Our visual history is disappearing

Kira Pollack, a former editor at Time and Vanity Fair, is a distinguished fellow at the Starling Lab for Data Integrity, a research lab co-anchored by Stanford University's School of Engineering and USC Libraries.
When Hurricane Milton threatened Tampa last October, photojournalist Christopher Morris faced a familiar challenge: protecting his archive from destruction. For days, he lifted folders of photographs onto 10-foot-high shelves inside his home while also rolling metal filing cabinets into a U-Haul in his driveway — to keep his archive above the storm surges. His life's work — hundreds of thousands of photographs, negatives and digital files taken over decades — hung in the balance. When the storm veered south, sparing his home, Morris knew he had narrowly escaped catastrophe. 'I can't keep gambling with it year after year,' Morris said. 'I have to find a solution.'
Morris's dilemma is not unusual. His work and countless other photographic archives like it represent our collective visual history. Institutions such as the Library of Congress, which holds 16 million images, play a crucial role in preserving photojournalism, yet the surge of at-risk archives far exceeds anyone's capacity. Adam Silvia, a photography curator at the library, usually receives two or three inquiries each month from photographers or their estates hoping to place a lifetime of work, but only a fraction can be accepted. The library holds just 12 complete archives of individual photojournalists. And there are many more photos than places to house them, digitize them and make them publicly available.
Washington Grays baseball players in D.C.'s Griffith Stadium in 1947. (Robert H. McNeill Family Collection/Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division)
Fashion models pose in a swimming pool in 1948. (Toni Frissell Photograph Collection/Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division) Steve Jobs with an Apple computer in 1984. (Bernard Gotfryd Photograph Collection/Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division)
Despite the meticulous organization of her own archive, photographer Donna Ferrato, known for her work on domestic violence, has yet to find a home for it. 'It's the curse of the living photographer,' she says. 'The older we get, the more we understand the value of every single photograph that connects us to a human being from our past.'
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
Without a clear plan, a photographer's archive can become a burden rather than a legacy, leaving heirs — spouses, children or executors — to navigate complex decisions about storage, access and preservation. Ruth Orkin, best known for 'American Girl in Italy' — a striking 1951 photograph of a young woman striding through a Florentine street as men turn to look — ensured her archive would be in the secure hands of her daughter, Mary Engel. But even with that preparation, Engel faced a steep learning curve as she took on the task when her mother died. Seeing how many others were in the same position, she founded the American Photography Archives Group in 2000. What began as a small peer network has since grown into a nonprofit with nearly 300 members, assisting both living photographers, such as Pete Souza, and the estates of legends such as Ansel Adams, Lee Miller, Elliott Erwitt, and André Kertész.
The first meeting of Vice President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., on March 6, 1957, in Accra, Ghana. (Griff Davis/Griffith J. Davis Photographs and Archives)
'American Girl in Italy,' Florence, 1951. (Copyright 1952, 1980 Ruth Orkin) (Ruth Orkin/Ruth Orkin Photo Archive)
British women pose by a London air-raid shelter in 1941. (Lee Miller/Lee Miller Archives) John F. Kennedy prepares a speech in Baltimore as admirers watch in September 1960. (Paul Schutzer)
As photographers try to find homes for their work, traditional archives are also vanishing, especially in local journalism, where generations of photographers built shared visual records of community history. Newspaper photo morgues — once vast collections housed in newsroom attics and basements — have been disappearing at an alarming rate as publications downsize, shut down or sell off their buildings. Copyright law adds another hurdle: Though independent photographers own their work, staff images typically belong to the publications, leaving photographers unable to reclaim their own archives. Some photographers have resorted to dumpster diving — I know one who salvaged his box of negatives from the trash.
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
Institutions can help. In 2019, a powerhouse alliance of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Ford, Mellon and MacArthur foundations rescued Johnson Publishing Company's archive from bankruptcy — and more than 4 million photographs from magazines including Ebony and Jet that captured postwar Black American life. Among the collection's images is Moneta Sleet Jr.'s photograph of Coretta Scott King, veiled in black, holding her daughter Bernice at her husband's funeral. The picture won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, the first to be awarded to a Black photographer.
Coretta Scott King consoles her daughter, Bernice, at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968. (Moneta Sleet Jr./Johnson Publishing Company Archive/Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)
Poet and activist Maya Angelou relaxes in her room before performing at New York's Village Vanguard. (G. Marshall Wilson/Ebony Collection/Johnson Publishing Company Archive/Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)
The Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1956. (William Lanier/Ebony Collection/Johnson Publishing Company Archive/Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture)
Johnson Publishing's massive Chicago-based archive is being catalogued by a team of archivists, with plans for a permanent home at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Getty Trust is applying some of the most advanced technology available to curate the collection, but its effort is an exception to the rule.
Photographer Edward Burtynsky, known for his dramatic landscapes, has been pioneering a solution to one of the greatest challenges in preservation: scale. Burtynsky developed a high-tech scanner designed to digitize and catalogue images at an unprecedented rate — up to 2,000 per day. What used to take years can now take months. The system functions like a precision turntable, scanning both sides of prints simultaneously with high-resolution cameras and synchronized strobe lighting.
The customized scanning system known as ARKIV360 at Edward Burtynsky's Toronto studio. (Edward Burtynsky Photography/ARKIV360)
The ARKIV360 scanning system. (Edward Burtynsky Photography/ARKIV360)
Algorithms powered by artificial intelligence then extract handwritten notes, metadata and important details, organizes the information so each image can easily be searched by keywords and includes a clear description. So far, Burtynsky's team has digitized a vast collection of images about Canada for the Image Center, a photography museum in Toronto, and 89,000 First Nations and Inuit drawings from the Toronto area's McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Next, they plan to take on the Black Star Collection — nearly 300,000 historic black-and-white prints at the Image Center. 'I call it unleashing history,' Burtynsky says. 'There's all this history that's locked up.'
The hurricanes Morris prepares for each season in Florida are a tangible threat, but time and technological obsolescence are inexorable. The photographers of our era took the great risks to create these vital documents of history. We risk losing not just the images but also our ability to bear witness to history itself.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

New York Times

5 days ago

• New York Times

William Langewiesche, the ‘Steve McQueen of Journalism,' Dies at 70

William Langewiesche, a magazine writer and author who forged complex narratives with precision-tooled prose that shed fresh light on national security, the occupation of Iraq and, especially, aviation disasters — he was a professional pilot — died on Sunday in East Lyme, Conn. He was 70. Cullen Murphy, his longtime editor at The Atlantic and Vanity Fair, confirmed the death, at the home of a friend, saying the cause was prostate cancer. Mr. Langewiesche (pronounced long-gah-vee-shuh) was one of the most prominent long-form nonfiction writers of recent decades. He was an international correspondent for Vanity Fair, a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine and a national correspondent for The Atlantic. For 10 years running, from 1999 to 2008, his pieces were finalists for the National Magazine Award, and he won it twice: in 2007 for 'Rules of Engagement,' about the killing of 24 unarmed civilians by U.S. Marines in 2005 in Haditha, Iraq; and in 2002 for 'The Crash of EgyptAir 990,' about a flight that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 1999 with the loss of all 217 people aboard. He chose to write often about calamitous events, piecing together a meticulous explanation for what went wrong while portraying the human subjects under his microscope with sympathy. 'At his best there's a sort of cinematic omniscience in the way he writes,' Mr. Murphy said in an interview. 'And so you feel almost as he feels, with your face pressed up against the window watching something unfold, often very rapidly, and often wishing that things would unfold very differently but knowing there's nothing that can be done.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Yahoo

5 days ago

• Yahoo

Milton H. Boyles 1929-2025 St. Joseph, Mo.

Milton Harold Boyles, 95 of St. Joseph, passed away on June 12, 2025, at Mosaic Life Care, in St. Joseph. Milton Harold Boyles, the son of Roger and Estel (Hardin) Boyles, was born on Dec. 13, 1929, in Rosendale, Missouri. He graduated from Bolckow High School. Milton was united in marriage to Verna Mae Sipes on Feb. 2, 1954, she preceded him in death. In 2004 he married Mary (Sallee), and enjoyed the remainder of his life in this loving marriage; Mary survives of the home. Milton served his country in the Marine Corps during the Korean conflict. Upon his return to the United States, Milton was employed by the Missouri Department of Transportation where he worked until retirement, after 39 1/2 years. He remained very active throughout his life, and enjoyed gardening, helping others, and cutting wood. His memory will live on in the lives of his surviving family, including his wife, Mary, and nieces and nephews. Milton was preceded in death by both parents; sister, Sylvia Manship; brothers, Jerry and Jim Boyles; and first wife, Verna. Milton has been cremated under the care of Heaton-Bowman-Smith-Sidenfaden Chapel of St. Joseph, Missouri. At Milton's request, there will be no formal service. Memorials may be directed to Mosaic Hospice of St. Joseph, Missouri. The family extends their gratitude to the Mosaic Hospice team for the care that Milton received. As published in the St. Joseph News-Press.

Chicago Tribune

12-06-2025

• Chicago Tribune

IUN Kids College helps NWI students discover careers

For Kyra Shannon, the best part of Indiana University Northwest's Kids College is the bond she creates with students and fellow instructors. 'I like teaching,' said Shannon, a civic leadership instructor and ambassador. 'I like leadership, and I like getting kids in the mindset of (making change).' Kids College is a two-week summer camp for Northwest Indiana's middle school students. The camp simulates a college experience for children who would typically be first-generation college students or qualify for Indiana's 21st Century Scholars program. Students can participate in different career paths, including performing arts, technology and medical programs. Sarah Morris, director of IUN's Kids College, said about 65 students are participating in the camp this year, up from about 50 the year before. Throughout the state, Indiana University hosts six Kids Colleges at its satellite campuses. 'The students can choose a major, and they get to meet faculty, community partners and professionals,' Morris said. 'Then they get to learn what it's like in that major … and learn what different career paths that major could lead them to.' On Thursday, Best Buy's Geek Squad was at Kids College, helping students who are interested in technology careers. Community partners are important for Kids College, Morris said, because it can get participants more excited about their careers. Campers Kenyon Workman and Kenneth Suncin both learned about technology careers at this year's Kids College. This week, both Workman and Suncin have worked on coding, which they both said they're interested in. Both kids have liked coding more as Kids Camp has gone on. 'We're doing this (program) where we had to get a robot out of a maze,' Suncin said. 'After a while, I got focused on decorating (the characters).' This year was Workman's second year at Kids College, but it was Suncin's first. He joined because his sister had done the camp before, Suncin said. Aniyah Kelly is going into eighth grade, so this is her final year at Kids College. This year, Kelly participated in the performing arts program, but before, she'd done the medical track. Kelly is interested in a nursing career, which she said she learned at Kids College. 'I really want to work in a hospital,' Kelly said. Jaclyn Calvillo is a medical health careers program instructor at Kids College. Throughout the camp, Calvillo said students in the medical program learn about health problems that affect children in their age group. 'For instance, we look at teen suicide, counseling, those types of things,' Calvillo said. 'Is there enough access to health care or not? And what can we do to improve these numbers? How can we create a new system that might work better?' Calvillo said it's powerful to watch children grow throughout Kids Camp, and she's watched participants become more confident and come out of their shell. For Morris, it's heartwarming to watch students come back year after year and continue to grow. 'College isn't just about learning,' Morris said. 'I can imagine a lot of these students have a negative experience at their schools, unfortunately, which is so unfair to them. But, at Kids College, we get to provide them with a better learning experience.'