The Photo Detective

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by David Shields, Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina. The two discuss his work with cabinet cards, Motion Picture Photography, and the history of stars of the silver screen as told through images. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 169: How to Spot a Daguerreotype Copy 

Episode 166: Picturing Frederick Douglass

Links:

• David Shield collection on Pinterest
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

David Shields is the Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina. He is a scholar in three fields: Food Studies, Early American Literary Culture, and Photographic History. He is the author of STILL: American Silent Motion Picture Photography and creator of the Broadway Photographs website: broadway.cas.sc.edu. He is currently the Ritchie Distinguished Research Fellow at the Huntington Library completing a biography of Napoleon Sarony, America’s greatest portrait photographer in the 19th century.

He is also a collector of photographs and is airing portions of his cabinet card and CDV collection on Pinterest.  

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, is joined by B. Wells Douglas, a professional photographer who has quite the following on the social media platform TikTok.

B. Wells looks at slides that he’s found and digs deeper into their meaning, looking at who is in the photographs, and trying to examine why they may have been taken, who is in the photos, and what story they tell. 

He also dives into what it means to be able to afford camera equipment, and how our ancestor’s socioeconomic status often influences just how many photos we have of them, and approaches the slides with an artistic lens, looking at their composition and the world of light and dark. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 165: Reading Clues in World War I Snapshots with Curator Lora Vogt

Episode 144: A Ten Year Photo Identification Journey

Links:

• Vintage Film Finds
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

B. Wells Douglas is a photographer who lives in Bloomington, IN. His work uses historical vernacular photography to construct digital spaces that explore social and political issues facing the United States. He grew up in Montana within a family of artists and was taught from a young age the importance of approaching life creatively. In 2019, he joined the Indiana University BFA photography program and began building an archive of 35mm slides. 

An additional outcome of this work has been the development of a large social media platform with over 20,000 followers. Several followers have shared/donated images and his pages have become an intersection of a wide variety of people. 

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective is sought out by clients all over the world to help them solve their photo mysteries. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others. Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined this week by Daniel Horowitz, Genealogist for MyHeritage. Daniel visits the podcast to discuss some of MemoryWeb’s new features, which are taking the internet by storm, or as he says, are “Cool and controversial all the same time.” 

With these new features, you can actually hear your ancestor “read” their life story back to you with a voice generated by MyHeritage. In addition, other new features are being developed and introduced in order to help attract new genealogy enthusiasts, as well as other new tools that MyHeritage has recently rolled out.

Related Episodes:

Episode 74: Big News For Family Photos From MyHeritage.com 

Episode 78: A Grandmother’s Gift with Gonzalo Luengo

Links:

• Sign up for MyHeritage.com
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Dedicated to Genealogy since 1986, Daniel was the teacher and the study guide editor of the family history project “Searching for My Roots” in Venezuela for 15 years. He is involved in several crowdsource digitization and transcription projects and holds a board-level position at The Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA). Since 2006 Daniel has been working at MyHeritage liaising with genealogy societies, bloggers, and media, as well as lecturing, and attending conferences around the world.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Peter Dumas who owns Picture This Antiques in Massachusetts. While he initially began working with vintage print advertising, he now has expanded to sell antique and vintage cameras.

Peter and Maureen discuss cameras, snapshots, and photography with vintage cameras, as well as how the progression of digital technology has helped the expansion of the camera industry. They specifically look at the history of Kodak, Epson scanners, and Polaroid cameras, as well as how camera collecting can be a wonderful hobby. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 120  Good Pictures: Amateur Photography and Our Family with Art Historian Kim Beil

Episode 119:  Dressing for the Camera Rules are Foremothers Followed and Sometimes Broke

Links:

• Picture This Antiques
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Peter Dumas is the owner of Picture This Antiques, founded in 2013 in West Boylston Massachusetts. While he started specializing in vintage print advertising, he began selling antique and vintage cameras in mid-2017, and since then has sold nearly 600 cameras to happy customers nationwide. He’s a frequent vendor at the Providence Flea as well as at various antique shows in New England and New York, and sells at three store locations in Central Massachusetts.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Erin Waters, who has taken over the family business of FineDags.com, a website that’s dedicated to helping individuals purchase daguerreotypes and understand more about their history. 

Maureen and Erin talk about how to spot paper photocopies of daguerreotypes 

Related Episodes:

Episode 105:  Women in the Dark: Female Photographers in the US 1850-1900

Episode 122: Reproducing History and Protecting the Past: One Cased Image at a Time

Links:

• FineDags.com
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Erin Waters started collecting photographs at age eight, following in her father’s footsteps. Her focuses include pre-revolutionary Russian images, interiors, and unusual photo postcards. Waters has a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from New York University. While in New York, she interned in Sotheby’s Photographs department. Her master’s thesis explored vernacular photography’s place in art museums, utilizing interviews with collectors, curators, and dealers. 

Waters enjoys speaking about photography and has given papers at a number of international conferences on both copy photography and how people used photography in their personal spaces. Waters has been a full-time dealer since 2007, based in Lancaster, PA. 

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by AJ Jacobs, who is the author of multiple New York Times Best Sellers. He and Maureen talk about how we’re all related – somehow. AJ’s work delves deep into how we’re all interconnected, and not only what that means, but how we can use that principle to approach our everyday lives. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 153: Ellis Island Immigrant Photos Identified

Episode 162  Preserving Your Life with Gaylord Archival

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

A.J. Jacobs is the author of four New York Times bestsellers, including “The Know-It-All,” “Drop Dead Healthy” and “The Year of Living Biblically.” He has given four TED talks that have total views of more than 7 million. He is a frequent contributor to NPR’s Weekend Edition, and writes for the New York Times and Esquire magazine, among others.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined today by Dave Wilson, who owns a Victorian Photography Studio in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Dave focuses on creating authentic tintypes and ambrotypes, focusing on small details from recreating Victorian poses, clothing, and style in the images. He explains his process for getting a photo “just right,” how he uses his camera to get the best side of his subjects, and how he goes about the chemical process for all of his work.

Related Episodes:

Episode 114: Modern Tintypes with Photographer Josh Wool

Bonus Episode Tintypes Made for Movies and Television

Links:

• Victorian Photography Studio
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Dave Wilson is a large format photographer, focusing on the wet plate collodion process. He shoots authentic tintypes and ambrotypes at the Victorian Photography Studio in Gettysburg PA, as well as across the US. Our specialty is recreating Victorian poses, clothing, and styles with our extensive wardrobe and props.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Today Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, John Stauffer. 

John and Maureen dive into his book Picturing Frederick Douglass which has become a national bestseller. The two talk about images of Frederick Douglass, and how photos of individuals from history can give us a fuller picture of their lives. 

John delves into telling the audience more about Frederick Douglass’ life and work but also explains how he believes that Douglass’ rebellion in how he was photographed, in how often he was photographed, and his passion for pushing standards, makes him a critical figure not only in our nation’s history but also the history of photography.

Related Episodes:

Episode 131: Visualizing Equality: African American Rights in Photographs and Drawings with Dr. Aston Gonzalez

Episode 101: Rediscovering an American Community of Color

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

JOHN STAUFFER is the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of 20 books and over 100 articles, including GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, a national bestseller; and the award-winning Black Hearts of Men, Battle Hymn of the Republic, and Picturing Frederick Douglass. His essays and reviews have appeared in Time, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and in exhibition catalogs, journals, and books.

Professor Stauffer has presented on CNN and other national TV and radio stations and has served as a consultant or co-curator on films, exhibitions, and video games including God in America, Django Unchained, WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY, The Free State of Jones, The Abolitionists, Picturing Frederick Douglass, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Reconstruction: America After the Civil War.

He received three teaching awards from Harvard and was named a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow for “achievements and scholarly eminence in the fields of literature, history, or art.” The Harvard Class of 2021 voted him “Harvard Favorite Professor.”

He is currently curating an exhibition on Frederick Douglass for the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., scheduled to open in June 2023; and he is finishing a book on the U.S. Senator, abolitionist, and civil rights leader Charles Sumner.

He lives in Cambridge with his wife, Deborah Cunningham, and their two sons, Erik and Nicholas.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined this week by Lora Vogt, who is the Curator of Education at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. 

She and Maureen discuss what was happening during WWI, and how photographs, amateur photographers, civilians, and soldiers, helped document a time that felt chaotic and ever-changing around them. They delve into the importance of photography and how it can be stabilizing in a word that’s only constant is change. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 75: One Man’s World War One Journey

Episode 31: An Online World War One Resource

Links:

• World War One Museum Exhibit on Snapshots
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Lora Vogt is the Curator of Education at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. Founded in 1926, the Museum and Memorial holds the most comprehensive collection of Great War artifacts in the world and has been ranked one of the top 25 museums in the country. Under Vogt’s guidance, the Museum and Memorial has consistently broken records for public program attendance, learner participation and developed internationally recognized online exhibitions and curricula.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Becca Bender, the Curator, and Archivist of Moving Image and Audio Collections at the Rhode Island Historical Society. The two discuss the necessity of preserving home movies for genealogists, and how movie preservation gives insight into the lives of individuals in the past. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 75: One Man’s World War I Journey

Episode 65: Lost Films Needs Your Help! with Eli Savada

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Becca Bender is the Curator and Archivist of Moving Image and Audio Collections at the Rhode Island Historical Society. She’s a deep believer that archives should engage collaboratively with the communities they represent, and that through partnerships we can all work toward creating a more equitable and inclusive historical record. She holds a master’s degree from NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program and studied Film Production and Africana Studies as an undergraduate at Vassar College. She’s an active member of the International Association of Moving Image Archivists and part of a core group of professionals working to improve the preservation of local television news collections across the United States. Prior to becoming an archivist, Becca worked for many years as a documentary archival producer on projects such as the Emmy-nominated PBS series “Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise” and “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies.”

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show