Analyzing Photographs

What’s in a picture?  Who, what, where: What can we say about the event or action the photograph records?  Subject matter: Why did the photographer include these particular elements? What don’t you see in the picture?  Composition & framing: How do people or objects fill the frame?  What’s in focus (or not)? Where does your eye go as you look at the photograph?  Capture: What might have happened just before or after this picture was taken? What kind of moment is captured?  Perspective: Why did the photographer take the picture from this angle?  What would the scene have looked like from another vantage point — from left, right, behind, above, or below?

americainclass.org 1 Jet Magazine, September 15, 1955 The murder of

americainclass.org 2 , New Orleans, Louisiana (1955)

americainclass.org 3 Will Counts, Little Rock, Arkansas (September, 1957)

americainclass.org 4 Charles Moore, Montgomery, Alabama (1958) Arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

americainclass.org 5 Charles Moore, Montgomery, Alabama (1960) Racial Violence

americainclass.org 6 Charles Moore, Birmingham, Alabama (1963)

americainclass.org 7 Charles Moore, Birmingham, Alabama (1963) Police dogs attack protestors

americainclass.org 8 Charles Moore, Selma, Alabama (1965)

americainclass.org 9 , (1960) Self-portrait with my Nikon F Reflex at the

americainclass.org 10 Danny Lyon, Waveland, Mississippi (1964) at a SNCC conference

americainclass.org 11 Danny Lyon, Greenwood, Mississippi (1963)

americainclass.org 12 Danny Lyon, Atlanta (1963) Woman holds off a mob

americainclass.org 13 Danny Lyon, Birmingham, Alabama (1963)

americainclass.org 14 Danny Lyon, Atlanta, Georgia (Winter 1963-64) Taylor Washington arrested

americainclass.org 15 TIME, May 17, 1963; New York Times, August 29, 1963; Newsweek, April 15, 1965; Poster, June 21, 1964; LIFE, May 17, 1963; LIFE, May 19, 1965

americainclass.org 16 , Louisiana (1964) The Rev. Joe Carter, West Feliciana Parish

americainclass.org 17 Bob Adelman, Birmingham, Alabama (1963) No Man is an Island,

americainclass.org 18 Bob Adelman, (1965) “Protestor”

americainclass.org 19 Bob Adelman, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Selma to Montgomery in Alabama (1965)

americainclass.org 20 Bruce Davidson, (March, 1965) “Vote,” Selma Voting Rights

americainclass.org 21 Bruce Davidson, (1964) Police dragging a man

americainclass.org 22 Moneta Sleet, Jr., (April 9, 1968 ) with her daughter Bernice, attends the funeral of her husband MLK Jr.

americainclass.org 23 Roy DeCarava, Washington, DC (1963) Mississippi Freedom Marcher

americainclass.org 24 Roy DeCarava, (1964) Five Men

americainclass.org 25 , (1965) Selma-to-Montgomery March for Voting Rights

americainclass.org 26 Steve Schapiro, (1968) Martin Luther King’s Motel Room Several Hours After He Was Shot

americainclass.org 27 Janine Wiedel, Black Panther targeted during riots in Berkeley, CA, 1969; AP, Mexico City Olympics, 1968; Huey Newton, Minister of Defense and co-founder, ; AP, , 1968

americainclass.org 28 For Further Exploration

The U.S. , http://photos.state.gov/galleries/usinfo- photo/39/civil_rights_07/1.html The Civil Rights Digital Library, http://crdl.usg.edu/?Welcome The Civil Rights Resource Guide, http://loc.gov/rr/program/bib/civilrights/external.html Martin A. Berger. Freedom Now!: Forgotten Photographs of the Civil Rights Struggle. University of California Press, 2014 Julian Cox. Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968. University of Washington Press, 2008 Steven Kasher, The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68. Abbeville Press, 1996 Charles Moore, Powerful Days: Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore. University of Alabama Press, 2007 Leigh Raiford, Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle. University of North Carolina Press, 2013

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