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Photography

Perez (at home in Guatemala in 2001) "really had a foot in both worlds," Donna DeCesare says.

Out of the Guatemalan Gang Culture, an Artist

Carlos Perez could have been an artist or a gangster. Photographer Donna DeCesare helped him choose

John Gerrard uses a combination of photography, 3-D modeling and gaming software for his landscape images.

Q and A: Irish Artist John Gerrard

Artist John Gerrard uses 360-degree photography and 3-D gaming software to create a virtual reality

"Here is business enough for you," Gage told the first doctor to treat him after a premature detonation on a railroad-building site turned a tamping iron into a missile.

Phineas Gage: Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient

An accident with a tamping iron made Phineas Gage history’s most famous brain-injury survivor

The Centennial Ride to Wounded Knee, December 29, 1990. Photograph by James Cook

Photograph Captures the Centennial Ride to Wounded Knee

On December 29, 1990, photographer James Cook caught sight in the distance of more than 350 horseback riders who were recreating the ride to Wounded Knee

From childhood on, abolitionist John Brown (in a c.1847 daguerreotype taken by Augustus Washington) had sworn "eternal war with slavery."

John Brown’s Famous Photograph

An 1840s image captures an extremist’s fervor

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Picture of the Week—Pentacene

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Picture of the Week—Ancient Altinum

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Smithsonian Magazine 6th Photo Contest: Winners Go on View in the Castle

Girls, Barbies, Harlem, 1970.

Harlem Transformed: the Photos of Camilo José Vergara

For decades, the photographer has documented the physical and cultural changes in Harlem and other American urban communities

Weegee danced and screamed to get the beach crowd's attention. The masked man called himself the Spider.

Weegee’s Day at the Beach

For the noir photographer Weegee, bathers at Coney Island had another kind of gritty reality

Jonathan Singer's Botanica Magnifica has earned a spot in the National Museum of Natural History's rare book room.

Flowers Writ Large

With his Botanica Magnifica, podiatrist-turned-photographer Jonathan Singer captures flowers on the grandest of scales

Herman Leonard photographed jazz icons such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Dizzy Gillespie.

Herman Leonard’s Eye for Jazz

In the 1940s and 50s, photographer Herman Leonard captured icons of the jazz world, including Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington

The "loyalty dance" was a fixture of China's Cultural Revolution, and Kang Wenjie's performance at a giant Maoist teach-in was boffo.

Dancing for Mao

A photograph of a 5-year-old girl made her famous in China—and haunted the man who took it

A Steichen photograph of two gowns by Madeleine Vionnet reflects the ease of movement for which Vionnet was known. The name of the model in white is unrecorded; Marion Morehouse, in black, was one of the photographer's favorite models.

Edward Steichen: In Vogue

A painter by training, Edward Steichen changed fashion photography forever

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The Best Photographs From Obama’s First Inauguration

Owen Edwards is a freelance writer who writes the "Object at Hand" column in Smithsonian magazine.

Owen Edwards on “In Vogue”

Gerard Malanga, c. 1970s.

Celebrity Portraitist Gerard Malanga

An associate of Andy Warhol, Gerard Malanga reflects on his subjects and his career as a photographer

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Reinventing the Toucan in the Smithsonian Photo Contest

GRAND PRIZE WINNER In the early morning, fishermen clean their nets by Erhai Lake Yunnan, China • Photographed October 2008 Ensing and the Chinese fishermen he shot that day did not share a common tongue, but that didn't matter. The language of photography proved universal. "I asked the fishermen if it was OK to take some shots. (In other words, I held up my camera and showed them my most friendly grin.) For more than a half-hour, I made my pictures."

6th Annual Photo Contest Winners and Finalists

See the winning photos from our 2008 contest

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Beyond the Photos with Neal Slavin

Photographer Neal Slavin discusses his group portraits and his career as a whole

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