Carla-Jean Profile picture
Jul 30, 2021 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
War photography exhibitions date back to the mid-19th century. Some of the earliest included images of the Crimea and the US Civil War.

In recent decades, we've seen some excellent exhibitions of #warphotos, and I've listed a few catalogues here below 👇🏽
One of the most important texts that you need to check out is Anne Wilkes Tucker (et al’s) “War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath.” This exhibition was mounted at the MFA Houston in 2012.
War/Photography takes a thematic approach to how wars have been photographed across the decades.

It weighs about 28 lbs to carry, but it's worth the sore arms.
It’s hard to pick a fav First World War exhibition catalogue, but “Shooting Range: Photography at the Great War” is a serious contender. This one has the most incredible reproductions of original objects from 100 years ago, showing that photographs were never actually just b/w.
But having said that, “The Great War: The Persuasive Power of Photography” also shows us some incredible photographic objects from all combatant nations of the First World War.
One of the rooms in this exhibition was actually set up as a reproduction of a real #FWW exhibit of official photographs that was first shown at London's Grafton Galleries in 1917. Yesss.
There have been a few exhibitions of women war photographers in the past few years. The first was “No Man’s Land: Women’s Photography and the First World War,” curated by Pippa Oldfield.
More recently is “Women War Photographers: From Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus,” which explores women photographers from a variety of 20-21st century conflicts. Both texts are must-reads for anyone who is interested in women photographers.
And since we’re talking about Lee Miller, Hilary Roberts “Lee Miller: A Woman’s War” is on my exhibition must-read list. Its from a show at the IWM, and it’s on my list because Miller wasn’t just amazing for a woman...she was one of the most incredible photographers. Full stop.
Have you noticed how all of the above historians and curators are women? Well, it’s because women absolutely CRUSH it in this field.
But I’d also be remiss not to mention one of the most canonical Canadian war photo exhibitions. This one dates back to the 1970s, the catalogue was written by archivist/historian Peter Robertson and is entitled “Relentless Verity: Canadian Military Photographers Since 1885.”
I’m intentionally skipping over a few recent exhibitions that do not have catalogues, but I wanna know - who’s seen some great exhibitions of war photography?

(And by that, I mean, who’s been inside a museum in the past 18 months???)

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More from @CarlaJeanStokes

Aug 24, 2022
One thing that can be a little bit surprising is the degree to which pre-digital photographers were able to alter their photographs.

In fact, the tools we use today in Photoshop are often named after their darkroom counterparts: dodge, burn, mask, layer, and more 👇🏼🧵 Photograph of a darkroom wi...
Today I want to talk about what happens usually after the print goes to press (as opposed to changes the photographer themselves might do, though they could).
This was the subject of my 2019 Elaine Ling Fellowship with the @ImageCentreTO. I examined a collection of FWW photos that once belonged to the New York Times & got interested/excited about the ways they had been retouched. Photograph of Carla-Jean St...Photograph of Carla-Jean St...
Read 16 tweets
May 22, 2022
Guys, I'm really happy and proud to be your #1 source of knowledge on visual culture (I kid, I kid).

Today, its apparently necessary to point out that paintings sometimes* convey messages rather than straightforward & literal moments in history.

*Pretty much always. Examples 🧵
I find myself often giving my hot takes on how photography is subjective.

The photographer chooses what to depict. It's their way of saying "hey! Look at this!"

It's less often that anyone needs to explain to fully grown ass adults that paintings are not literal.
A famous Canadian example? Look no further than to Benjamin West's famous painting, "The Death of General Wolfe," completed in 1770. It belongs to @NatGalleryCan. Painting by Benjamin West, entitled "the Death of Gener
Read 9 tweets
Nov 8, 2021
Today, let's talk about some handy tips to determine whether #FWW photographs you might have at home are Canadian or British official 👇🏼🧵
Photograph is: Ivor Castle, A trench on the Canadian Front showing Trunk Holes, May 1917, private collection.
Photographs were available to private buyers in a number of ways - as postcards (Canadian official sold by the Daily Mirror), stereograph cards (Underwood and Underwood, Keystone), or even lantern slides (Newton).
Read 20 tweets
Nov 7, 2021
I've got just enough time to answer another question from last week's photography talk with @LCMSDS.

This one is from @crg498: "Rider-Rider is an interesting surname. What can you tell us about his background and family history?"
Rider-Rider IS an unusual surname. So much so, that I’ve had a TON of trouble finding much about his genealogy. We know that he married a Rosina Ada Hill and that they had a son together less than 9 months later.

What did they name that babe? William Rider-Rider, of course.
Seriously, of all the photographers, R-R is the one for whom I have the least genealogical information.

I've got far more on his wife, Rosina Ada, who was blessed with a less ridiculous surname.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 8, 2021
So what was this poll all about? Read on to learn more about how you can easily identify Canadian official First World War photographs based on some physical attributes 🧵👇🏽
The other morning, I had a collector friend send me an email about a photograph he was looking at on eBay. He had done some googling and found this site, claiming the photograph was taken by a nurse.

cbrl.ca/mclennans/war.…
He asked if I thought that was true, and I told him that I had indeed seen the photograph (I often use it in my presentations because it’s a fun one) and that it was taken by an official photographer.
Read 23 tweets
Jul 29, 2021
Today I’ve got a bunch of great memoirs - all written by early press photographers and all have links to download fo’ free!

(Photo by Emre Can Acer from Pexels) Image
To start, here's Herbert Baldwin's "A War Photographer in Thrace." Baldwin was later hired as Australia's official photographer for a brief time in the #FWW.

archive.org/details/ldpd_6… Image
"To the four corners, the memoirs of a news photographer," by Bernard Grant.

archive.org/details/tofour…

Grant was a photographer at the Daily Mirror who photographed the Balkan Wars before heading up to Belgium in August 1914 to cover the events unfolding there. Image
Read 8 tweets

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