Alumni Gazette

A Faithful Witness

When photo historian Gail Buckland ’70 was asked by American Heritage magazine to choose what she considered the “10 most indispensable American photos” of all time for its 50th anniversary issue, she recognized how arbitrary the selection would be.

“I decided not to choose the obvious ones—the pictures of important events, the pictures that immediately come to mind,” she says. “I selected photographs that help us see the world around us in a fresh way—and more profoundly.”

Whether Buckland, also a museum curator and associate professor of the history of photography at The Cooper Union in New York City, is assisting Al and Tipper Gore with their photo compilation The Spirit of Family or selecting historical images for the comprehensive history of The American Century (with Harold Evans), she’s found that viewers tend to trust photos far more than any historian’s words.

And the more honest the images, the better.

“Photographs have a profound influence over our sense of reality,” Buckland says. “They can illuminate history, driving people through historic moments. Photos are a faithful witness.”

When Buckland was compiling the photographs for her book Shots in the Dark: True Crime Pictures, published in 2001 in conjunction with a Court TV documentary of the same name, she found herself hesitating over the gorier images.

But her son said, “Young people are sick of the sensationalism of cartoon-like fiction. We want to know the truth.”

The photos went into the book.

“College students, like my son, love the shots,” the former Rochester history major says. “But older people feel guilty for looking at them, like it’s taboo. It’s a cultural shift, and perhaps adults are wrong.

“We live in a visual age. We absorb images at an unbelievable rate. These photos illustrate our past𔃏they’re emotive and experiential.”