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April 12: Week in Photography
Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs. 📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸 John Moore / Getty Images Our pick for the most powerful photo is from veteran Getty Images photographer John Moore as he reports from New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. Here, paramedic Patricia Rodriguez fills out reports on a laptop after her 12-hour shift in Yonkers, New York, on April 6. Rodriguez is one the many frontline health care workers treating and transporting patients to hospitals throughout Westchester County and parts of New York City.
📸For Your 👀 Only: SILVER LINING AT THE GEORGE EASTMAN MUSEUM Across the country, museums have closed their doors to the public in compliance with the social distancing measures designed to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. As with most other aspects of social life under lockdown, many of those museums are now sharing new and innovative ways to digitally engage their collections from the comfort of our homes.
One such institution is the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and motion pictures. Since closing its doors on March 14, the museum has been working overtime to roll out creative initiatives to stay connected with the public through a wide array of online content, including hands-on activities, history lessons, photography tutorials, and even 360 tours of the museum's galleries.
Here, George Eastman Museum's Eliza Kozlowski, director of marketing and engagement, and Kate Meyers Emery, manager of digital engagement, speak with BuzzFeed News about some of the fun ways they're engaging people at home during the coronavirus pandemic. Lewis Payne, one of the Lincoln Conspirators before his execution, 1865. Photograph by Alexander Gardner. How is the George Eastman Museum uniquely positioned to engage people staying home right now?
Eliza Kozlowski: We’ve always had a very robust presence online, so what this closure has really allowed us to do is ratchet that up. The silver lining in this is that we’ve always talked about the many things we’ve wanted to do online, and now those things are more of a priority for us. The truth is that right now, our most important address is our web address.
With that in mind, we’ve been increasing and experimenting with what we are capable of online by trying to introduce a new digital experience every week.
Kate Meyers Emery: We’re trying to reach the full run of people who make up our audience — everybody from families who are interested in activities to do with their kids to people who are just at home and looking for some sort of entertainment. One of the things we offer are how-tos, which are fun activities you can do at home with things you have lying around the house. We’ve done tutorials on how to make flip-books, which are really pre-animation techniques. One of the things coming soon is a tutorial on how to turn a room in your house into a camera obscura, which can be done easily with just cardboard or black bags. So these are some very fun and easy things that you don’t need a lot of tools to do.
Schmitt with Flag and Earth Above, December 13, 1972. Photograph by NASA. We also have hardcore workshops for people who might have darkrooms at home, as well as an ongoing video series created by our staff in which they talk about their favorites artists and objects. We’ve been rolling out our virtual tours so that we’re able to bring people into the museum even though it’s closed. The benefit of being a museum of photography and film is that we have a lot of video content and photographs. Our 360-degree tour was created by a volunteer who loves photography and just wanted to do this for us. We hadn’t rolled it out yet, but we figured now was the perfect time!
How has the museum closure affected the conservation of your collections?
EK: Really, the best conditions for photos and film is cold, dark, and low humidity. So, as it is now in the vault, the least amount of time we bring our collections out the better.
A perfect example is an exhibition that’s up right now that demonstrates the history of photography. We have this up for six months, and the reason is that we need to be very aware of the amount of light and temperature that we’re exposing these works to. So now with the closures, we’ve decided that we can now keep the exhibition up a little longer because all those photos have been in the dark. So while our conservators do work to help keep photographs in their current state, right now the best treatment is that they’re staying in the cold and they’re staying in the dark. Walking, taking off hat, 1884-1887. Photograph by Eadweard J. Muybridge. What do you want people to get out of these virtual experiences while they’re at home?
EK: Two-fold: One is that people who are already familiar with the museum are given an opportunity to take a deeper dive. We sometimes say at the museum that we have a multi-personality. We have visitors who love photography and others who love cinema. Some love George Eastman, and others visit for their love of the gardens. Sometimes it’s hard to get those groups to overlap, so we’d love if during this time people would discover a new aspect of the museum to enjoy.
The other is for audiences who may not be familiar with the museum to discover what we have to offer. A perfect example of this is that we just launched our first webinar, which was essentially a live tour of an exhibition featuring a case of Kodak cameras. We had our technology curator telling the story of these cameras, and it was really rewarding to see the chats coming through with people saying they were in Brazil, the Netherlands, the UK, and all over the world, each participating in this single live experience. Two women holding a sign that reads "Easter Holidays! Take a Kodak with You," ca. 1917. Unknown photographer. 📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸 Photographer Dina Litovsky leads off our photo stories this week from the empty streets of New York City at night. In flashes of fluorescent lights and the occasional passing car, Litovsky reveals how life continues — cautiously — amid the coronavirus pandemic. Next, we visit China, where lockdown measures have been lifted, prompting crowds of people to rush into parks and public spaces despite warnings of a new wave of infections. In Wisconsin, lines of voters turned out to participate in the state's primary elections, which were held despite many people continuing to shelter in place. Lastly, we end on a fascinating photo series that explores how technology can fundamentally alter what it means to be human.
Find more of the week's best photo stories here.
THE STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY AT NIGHT Dina Litovsky / Redux for BuzzFeed News With nonessential businesses closed and people ordered to stay home, the city that never sleeps has dramatically slowed down. SEE THE FULL STORY
CHINA AFTER LOCKDOWN: TOO MUCH, TOO SOON Getty Images Over the weekend, thousands of people flocked into China's public spaces and parks for an attempt at normalcy during a deadly coronavirus pandemic that's far from over. SEE THE FULL STORY
CIVIC DUTY DURING A DEADLY PANDEMIC Scott Olson / Getty Images On Tuesday, Wisconsin residents turned out en masse to vote in the state's primary election despite the danger of spreading COVID-19. SEE THE FULL STORY
MORE MACHINE THAN HUMAN? David Vintiner "Science and human advancement has always been propelled forward by the people who do things differently and those who are not afraid to break the rules." SEE THE FULL STORY
📸YOUR WEEKLY PALATE CLEANSER 📸 Bo Xiang / Getty Image For those who caught the fascinating story of two giant pandas at a Hong Kong zoo who successfully mated for the first time in almost 10 years together at the park, here's a more 🙈family-friendly image you can use to scrub the other from your mind. Here, a giant panda lies in a beautiful bed of spring flowers at the Beijing Zoo on April 4.
"That's it from us this time — see you next week!" —Gabriel and Kate “Only photography has been able to divide human life into a series of moments, each of them has the value of a complete existence.” —Eadweard MuybridgeWant More? Go To JPG Homepage
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Gabriel Sanchez is the photo essay editor based in New York and loves cats. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. You can always reach us here.
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