Life Magazine
<p><a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/life-photo-collection?date=1956" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is among the most famous of the twentieth-century picture magazines, and some of the century's most <a href="https://reyherphoto.com/time-life-photojournalists-iconic-photos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iconic photographs</a> were published in its pages. This first issue of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, from 1936,</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">features a photograph by <a href="https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/margaret-bourke-white?all/all/all/all/0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Margaret Bourke-White</a> on its cover. A full scan of this issue is available through the <a href="https://archive.org/details/Life_Magazine_v01n01_Nov_23_1936_/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internet Archive</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Picture magazines like </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> used the </span><a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3044"><span style="font-weight: 400;">halftone process</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which allowed photographs to be printed efficiently alongside text. Magazines began employing photo editors to create innovative and eye-catching layouts, such as the ones seen here. To consider the changing aesthetic of photojournalism, compare </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">’s photographs and layout with the illustrated news report from 1868 on </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">the <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3049">Trial of Patrick J. Whelan</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/circulate-knowledge/1900-to-1969">documentary photographs</a> published in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">follow a tradition of social documentary photography that emerged in the late-nineteenth century with photographers <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91981589" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jacob Riis</a> and <a href="http://100photos.time.com/photos/lewis-hine-cotton-mill-worker" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lewis Hine</a>. Bourke-White took part in this tradition with her photographs documenting poverty in the American South, which were published alongside the writings of Erskine Caldwell in </span><a href="https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/margaret-bourke-white-you-have-seen-their-faces" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">You Have Seen Their Faces</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Around the same time that Bourke-White was photographing the American South, the American government’s <a href="https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_14.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Farm Security Administration</a> started hiring photographers like <a href="http://100photos.time.com/photos/dorothea-lange-migrant-mother" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dorothea Lange</a> and <a href="https://www.nga.gov/education/teachers/lessons-activities/uncovering-america/parks-photography.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gordon Parks</a> to record the effects of the Depression in America. <br /><br />Other examples of photojournalism included in this exhibition include <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3130"><em>The Changing of the Guard</em></a> and <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3164"><em>The Fight against Apartheid!</em></a></span></p>
Margaret Bourke-White (photographer)
1936
21.8 x 33.6 cm
AP 2 L72 v.1, no.1 1937
Hoffman's Novelty Circus
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This poster promoting Hoffman’s Novelty Circus provides an example of the </span><a href="https://www.ted.photographer.org.uk/photoscience_halftones.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">halftone process</a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">used in advertising. Notice the grid pattern across the surface of the image, showing how dots were printed closer together or further apart to achieve different gradations of grey. <br /><br />This album is part of the <a href="https://bpsc.library.ualberta.ca/collections/prairie-ephemera" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prairie Ephemera Collection</a> housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections.<br /></span>
photographer unknown
[1943]
106.7 x 35.8 cm
FC 3234.2 P732 PE000407
Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains by the Camera
<em>Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains by the Camera</em> documents a trip through the Rocky Mountains, with an emphasis on the animals encountered (and hunted) along the way. The publication provides a good example of an early use of the <a href="https://omeka.library.ualberta.ca/exhibits/show/photograpies/item/3044">halftone process</a>, which allowed photographs to be easily printed side by side with text, bringing about what historian Gerry Beegan has called “the mass image.” <br /><br />In its approach to photographic illustration, this publication is firmly rooted in nineteenth-century practices. This can be seen in the photograph captioned “Mr. Wallihan and his Camera,” where Mr Wallihan stands next to a large camera mounted on an even larger tripod in order to illustrate the photographer’s care and expertise. <br /><br />The publisher’s note informs us of the “extreme difficulty of securing first-class negatives under these conditions,” where “the photographer was rarely able to obtain the most favorable position or sunlight advantage.” As a result, not all of the photographs published here are by Mr and Mrs Wallihan: “In order to make the collection of wild animals found in the Rocky Mountains more complete, it has been necessary to use several photographs obtained by others.” <br /><br />These notes, as well as an introduction entitled “How We Made the Photographs,” and a title that announces the camera’s authorship (“by the Camera”), present photography as a remarkable mode of representation that requires specialized knowledge.<br /><br />A full scan of this item is available through the <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924024575205/page/n3/mode/2up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Internet Archive</a>.
A. G. Wallihan (photographer)
1894
29.5 x 26.0 cm
QL 706 W21 1890
<span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span>