Getting the Picture: Photojournalism in Russia and the U.S.

Catalog description

The vast majority of photographs printed and consumed around the world appeared on the pages of magazines and newspapers. These pictures were almost always heavily edited, presented in carefully devised sequences, and printed alongside text. Through firsthand visual analysis of the picture presses of yesteryear, this course considers the ongoing meaning, circulation, and power of images as they shape a worldview in Russia as well as the US. In looking at points of contact between two world powers, we will cover the works of a wide array of authors, photographers, photojournalists and photographed celebrities (Lev Tolstoy, Margaret Bourke-White, Russian satirists Ilf and Petrov, John Steinbeck and Richard Capa, and many others). We will explore the relationship between photojournalistic practice of the past with that of our present, from the printed page to digital media, as well as the ethical quandaries posed by the cameras intervention into/shaping of modern history. No knowledge of Russian is required.