The Edward Steichen Naval Aviation Photographic Unit Collection at the Harry Ransom Center

This applied thesis project is based on a collection of 172 gelatin silver photographs taken by Edward Steichen’s Naval Aviation Photographic Unit during World War II. The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas was one of twelve institutions that received photographs from Edward Steichen’s personal collection upon his death in 1973. The prints in the collection depict scenes from some of the most intense fighting in the Pacific. The unit, led by Steichen throughout the war, came to be known as the preeminent combat photography unit in the Navy. My final thesis includes the following components: an analytical paper detailing the history of the unit and discussing the scope and significance of the collection; an outline of the digitization and housing processes; a Filemaker Pro database for the collection; and content generated for the Ransom Center’s Digital Collections page, scheduled for upload in late summer or early fall 2016.

The Edward Steichen Naval Aviation Photographic Unit Collection at the Harry Ransom Center

This applied thesis project is based on a collection of 172 gelatin silver photographs taken by Edward Steichen’s Naval Aviation Photographic Unit during World War II. The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas was one of twelve institutions that received photographs from Edward Steichen’s personal collection upon his death in 1973. The prints in the collection depict scenes from some of the most intense fighting in the Pacific. The unit, led by Steichen throughout the war, came to be known as the preeminent combat photography unit in the Navy. My final thesis includes the following components: an analytical paper detailing the history of the unit and discussing the scope and significance of the collection; an outline of the digitization and housing processes; a Filemaker Pro database for the collection; and content generated for the Ransom Center’s Digital Collections page, scheduled for upload in late summer or early fall 2016.

Beyond Abu Ghraib: War trophy photography and commemorative violence

The commemoration of wartime often has emerged alongside brutal practices waged on the enemy, and the photographed events at Abu Ghraib are no exception. Indeed, the composition of these images builds upon a visual history in which certain dynamics are represented within more general and often innocuous combat photography. This article focuses on two things in order to articulate this premise. The first is to outline how ‘war trophy photography’ is the result of the entwined practices of war photography and trophy collection. Mapped using a combined comparative historical approach and visual semiotics, this research draws upon three images, one from WWI, another from WWII, and one from Abu Ghraib. Specifically to highlight how posing within these photos acknowledges the images as trophies, the second function of this article emerges with the concept of ‘commemorative violence’, as the representation is fused with emotional communication and cultural memory.