting there was a long period where Eastman was “sort of out of vogue, and the focus was on new photography and he was considered old hat.”

Betsy’s association with Eastman House began in 1980, when Museum representatives appointed her historical consultant to guide in the renovation of the house and gardens. And over three decades she has kept Eastman’s Legacy alive through her continued research, publications, and speaking engagements, and by serving on the Museum’s George Eastman Legacy and Landscape Committees.

To honor Betsy for her community contributions as an author and historian, George Eastman House will bestow the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar upon Brayer during a Dryden Theatre ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22. Past recipients of the prestigious George Eastman Honorary Scholar title include directors Ken Burns and John Frankenheimer; actors Dennis Hopper and Jeff Bridges; and writer Roger Ebert.

Although Betsy is formally being honored by Eastman House, representatives from other local organizations will be in attendance to recognize her writing career, as she has authored a book on each:—the Institute for Oral Health, University of Rochester, Friendly Home, Genesee Valley Club, The Chatterbox, and Brighton Historical Society. Her current project is a book about the Eastman Theatre, coming out in December.

The event honoring Betsy Brayer is open to the public. The award ceremony will be followed by a reception in the historic house. Samples of her publications will be on display. Betsy has requested that any donations in her honor be made to the George Eastman Legacy Acquisition Fund. Tickets for this special event are $25 ($20 for Eastman House members), with patron level tickets $50. You can purchase them by calling me at (585) 271-3361 ext. 242 or emailing me at kconnor@geh.org.

It’s hard to believe a week has gone by since Ken Burns and Geoff Ward were here at Eastman House to receive George Eastman Medals of Honor.  I’m not sure I’ve stopped smiling since then — listening to brilliant minds discuss their 28-year partnership was truly a privilege.  These two guys – who on the surface could not be more different – have forged a symbiotic relationship that has resulted in making American history come alive for millions of us. 

Ken Burns sitting for an interview in the Eastman House Terrace Garden

Geoff Ward with the George Eastman House Medal of Honor

George Eastman House Director Anthony Bannon introducing Burns and Ward 

I think many people know Ken Burns’ name: as director, his have been the key name and face identified with so many award-winning documentaries.  In person, he’s sprite-like, even jumping up on a chair when he gets intensely involved in working out details of a project.  He enjoys a crowd and is an eloquent extemporaneous speaker, stringing together words in magical sentences in ways most authors only dream of.

Fewer people know Geoff Ward’s name, which is part of the reason Eastman House wanted to jointly honor this dynamic duo.  Geoff has an unmatched ability to create the narrative arc of the stories the two work to relay…stories they admitted to not always having a shared passion for.  The Jazz series, Geoff told us, was a dream of his since he was nine years old, while Ken knew little about the subject.  The opposite was true of Baseball.   

Part of the charm of this event, I think, was the interplay between Ken and Geoff, who told me afterward they had never before had an opportunity to discuss their process in front of a group – to “bat things about onstage”, as Geoff described it.  And so the audience felt in the midst of a conversation among good friends.

Burns and Ward speaking to a sold-out audience in the Dryden Theatre 

There was something incredibly satisfying in learning that Ken and Geoff still do all their own original research.  They don’t send research assistants and interns out looking for photographs and moving images or subjects to interview.  They want to see that source material themselves; they fear that were someone to bring them 500 images from a cache of 1000 photographs, there might be one photograph that, had they seen it with their own eyes, would have given them a key story fragment.

Their process is convoluted, exhaustive and likely exasperating for those not intimately involved, for they don’t start with a script.  They start with a subject, and then seek to find anything and anyone that can shed light on the subject.  They don’t always know where they’re going, and they check their egos at the door, willing to also leave on the cutting room floor what one may have thought would be critical to the story early on.  The result is historical storytelling that catches us by surprise, even when we know history’s outcomes.  As Burns said, “We know Lewis and Clark got back.  We know the Union won the Civil War.  But if we tell the story well, the viewer can get caught up in the moment and forget that he knows where the story goes.  That’s when we know we’ve got it right.” 

One of my favorite moments of the evening was Geoff telling the audience about his time spent earlier in the day with Joe Struble, Archivist for our Photograph Collection.  Geoff is a Roosevelt scholar, and admits to being fairly obsessed with Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor (and is working now with Burns on creating a new documentary on the Roosevelts). He thought he had seen every photograph ever made of all three Roosevelts.  But in the space of 45-minutes, Joe brought out six photographs Geoff had never before seen, including photographs of Eleanor Roosevelt by Edward Steichen.  I, for one, will be looking for those Steichen photographs of Eleanor when the Roosevelt documentary airs several years from now.  And I’m guessing I’ll be on the edge of my seat, wondering whether FDR can actually get that New Deal through Congress. 

 Here’s to you, Ken and Geoff!  Thanks for giving all our guests an intimate look at your work, and thanks for helping promote civic values and civic action through your work.  George Eastman  himself would applaud your efforts. 

 Greeting fans at the post-presentation booksigning event

Editors Note: Visit our Ken Burns and Geoff Ward Facebook Photo Album  for more images of their visit.

Yesterday afternoon, author, photography futurist, and professor Fred Ritchin challenged me (and others) to recall any iconic images since 9/11 that weren’t celebrity-related.  I couldn’t do it.  Millions of images are generated around the globe every hour – Jimmy Colton at Sports Illustrated told us he reviews 10,000 images each day – but try to bring to mind ONE image representing the war in Afghanistan.  Or Iraq.  Or Iran.  Say “Vietnam” and the images immediately appear in your head.  “Civil Rights movement.”  I bet we’ve got the same pictures in mind. 

So why is it in an era of instant communication via images, we don’t have that shared visual history? Has not enough time passed to declare the icons?  Are we not keeping news magazines on our coffee tables for a week or more, causing the picture to get seared into our gray matter?  Are we scanning online too quickly, or do the images move too fast on the television screen?  I’m told by the experts here that there are just as many photojournalists out there taking photos as there were in past years – yet the images we MAY recall are cell phone images and videos, like that of Iranian teenager Neda.  

Fred contends that journalists are not providing us with reference points –that there are fewer and fewer images that explain to us how the world works.

Fred Ritchin speaking at the Hall of Philosophy.

 His students, he points out, tell him that CNN and the New York Times aren’t needed in a world where we can all upload our own images to flickr. But try to learn about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by typing “New Orleans” into the search field on flickr, and you’ll find scores of images of young people partying in the French Quarter.  Ritchin contends that we’ve moved from “a consideration of life to a consideration of ‘me’” – that there are so many images we can no longer see outside of ourselves. 

Hyperbolic?  Alarmist?  I’m not so sure.  I’ve spent the last 12 hours or so thinking about this, and also about something David Friend said yesterday.  David is Editor of Creative Development at Vanity Fair , and author of the book Watching the World Change:  The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11.” Yesterday he asked the question, “What would be different if 9/11 happened today?” Can you imagine the proliferation of twitter feeds, youtube videos, and photos on flickr that would have emanated from inside the towers?

That’s what I went to sleep thinking about last night. 

 David Friend listening to a 9/11 story

So this morning’s talk by Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the United States, about the relationship between photographs and poetry, provided much needed lighter moments. 

Why, you ask, end a week on photography with a lecture by a poet?  Well, Billy Collins connected the dots for us all.    

Poems slow time down.  Photographs manage to stop time.  Poetry asks us to come back to a metronomic slowness, but images are lifted out of a stream of time. 

Photography is silent.  Poetry wants to talk.  The power of the photograph is its silence – the strange quieting of the noise and commotion of life, whether it be the powerful silence of a western landscape, or the personal silence of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. 

According to Billy, you can choose not to read a poem, or to stop reading a poem, but you can’t stop the green-eyed Afghan girl from coming into your head. 

 Eastman House Director Tony Bannon and Billy Collins on stage in the amphitheatre at Chautauqua Institution.

Billy Collins started his talk by stating that he’s a bad photographer, as he found himself taking a picture of overturned colorful kayaks, which he realized was actually a picture he’d seen before.  Hmm.  Took this one this morning before hearing him…guess i am a photo plagiarist, too!

Day Four and I’m starting to understand what this place is all about.  The Chautauqua Institution is a kind of cruise ship on land for smart, interested people.  Each of nine weeks in the summer has a theme – this week’s, of course, is photography, and Museum Director Tony Bannon has designed the morning amphitheatre lecture series as well as the afternoon interfaith lecture program on ethics.  But it’s not just people who are interested in photography that are here.

Since the Chautauqua Institution began more than 120 years ago, people have gathered here to explore, discuss, learn, appreciate, and be moved to action.  Some come for the entire summer, some for just one week.  There are scads of fifth and sixth generation Chautauquans – it’s clear this place gets in your DNA quickly.  And I’m guessing that once you start spending your off-time in this kind of retreat, nothing else quite compares. 

There is an insatiable curiosity here.  Every lecture, every talk, every performance, every event seems filled to capacity.  This morning astrophysicist Margaret Geller spoke about using photography to map the universe, and the audience was rapt.   She closed her talk with the following statement, which just about sums up why Eastman House is a partner here this week:

“The images we make are a measure of the reach of our curiosity – of our ability to ask remarkable questions.  Even more remarkable is that we can answer them by taking photographs.” 

This seems to sum up the Chautauqua experience,too.  Exploring our universe.  Asking questions.  Searching for answers.  And at least for this week, using photographs as a tool for understanding. 

 Chautauqua also seems to be about recognizing and appreciated the gifts that make our world better…the arts, education, culture, the beauty of nature. So, in the spirit of Chautauqua, here’s a little photo essay of what some of us have been able to experience here in just the past 24 hours! 

Walkways of ChautauquaCurator of Technology Todd Gustavson speaking at an early morning chat on cameras in the Eastman House collection.

Crowd gathering and then taking a ‘Colorama’ image in Bestor PlazaAttendees at Wednesday’s talk by Sports Illustrated Picture Editor Jimmy Colton looking at the illustrations for the talk in photo books created by Kodak. 

Part of the Eastman House display of cameras here at Chautauqua this week.

Eastman Young Professional Rachel Pikus and Eliza Kozlowski, Director of Communications and Visitor Engagement for Eastman House, share a moment with the Babe.

purple martin houses….these, combined with bat houses, keep the mosquito population at almost nil.

looking at Chautauqua Lake at sunrise

Margaret Geller sharing photographs of galaxies.

More later….great speakers this afternoon that I’ll be anxious to share with you.