For those who experienced it, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was a time of wonder in a "citadel set in stars" -- a grand world's fair that transformed the summer of 1909 in Seattle into a whirl of excitement and pleasure. On what would become the University of Washington campus, for a brief moment a huge city emerged. At noon on June 1, amidst the blasting of horns and whistles, confetti filled the air and the gates were opened to a pent-up crowd of about 80,000 fairgoers. At the end of the evening on October 16, the fair was over and the magical city became a memory for its 3.7 million visitors. For those who couldn't make the trip to see the exhibits and for the rest of us today, the best record of the event was made by Frank H. Nowell, official photographer for the exposition. He documented the construction of the city, its landscaping, the people who built it, and the people who visited it, as well as the buildings that housed displays from dozens of foreign countries. He used a large view camera and 8 x 10 glass-plate negatives to create several thousand photographs. For this book, Nicolette Bromberg has chosen the best and most representative. Her essay illuminates both the man and the fair, providing perspective to a history of the West that connects us to a world-expanding event a hundred years ago, and also contains Nowell's photographs of Alaska during the gold rush, relating how an Alaskan photographer became the official A-Y-P photographer. For the 100th anniversary of the exposition, John Stamets organized and led University of Washington students in a project to rephotograph the site. This book includes an essay by Stamets describing the challenges, delights, and problems of the project, along with thirty rephotographs that imagine the fabulously spectacular ghost city on the campus.

Picturing the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: The Photographs of Frank H. Nowell

Arts & Photography

Bromberg, Nicolette

Stamets, John

Photography & Video

University of Washington Press

Pictorialism emerged in the early twentieth century as a prominent style of fine art photography. Artists engaged in this style were interested in the effects of transient light and Japanese compositional elements. They developed innovative darkroom techniques to create unique soft-focus photographs that reflected contemporary painting styles. Historically, pictorial photography was narrowly defined by certain characteristics that gave an inaccurate assessment of its important contributions to the medium. Recent rediscoveries from American regional camera clubs, including the Seattle Camera Club (SCC), reveal that the movement was broader and more individualist than previously thought. Shadows of a Fleeting World provides a rare glimpse into the regional Pictorialist movement. It documents the lives and artistic accomplishments of the SCC photographers. The SCC was one of the most active and successful in the United States, and, fortunately, preservation of its works and history allow for a rich interpretation of its art. Japanese immigrants formed the club's core, and their work routinely blended Pictorialist methods with Japanese aesthetic traditions. The Japanese-influenced Pictorialist works of the SCC made a unique contribution to the international art movement. The book is generously illustrated with images and prints from SCC artists, many of which have never been published before.

Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography and the Seattle Camera Club (Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies)

David F. Martin

This lavish visual celebration of Wisconsin pairs one hundred historic photographs with one hundred recent photos by some of the state’s finest present-day documentary photographers and photojournalists. This comprehensive and creative rephotography project  documents in extraordinary and inventive ways rural and urban landscapes, communities, and social activities over the course of 150 years.Whether portraying past and present immigrants, changing Main Streets, "modern" kitchens, prize cows, Kohler plumbing fixtures, or Green Bay Packer fans, these photographs document both continuity and change. Wisconsin Then and Now includes essays by Nicolette Bromberg, who conceived and oversaw the three-year rephotography project, and by geographers Thomas R. Vale and Steven Hoelscher who comment on the evolving cultural and physical landscape as seen through the lens of a camera.Drawn from the vast photograph collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the older photographs are complemented by new work from more than twenty photographers, whose own notes add fascinating commentary to many of the photographic pairs.

Wisconsin Then and Now: The Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Rephotography Project

University of Wisconsin Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bromberg, Nicolette. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bromberg, Nicolette