A powerpoint presentation on the virtual American Museum of Photography, focusing on a section called "How the Camera Learned to Lie."

1. “A museum without walls, for an art without boundaries.”
-Wm. B. Becker, Director

2.  Virtual presence only, no physical building
 Focus is mainly on older photographs and techniques
 No digital images

3.  Current exhibitions at the museum:
 Masterworks of Photography - 3 galleries of Talbot to
Ansel Adams
Pulp Pix: Photography Noir - staged images that create a

murder mystery
Photography as a Fine Arf! - canine photographs

Dageurreotypes of Southworth & Hawes

At Ease - informal portraits from the beginning of

Photography
Small Worlds - the art of the Carte de Visite

Of Bricks & Light – architectural photography


4.  New Exhibitions:
 Autochromes – celebrating 100 years of color
photography
An Eye for the World – photographs by Shotaro

Shimomura, 1934-35
A More Perfect World – photomontages by Scott Mutter

The Face of Slavery

Cross-Cultural America


5.  “Photography was born pure. In the beginning, there was the daguerreotype.
Each daguerreotype was made individually in the camera. No negative was
used. Since photography was so new, and seemed so miraculous,
daguerreotypes were prized for their perfect accuracy in recording a scene or
making a portrait. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes called photography quot;the mirror
with a memory.quot; Why would anyone try to improve upon such perfection?”
 Adding color to daguerreotypes
 Adding backdrops
 Multiple exposure portraits
 Photomontages

6.  Photomontages

7.  Scott Mutter

8.  William H. Martin (1865 – 1940)

10. The first ghosts in photographs were the result of accidents. During a long exposure--

such as those required in photography's infancy--a person who stood still would register
as clearly as a building. But a person who moved out of camera range after only a portion
of the exposure was completed would instead appear as a see-through blur. It happened
with the lamplighter in this detail from a photograph by the London Stereoscopic
Company.

11.  But then, photographers started doing it on purpose:

12.  William H. Mumler (1832-1884)