Research Guides: Art General Library Guide: Photography

Online Resources

Britannica This link opens in a new window
Authoritative references, including articles from the print Encyclopædia Britannica, articles specially written for Britannica Online, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Britannica Book of the Year, etc.

The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: Digital Imaging, Theory and Applications, History, and Science / Michael R. Peres, editor-in-chief.
Includes the history and historical processes of photography, contemporary applications, and the new and evolving digital technologies.
The Miracle of Analogy, or, The History of Photography, part A
The Miracle of Analogy is the first of a two-volume reconceptualization of photography. It argues that photography originates in what is seen, rather than in the human eye or the camera lens, and that it is the world's primary way of revealing itself to us. Neither an index, representation, nor copy, as conventional studies would have it, the photographic image is an analogy.

On Writing with Photography
"What does it mean to “write with photography”? In what variety of contexts does this long-standing but ever-evolving collaboration take place? What kinds of material support has it required or generated over the course of its now-long history, and what difference do these locations and materials make not only to how we understand the nature of the interaction between writing and photography, but also to how this interaction mediates the world? "

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford’s art reference works: Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

The Oxford Companion to the Photograph / edited by Robin Lenman.
"Compiled by an international team of over 140 contributors, this is the first Oxford Companion to deal with the subject of photography. It appears at a watershed in the medium's history, as digital imaging increasingly dominates the global photography scene. Providing a wide range of technical information, the Companion also presents, in a concise and readily accessible form, the mass of recent scholarship on photography as a social and artistic practice.
Photographers: A Sourcebook for Historical Research / edited by Peter E. Palmquist
An annotated international bibliography, and six new essays on photography research.
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Contents: Where did you find that one : sources for finding dead photographers / David Haynes
Lochman located : further adventures in photographer research / Linda A. Ries
The regional photography collection : a case study at the Oakland Museum of California / Drew Heath Johnson
Copyrights and other rights / Jeremy Rowe
Women in photography international archive / Peter E. Plamquist
City Gallery 37 : research in the twenty-first century / Steve Knoblock
Directories of photographers : an annotated bibliography / Richard Rudisil
Looking for Lochman : researching an historical photographer / Linda A. Ries
Regional photographic history in Europe : a review of methodology and sources / Steven Joseph.

Photography
"A complete introduction to photography, this book is an essential resource for students across the visual arts. This accessible, inspirational guide explores the subjects and themes that have always obsessed photographers and explains technique in a clear and simple way. It introduces the work of the masters of the art as well as showing fresh, dynamic images created by young photographers from all over the world. The book also provides a valuable overview of careers in photography and a comprehensive reference section, including a glossary of technical vocabulary."

Broadway Photographs: PHOTOGRAPHY & THE AMERICAN STAGE
A resource for students of American Theater, devotees of performing arts photography, historians of American visual culture, curators of image collections, and collectors of dramatic, operatic, balletic, and vaudevillian memorabilia.

This site supplies cogent biographical profiles and histories of the most artistically significant and culturally influential theatrical photographers and studios.
Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915
A research database of over 45,000 records from the annual exhibition catalogues of the Photographic Society, London, published between 1870 and 1915.
International Center of Photography
New York, NY
Luminous Lint
Luminous-Lint includes of over 6000 photographers from every historic period and region of the world through to contemporary artists, and our information on each photographer grows and improves daily with over carefully selected 46000 photographs.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Includes Photography: The invention of photography represented a turning point in nineteenth-century culture and visual experience. For the first time, there was a means to capture an accurate and true portrayal of the people, places, and events that would shape history. As a complement to studies of history, culture, media, and many other disciplines, Photography provides the visual evidence to support and supplement written sources.

Photography assembles collections of photographs, photograph albums, photographically illustrated books, and texts on the early history of photography found in libraries and archives across the globe. The nineteenth century was about changes in family and society, invention and scientific discovery, exploration and colonization, urban versus rural life, work, leisure and travel -- all this is captured in photographs. Photography delivers around 2 million photographs from Britain, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

photoLondon
The Database of 19th Century Photographers and Allied Trades in London: 1841-1901
Photoseed
Bringing to Light the Growth and Artistic Vision of 19th & 20th Century Photography; representing an evolving online record of this early fine-art photography movement, is a private archive with simple goals: beauty, truth, scholarship and enjoyment for all who visit