May 10: Week in Photography

 Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs.

📸 MOST POWERFUL PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📸

Scott Olson / Getty Images

May is usually the start of a celebratory season, especially for students, with proms, graduations, and commencements filling up social calendars. Typically, the community aspect of these occasions is key, but this year ongoing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic have mandated that most celebrations happen solo.

This image by Scott Olson captures both the pomp, and the surrealism, of the new graduation at a ceremony in Bradley, Illinois where no friends or family were allowed to attend, although a video of the event will be streamed on May 16.

 WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! 📸

Last week! Share your images of social distancing, springtime, and some of the feelings of being indoors for quarantine. 

Images can be submitted here, and the most compelling picture will be shared in JPG the first week of June. 

📸For Your 👀 Only:

REPRESENTATION MATTERS, ESPECIALLY NOW

We spoke with Karen Irvine at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago about an online collection of work related to motherhood. During that interview, she also gave us an insightful response to how museums are coping with social distancing, which we have lightly edited and condensed.

CAN YOU SPEAK ABOUT YOUR DIGITAL COMPONENTS TO EXHIBITIONS, AND HOW THAT HAS SHIFTED? 

Our website was designed to be an educational resource for everyone, from curators and scholars to students. We’re part of a college and we like to put curated photo collections online if someone has already done the thinking. In the past, we’ve done that periodically but not always. 

I think that the experience of actually seeing something in quote-unquote real life still has a unique quality and that people might seek that out more and more in the future as we continue to swim in the sea of digital images. But that said, we have to rethink that premise at least for the near future. We were able to pivot really fast, within a week, from when we shut our doors to this online programming.

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago

Our photo and Zoom sessions are modeled on something we were already doing called Photos at Noon. We would invite some general public into the museum and the classroom space and one of our educators would pull images from the collection based on certain themes, and open up a dialogue with the public. Most were really successful, so once this started we thought, Well, we can actually continue, since our whole collection is online. And what’s great about it is that our attendance has gone way up. 

When we go back to real time and real space, we’re thinking that it would make sense for programs like this to always be livestreamed, so people can tune in from anywhere. This has been one of the small silver linings for us, to realize how easy it is to include more people remotely. I don’t know why it always felt like a mental barrier, but it’s been pretty seamless and we’re seeing people tune in from all over the world, which is awesome. 

We started another series called Behind the Lens, and those are virtual studio visits. That was another untapped opportunity for us. We realized of course that through technology we are able to have artists speak to us from their studio spaces, which is so amazing. We usually start with a tour, where they are literally holding a laptop up, and showing us around the space. Often the spaces themselves show so much about their practice, they allow you a different view into how they work and who they are, and sometimes the objects that they have lying around become a source of extra information that you would never get otherwise. 

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago

It has been really great in terms of being able to do studio visits with artists in California, and artists in New York, and places where we would never be able to access without a lot of expense. It's got a practical side to it, but it also is such a privilege to see into someone's working space. They’re all archived on Vimeo as well so you can find past ones if there are people who are interesting to you. 

We were one of the first institutions to have our entire collection online, and we’re so happy we put the energy into that years ago. With photographs, they are very conducive to being able to digitize fairly quickly and understand, maybe more so than other art forms. 

A lot of institutions at the beginning were just like, "Let's do a tour of what’s on view," which was almost like trying to replicate the experience of the space. It's hard enough to come into the space and keep their attention as they walk around with real objects, but virtually I think it's just not as engaging as it could be.

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago

We’re looking at new ways that we can do that and do it well. There are some good models out there by having a curator walk through the space and do a virtual tour, as opposed to a robot, for example, going through the space. 

Another idea is just to produce them amazingly well so it's not exactly an exhibition tour, but it's an overview of the exhibition, with lots of different components. You could have the artist appear and do brief video segments and intersperse that with shots of the space — we’re trying to think creatively about that. 

Even when we do go back — let's say we open as soon as this summer — we expect that attendance will be far lower for a period. So we do want to give the artists and the curators that we’re working with what they deserve in terms of all the scholarship and work that’s gone into these exhibitions. It's an interesting challenge, for sure.

 📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸

We're in that awful in-between phase this week. It's not quite summer yet, and nothing is quite back to normal — and there is every indication that normal is going to be radically redefined anyway. We're embracing the uncertainty here at BuzzFeed News, while also looking back at simpler times: when Anna Wintour was a young editor on the town, and when portrait sessions with celebrities could happen in person. 

Find more of the week's best photo stories here.

THESE BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS SHOW MOTHERHOOD AS A UNIVERSAL ARTFORM

Kelli Connell

"Interestingly, in art, even though it is so fundamental, real-life depictions of motherhood have been underrepresented over the course of history."

HERE ARE SOME CELEBRITY PHOTOS THAT ALMOST DIDN'T SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY

Taylor Miller / BuzzFeed News

"To see that she was just as sweet and funny in real life is something I will never forget"

FANTASTIC PHOTOS OF ANNA WINTOUR THAT WILL MAKE YOU CONTEMPLATE FASHION AND DURATION

Getty Images

The editor-in-chief of Vogue and global artistic director at Condé Nast, Wintour has been a fixture on the New York fashion scene since at least the '80s.

📸YOUR WEEKLY PALATE CLEANSER 📸

Al Bello / Getty Images

Who doesn't want a drink with a friend these days? These pups deliver on both counts! Although the cans on their necks are empty (no one wants a shaken beer) their owners run a microbrewery in Long Island, and Barley and Buddy help with deliveries. 

"That's it for this time — see you next week!" —Kate

📝 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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