“Smile for the camera,” the saying goes. But why does the camera need our smiles? On the evening of April 8th, Robin Kelsey, Burden Professor of Photography at Harvard University, will discuss the ways in which photography and its demands have infiltrated and shaped modern life. From the family vacation portrait to the White House photo-op, performing for the camera has become essential to how we represent ourselves to each other and to the world.

In these performances, the captivating vividness, exhilarating freedom, and troubling falseness of modernity, all come to the fore. By examining particular photographs in detail, we will walk through the history of performing for the camera from the earliest days of photography to our own moment, in the midst of the digital age.