SLIDESHOW: Behind The Scenes of Power

[Frank W. Baker]

Recently I asked a group of Social Studies teachers if they could teach history without images and they all agreed they could not. So began a lesson in visual literacy. The New York Times offers readers, "Behind The Scenes of Power,"a look at some recently discovered and rarely seen images, by photographer Garry Winogrand, taken during the Democratic Convention of 1960, in Los Angeles. ‘‘He photographed the life, the back corners, the audience,’’ says Leo Rubinfien, a photographer who is curating a retrospective of Winogrand’s work opening in San Francisco next year.

[Craig Wiesner]

Wow. What an amazing treasure. Thank you for letting us know about it. I'd love to know how teachers might incorporate this into classes. I'm going a different route... I'm going to suggest this as an activity for local senior residences, to ask folks to look at the pictures and help identify those who need to be tagged.

[Frank W. Baker]

Craig, One of the great media literacy questions is "what is omitted?" So for those of us who remember the 1960 convention, what we saw on TV, and in magazines and in newspapers was limited by what the photographers on the scene saw, photographed and had published. These images take us much further--behind-the-scenes, in the crowd, very close-up, an unusual intimacy, I would say.

[Craig Wiesner]

Yes, they do. The intimacy is amazing.

When you consider how many photos never get seen by anyone other than the photographer, imagine how many treasures are out there sitting in boxes just waiting to be found.

[Ryan Goble]

Very cool Frank! Thanks for sharing!