Some Reflections on Photography

By Bonnie G. Wilson

Like Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, photographs reflect the world with varying clarity. Some, like a calm pond, quite accurately reflect the physical features that surround them. Others, like storm-tossed Lake Mille Lacs, only partially mirror the elements of the scene. Most photographs are a combination of both.

"Minnesota Reflections," the first digitization project of the Minnesota Digital Library, is a collection of collections: the best nineteenth century images from more than 55 Minnesota historical societies, museums and libraries compiled into a whole new window on Minnesota's past. Each set of images was suggested by a curator or librarian who knew each collection well. A small group of reviewers then discussed the utility of each collection, honing some to be more useful to students and historians. As you explore "Minnesota Reflections," ask yourself important questions.

What do photographs show well? Looking at a photograph from 1900, we see evidence of typical clothing styles, especially of the upper and middle classes, commonplace technology such as steam threshing engines and street railroads, the architecture of substantial buildings and luxurious homes, and commonplace objects such as typewriters, cash registers, pianos and stoves. Interior decorating styles were recorded by commercial photographers and amateur snap shooters. Studio portraits show the features of a person at one moment in time, as well as popular styles of gestures and facial expressions.

Photographs do an excellent job of showing change over time. Almost any photo in the Minnesota Digital Library can be compared to some modern scene, then differences described and discussed. For example, the scene in "Boy Sawing Wood Downtown" from the Goodhue County Historical Society (R0022) could be photographed today and the two images compared to reveal changes in buildings and street activity and to stimulate a discussion about child labor now and then.

We can also examine what photos don't show about the past. What did bathrooms and basements look like? What is in the alleyway behind that gorgeous house? Who walked on that vacant street? Where are the everyday workers -- the servants and the street cleaners? Asking questions like these underscores the selectivity of photography and reminds us that some aspects of culture are seldom evident in photographs.

Portraits are an example of the seen and not seen. They are reliable documents of the clothing, accessories and hairstyles the sitter preferred, but they do not reveal underlying emotions and desires of the people in the photographs. The person in the pose assumes a mask, usually based on the photographer's directions.

Moreover, in photographs we, the viewers, are not allowed to see the bigger picture. The photographic frame is always a selected view, one the person clicking the shutter wants to show us. We cannot see what was going on behind the photographer. The scene just to the left or right of the view is a mystery. We are intrigued by what happened just before or after the photographer snapped the shutter, but we can never know those details. We can only imagine what was there and then realize and understand how highly edited our view of the past really is.

What else should we keep in mind when we view the past through photographs? Historians agree that the photographer is the least seen yet most significant element of any photograph. We rarely think of that person and his or her role in the creation of a photograph, yet it is important to history to know something about who took the photo and why it was taken. Consider the Henry P. Bosse (1844-1903) photos from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District collection. Bosse was neither an artist nor a landscape photographer, even though his work has artistic elements and shows the landscape surrounding the Mississippi River. He was an engineer with an assignment to photograph the natural and man-made elements that relate to the river. If we want to see flooding, dams and bridges, we look to Bosse's photographs and he shows them to us. If we want to see how people lived, worked and played along the river, we have to look for the work of other photographers.

Technology, as we all know, plays a role in defining what a camera can and cannot document. Most of the photos in the Minnesota Digital Library database were made before 1909. The technology in those early years means that they were made on glass plate negatives or nitrate snapshot film. The glass plate negatives were exposed in large cameras resting on tripods, necessitating that photographers carefully compose each view. The images are selective rather than spontaneous. Expensive and tricky to make, only a select few scenes remain to represent all that was viewable at the time. What a contrast to today's digital camera capabilities of producing hundreds of photos at just one event.

Nitrate-based snapshots, however, provided more casual views, such as "Bowler and Whitlock" from the Scott County Historical Society (2003.036.0020). This view was shot in a type of place that is seldom photographed -- a stockyard adjacent to a railway line -- and reveals the casual side of the two men in the picture. The uninvited dog in the foreground was captured mid-bark and the men look as though they just hopped up on the wagon for a quick snapshot. But even the Kodak of the 1890s had its limitations. The film was not affordable to all and the shots usually had to be developed in another town or state. Even the early snapshot camera mandated that the photographers be selective in their choice of subjects.

Many of the photos in the "Minnesota Reflections" are stereographs, double-sided pictures that appear three dimensional when people view them with a stereoscope. The commercial landscape photographers who made them wanted to sell lots of copies for home entertainment. Consequently, the photographers studied the market for stereographs and found that viewers wanted impressive natural sites such as waterfalls and rocky shores, as well as city and architectural views. Occasionally, photographers were hired to record someone's home or portrait, but typically stereographs show the world that was deemed beautiful, important or inspirational from the 1860s to about 1900. Stereographs do not show out-of-the-way places or unpopular sites.

A very important element to the study of photographs is the context. This includes the caption that was printed on or with the photo, the events and ideas that were important to the viewer at the time, the place that the photo most likely appeared and the motivation for taking the photo. All Minnesota Digital Library photos have caption information that helps explain where and why the photo was taken. In addition, the date of the photo places it in a larger historical context; that which was going on beyond the frame of the photo might have an influence on why the photo was taken and how people viewed the photo. Sometimes we can discover where the photo first appeared, especially if it was shot for a newspaper of magazine. That discovery helps us understand the motivation behind the photo and how it was presented at the time. The information can also help us learn that the photo is part of a larger collection of photos or manuscripts held by the contributing institution. Set in a collection, a single photo relates to the other photos and the text in the collection, and together these pieces provide us with some answers to the who, what, why and where questions that one image alone naturally elicits.

What is the value of having all this visual information available at your fingertips in the Minnesota Digital Library? Of course, it is useful for illustrating new histories and decorating new venues, but such a wealth of visual imagery can stimulate us to think more broadly about images and history. Pick any dozen images in the database and compare them. What photographic conventions do they follow, such providing a vanishing point in the photo's center? Which ones are the most unusual? Which ones really hold your interest? What can they tell us about the time and place they were taken?

Then examine one in particular and ask what is going on in each part of the photo. What is included and what is just outside the frame? Who took the photo? If the photographer is not named, speculate on whether he or she was a professional, an amateur, a friend, a newspaper or magazine reporter or an artist.

Finally, ask what information you want to know about the photo that the database does not reveal. You can find some answers by contacting the institution that holds the photo, information which is included in the MDL database. In addition, look for a published history of the location, which may tell you more about what was going on at the time of the photo and which features in the photo are most typical or significant.

The "Minnesota Reflections" database is an opportunity to reach back into the past and examine its facets within the reflecting pool of historical photography. Jump in!

For Further Reading
(Annotations by Bonnie Wilson):
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Books, 1995 reprint. (Although this book focuses on oil paintings and advertising publicity, it is a good primer for visual literacy.)

Blackman, Margaret. "Reading Photographs: Other Works on Reading American Indian Photographs." Mathers Museum of World Cultures.
http://www.indiana.edu/~mathers/collections/photos/reading5.html. Accessed August 8, 2005.

Coe, Brian. The Snapshot Photograph: The Rise of Popular Photography, 1888-1939. London: Ash and Grant, 1977.

Darrah, William Culp. The World of Stereographs. reprint np: Land Yacht Press, 1997.

Szarkowski, John. Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1999 reissue. (The author introduces you to some of the most interesting photos in a famous collection and helps you examine them closely.)

Trachtenberg, Alan. Reading American Photographs: Images as History: Mathew Brady to Walker Evans. New York: Hill and Wang, 1990.

Bonnie G. Wilson was the photographic archivist at the Minnesota Historical Society before her retirement in Spring 2005.