Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC)

The New York Public Library has a Photographers’ Identities Catalog on their website. According to their website, “Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC) is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations and more”. This is a great resource to find information on photographers, photographers’ collections and information on your personal printed photographs. The primary editor is David Lowe. David is a photography specialist at the New York Public Library. On the homepage they show you some sample searches to help you search their catalog. You can search by name or ID. There are limiters for date range, locations, nationality, gender, process, role, format, source and collections. When searching for a photographer’s name it will show you the best matches. The entry will show you information and clickable data links. It will also list information like birthplace and death place. The catalog seems straight forward but does include those samples if the user needs more direction. According to their FAQ they update frequently. It does not appear to show a bias and does not sell anything. The information does seem reliable. The resource also includes where they found the data as clickable links so you can check as well. This appears to be utilized by older highschooler students through adults wanting to find information about a photographer. This resource was included as a “Selected Internet Resource” on An Introduction to Photographic Processes page on the New York Public Libraries website.