Roland L. Freeman
born Baltimore, MD 1936
South Capital Street at M Street, Washington DC, February 1972 from the series Southern Roads/City Pavements
1972, printed 1982
gelatin silver print
sheet: 11 x 14 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of George H. Dalsheimer
©1972 Roland L. Freeman
- Description
Join John Jacob, McEvoy Family Curator for Photography at SAAM, for a close-up look at photography, a medium marked by both its accessibility and its complexity. What are some of the choices that photographers make? How might we “read” a photograph? What might be the value of having photographs of everyday people in the collection of a national museum like SAAM?
- Grade
- 6-12
- Duration
5:24
Videos
More Learning Resources
Video
Shae McCoy, a photojournalist and author from West Baltimore, sits down with SAAM educator Elizabeth Dale-Deines for a wide-ranging conversation that touches on everything from what she keeps in mind when she photographs her own community to what stories might be told by juxtaposing historical and contemporary images of Baltimore. Created with K-12 students and teachers in mind, this video amplifies the practice of visual storytelling and the importance of engagement and authenticity when documenting community.
Lesson Plan
This activity uses a Jigsaw structure, requiring that students have access to a set of oral histories from the same time and place documented in the NEA photographic survey of your choosing. If an NEA photographic survey was not conducted in your area, consider using a survey from a neighboring area or one whose influence you feel in your own area.
Lesson Plan
Each person sees the world slightly differently because we each have a unique combination of roles, identities, and lived experiences. We might consider each of these individual parts of ourselves to be individual lenses through which we could see images, issues, or events.
Lesson Plan
With its focus on the artistic process, this activity serves to deepen visual analysis and an introduction to the strategies a photographer may deploy when taking a picture or editing it.