Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Payne, Carol

Title The official picture : the National Film Board of Canada's Still Photography Division and the image of Canada, 1941-1971 / Carol Payne
Published Montreal [Canada] : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013

Copies

Description 1 online resource (x-xix, 244 pages) : illustrations, portraits
Series McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in art history ; v. 10
McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in art history ; v. 10.
Contents pt. 1. Surveying the history of the still photography division, 1941-1971 -- pt. 2. Readings in the archive -- pt. 3. Revisiting the archive
Summary "Mandated to foster a sense of national cohesion The National Film Board of Canada's Still Photography Division was the country's official photographer during the mid-twentieth century. Like the Farm Security Administration and other agencies in the US, the NFB used photographs to serve the nation. Division photographers shot everything from official state functions to images of the routine events of daily life, producing some of the most dynamic photographs of the time, seen by millions of Canadians - and international audiences - in newspapers, magazines, exhibitions, and filmstrips
In The Official Picture, Carol Payne argues that the Still Photography Division played a significant role in Canadian nation-building during WWII and the two decades that followed. Payne examines key images, themes, and periods in the Division's history - including the depiction of women munitions workers, landscape photography in the 1950s and 60s, and portraits of Canadians during the Centennial in 1967 - to demonstrate how abstract concepts of nationhood and citizenship, as well as attitudes toward gender, class, linguistic identity, and conceptions of race were reproduced in photographs. The Official Picture looks closely at the work of many Division photographers from staff members Chris Lund and Gar Lunney during the 1940s and 1950s to the expressive documentary photography of Michel Lambeth, Michael Semak, and Pierre Gaudard, in the 1960s and after. The Division also produced a substantial body of Northern imagery documenting Inuit and Native peoples. Payne details how Inuit groups have turned to the archive in recent years in an effort to reaffirm their own cultural identity
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Subject National Film Board of Canada. Still Photography Division.
SUBJECT National Film Board of Canada. Still Photography Division fast
Subject Photography -- Canada
COMPUTERS -- Digital Media -- Photography.
PHOTOGRAPHY -- Reference.
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Imaging Systems.
PHOTOGRAPHY -- Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions -- Permanent Collections.
Photography
Documentary photography -- Social aspects
Nationalism
Canada
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780773588943
0773588949
9780773588943
1299828477
9781299828476
0773541454
9780773541450