The Camera and Us - Humans in Photography

The camera has changed how we look not only at ourselves but also at others. Discover almost 200 years of photographic and cultural history through Royal Danish Library's pictures.

Ever since the invention of photography almost 200 years ago, photos of people have held a special fascination. How amazing to be able to take portraits so quickly and with such accuracy! Since then, we have grown accustomed to posing in front of the camera, and photography is firmly embedded everywhere. The camera has changed the way we look at ourselves and others.

The starting point for this exhibition is human beings in photography. Here you can browse masterpieces from the National Collection of Photography, taken by artists from Denmark and abroad, and explore how they use photography to create and play with identity. Supplemented with pictures from Royal Danish Library's other photo collections, the works on display encompass portraits, ID and family photography, documentary photos, press and fashion photography and pornography.

Family life caught on film

A photo album is open with two pages covered in old family photos

Family photo albums tell a story about the people they belong to, but also about how we generally use private photography to tell our intimate stories.

Communities

When the camera's lens captures us, it also captures what shows our sense of community. Many artists use photography to depict communities with everything from empathy to criticism.

Monitored and recognised

Blackboard with pictures of detainees cutting faces

The police used photographs early in their work. Today, we are all photographed daily by surveillance cameras.

The dream of fashion photography

Woman dressed in black. A light hat with a single feather hides one eye.

Fashion photography is not just pictures of clothes. The pictures sell dreams and help shape our image of what is beautiful.

Visual pornography as a commodity

Visual porn was banned in the beginning. Now most of us - literally - have the opportunity to watch or create pornography in our pockets.

Strike a pose

3 different kinds of jewellery with a photo and cut braid

We may have always tried to encapture people's likenesses in images, but it is only with photography that everyone gets the opportunity to have their portraits done.

The world according to the press

Living room with two brown sofas and a large hole in the ceiling after a bomb.

The ideal of press photography is seemingly to reproduce reality, but perhaps they are just as much involved in creating it?

The other half

Four black boys stand by a staircase that says "colored"

Ever since Jacob Riis photographed the poor of New York in the 1890s, photography has been used for documentary depictions of environments unfamiliar to the average citizen.