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Photography

The Emily Howland photo album containing the portrait of Tubman, (above: detail, ca. 1868) was unveiled this week at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

A Previously Unknown Portrait of a Young Harriet Tubman Goes on View

“I was stunned,” says director Lonnie Bunch; historic Emily Howland photo album contains dozens of other abolitionists and leaders who took an active role

A portrait (detail, above) of Mary Church Terrell, a prominent D.C. activist and suffragist. The image is just one of dozens of turn-of-the-century photographs featured in "Pictures with Purpose"

For Turn-of-the-Century African-Americans, the Camera Was a Tool for Empowerment

A new installment in the Smithsonian’s “Double Exposure” photo book series depicts black Americans championing their lives through photography

Tamara Lanier takes questions this week during a press conference announcing a lawsuit against Harvard University.

Trending Today

Why These Early Images of American Slavery Have Led to a Lawsuit Against Harvard

Tamara Lanier claims the university has profited off the images of her ancestors

The free, online software uses crowdsourcing and facial recognition to help users identify unknown subjects in Civil War era photographs.

The Computer Scientist Who Wants to Put a Name to Every Face in Civil War Photographs

As Virginia Tech’s Kurt Luther perfects his facial recognition software Civil War Photo Sleuth, the discoveries keep coming

Cool Finds

NASA Releases Opportunity Rover’s Final Panorama Photograph

The little Mars explorer was hit by a duststorm in June, 2018 and never recovered, but it did send back 354 images from on its final days

Dugger makes a stylish statement by superimposing vibrant images of women jumping and twirling over photographs of patterned mats common in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the Veil Is a Fashion Statement

Artist Medina Dugger finds joy in a colorful yet complicated symbol of faith

Banksias, 2014

Art Meets Science

Dornith Doherty’s Mesmerizing Photos Capture the Contradictions of Seed Banking

“Archiving Eden,” now at the National Academy of Sciences, shows how guarding against an ecological catastrophe is both optimistic and pessimistic

Northern Mountains, 2005

A Veteran Returns to Vietnam, Photographs the Country and Comes to Peace With His Wartime Experience

Trading in his rifle for a camera, photographer Chuck Forsman captures the country’s resiliency in a new book

Cool Finds

Museum of the Dog Takes Manhattan

After 30 years in St. Louis, the American Kennel Club museum is back in the Big Apple, with artifacts, portraits and a kiosk that matches people to dogs

“Courting Devil Ray Ballet” by Duncan Murrell

These Are the Best Practices for Underwater Photographers Hoping to Protect Marine Life

You can look—and even use flash photography—but don’t touch

A photograph by Hugh Mangum from Photos Day or Night: The Archive of Hugh Mangum, edited by Sarah Stacke with texts by Maurice Wallace and Martha Sumler, Hugh Mangum’s granddaughter.

Photographer’s Innovative Pictures Captured Lesser-Seen Faces of Jim Crow South

Hugh Mangum’s portraits reveal his subjects’ array of emotions and defy stereotypical snapshots

Unidentified compiler, "Girlfriends' Album," 1905

Celebrate the Art of Scrapbooking With This New York Exhibition

The show at the Walther Collection Project Space features more than 20 volumes filled with quotidian images, scribbled notes and miscellaneous ephemera

Market of Eminou Square and New Mosque Yeni Cami, with store signs in Ottoman Turkish, Armenian, Greek and French, 1884–1900, Sébah & Joaillier.

The Getty Digitizes More Than 6,000 Photos From the Ottoman Era

The images date to the 19th and 20th centuries, the waning days of the once-powerful empire

Marina Amaral can often find clues to inform her colorization in the shades of gray in the original image

No Color Photos of Jazz Singer Mildred Bailey Existed… Until Now

An artist shows us that the past was not black-and-white

“Everyone involved accomplished many, many firsts with that flight,” says Smithsonian curator Teasel Muir-Harmony. of NASA's near-perfect mission, (above: Apollo 8 command module).

How Apollo 8 ‘Saved 1968’

The unforgettable, 99.9 percent perfect, December moon mission marked the end of a tumultuous year

Left: A photo once identified as Vincent van Gogh, now believed to depict his brother Theo van Gogh Right: Theo van Gogh, aged thirty-two.

Rare Photo of Vincent van Gogh Likely Depicts the Artist’s Brother

There is only one other known photographic portrait of the artist, who eschewed photography

Civil War Photo Sleuth's software identifies up to 27 "facial landmarks" evident in images uploaded to database

Art Meets Science

Facial Recognition Software Is Helping Identify Unknown Figures in Civil War Photographs

Civil War Photo Sleuth aims to be the world’s largest, most complete digital archive of identified and unidentified Civil War-era portraits

The color-enhanced image was created by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager, according to NASA.

Cool Finds

Juno’s Latest Photo of Jupiter Is Breathtaking

The image, processed from JunoCam’s raw data, shows storms and winds in the planet’s Northern Temperate Belt

Freddie Mercury performing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in August, 1980.

How Close Does ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Come to Showing the Real Freddie Mercury?

While the movie has been critiqued for flattening the legacy of Queen, see the band come to life in historic photos

Bull Moose, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA by Isaac Spotts (Youth Photographer of the Year): "Cautiously, I slid into the water to be eye-level with them."

Peer Through the Lens of the World’s Best Nature Photographers

Sixty images, including the winners, from the 23rd annual Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice Awards go on view

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