Welcome

At the heart of the Lens Media Lab is its unparalleled reference collection of over 7,500 photographic paper samples, spanning from 1890 to 2010. This collection, the largest of its kind globally, serves as a critical resource for materials-focused inquiry. It facilitates provenance research and authentication, providing invaluable insights into the history and care of photographic collections.

The lab uniquely integrates the sciences, arts, and humanities. By combining traditional art historical and darkroom practices with cutting-edge techniques from data science and artificial intelligence, the lab creates a comprehensive approach to the study of photographic materials that ensures the legacy of analog photography continues to inspire and inform.

In an era where darkroom practices are becoming increasingly remote, the Lens Media Lab is an essential source of knowledge that influences preservation, teaching, and learning. Photography is a vital medium for understanding twentieth-century visual culture, and as paper-based photography declines, the lab’s role in maintaining and interpreting these materials becomes ever more crucial. Through its interdisciplinary approach and commitment to education and community engagement, the lab not only preserves the tangible aspects of photography but also enriches the academic and cultural understanding of this vital medium.

We envision a new paradigm for understanding photography that incorporates materiality and scale. Our long-term objectives include:

• Preserving the language of analog photography
• Harnessing new and emerging methods from data science, data visualization, machine vision, and AI, to study largescale patterns that increase our understanding of photography at scale
• Developing innovative modes of collecting that allow scholars, students, members of the general public greater access to photography and its material history
• Enabling cross-collection studies of print collections that surface patterns impactful to the history of photography
• Building partnerships with collecting institutions that bridge humanist / science barriers
• Taking a leadership role in a new photography initiative at Yale inclusive of the collections, students, faculty, and the New Haven community
• Creating a network, within and outside Yale, that believes in the mission of the lab and is invested in its future and success