Our May Meeting -- Stephen Greenberg will present Photo Poetry: History and Practice Wednesday, May 11, 7 pm
The invention of photography in Europe largely coincided with the mechanization of printing, with the concurrent drop in the cost of books and periodicals. The need for new content to feed to public appetite would seem to lead to a natural marriage of photography and poetry, but the attempted union was uneasy. Should photography illustrate existing poems? Should poetry explicate existing photographs? Could one creator (or a collaboration) produce both simultaneously?
This presentation will explore the odd relationship between photography and poetry, and how it grew, with cameo appearances by Sir Walter Scott; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Julia Margaret Cameron; Walt Whitman; Edward Weston and Charis Wilson; James Agee and Walker Evans; and a sampling of more recent practitioners. [Photo note: Photograph taken by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1874 for a photographically-illustrated edition of Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King.” Tennyson is not the sitter, but he helped pose the pictures to match the poem.]
This will again be a hybrid meeting, and for those in person, Steve will have some items he will be passing around for us to look at. Visitors are welcome to attend the meeting at 7 pm at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Center, 40 S. Carroll Street, Frederick. A Zoom link will be sent all members via the email blast for those who will attend virtually; visitors who want to attend virtually may request the link via email: info@frederickcameraclique.org.