Agfa photo-historama/ Museum Ludwig, Cologne (Germany) Photography’s cultural history is the focus of the unique Agfa Photo-Historama collection in Cologne’s Ludwig Contemporary Art Museum. The collection encompasses photographs, cameras, lenses, photo reproduction equipment, as well as books, magazines and other ephemera, much of which comes from the archives of the Agfa Kamerawerk in Munich. Information for the collection comes from a shared web site for the museums of Cologne. In German and English. 

Alinari Photography Archive and Museum, Florence This collection from a family photography firm tells a fascinating story of history and continuity in photography. Founded in Florence in the early years of the medium, Fratelli Alinari, has worked continuously in the field while also dedicating itself, on a grand scale, to the conservation and exhibition of historical and contemporary photographic work. The Alinari Archive is an immense fund of 3,500,000 photographs- some 300,000 of which have been digitized and archived on the Alinari site for commercial and educational use. The Fratelli Alinari Museum of the History of Photography exhibits work from the Archives, often focusing on important Italian and non-Italian photographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Italian and English.  

American Museum of Photography This virtual museum seems to achieve a balance between the curatorial research and critical content that goes into physical exhibitions and the succinct writing and image driven nature of web exhibitions. The site includes several intriguing exhibitions dealing with different aspects of the complex and profound impact of photography on American society, history and culture. Although all the images are carefully described, information about the collections and archives that own the physical photographs is disappointingly absent. 

Art Institute of Chicago A late bloomer, the AIC’s now impressive photo collection was kick-started in 1949 by Georgia O'Keeffe’s donation of a significant portion of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection. They have since added important bodies of work by Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Eugene Atget, and André Kertész. The Mary L. and Leigh B. Block Photography Study Room makes the AIC’s 18,000 item collection available to researchers. The Photographic Society, a group of photographers and photo-related professionals, works to fund and promote the museum’s photo collection.  

Australian Centre for Photography, Paddington A cool and eclectic site that describes the clever and edgy photo-media art and documentary exhibitions found in the Australian Centre for Photography. The site includes galleries of former and present exhibitions, descriptions of workshops, archives, volunteer opportunities and contact information. Located New South Wales.  

Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa In a clever example of adaptive re-use, the CMCP uses a reconstructed railway tunnel as an exhibition space, displaying contemporary Canadian documentary, art photography, as well as photo-based installations and videos produced from the 1960s onward. The site is in English and French. 

Center for Creative Photography, Tucson Part of the University of Arizona, the CCP manages one of the largest photo collections on the continent. Emphasizing North-American photographers, the Center opens its collections to the public, offering print viewing for the general public and consultations of the archives and collections by appointment. The collections are also the base for the CCP educational mandate, which features lectures, seminars, free public education programs, research fellowships and internships. 

Cleveland Museum of Art This museum web site provides a substantial gallery of meticulously described, digitized images, which span from 19th century French and British daguerreotypes and calotypes to contemporary works by likes of Aaron Siskin and Sally Mann. 

Fotostiftung Schweiz Fotostiftung Schweiz (Swiss Foundation of Photography) is an archive and collection focused on the preservation, acquisition and exhibition of primarily Swiss photography. Managing the archive and a collection, which taken together contain over 40 photographic estates and around 40,000 original prints of work by recognized international photographers, the Fotostiftung organizes exhibitions, issues publications on the history of Swiss photography and supports present day photography in Switzerland by purchasing contemporary work. Like most archives, seeing the material that is not on exhibition requires an appointment, but their site features a large image database for those doing research or for anyone curious about what Swiss photography might look like.  

George Eastman House, Rochester NY The George Eastman House, home of the man who reshaped the photographic medium for 20th century, could be called the spiritual home of photography, particularly as the historic house and grounds have been converted into the museum that shelters one of the largest photo collections in the world. 400,000 prints and negatives, spanning the history of the medium and featuring some of its greatest artists make up the collection. Keeping the story of photography and film alive and vital through collections, exhibitions, film series, events and lectures – not to mention Flickr, Twitter and a regular podcast - George Eastman House is considered to be a reference in the field. 

Getty Center Installed in its pristine new buildings and gardens, the Getty shows its powerhouse collections to their full advantage. Its photography department was founded fairly recently on the strength of nine varied collections and has been expanding ever since. Research is an important focus for the Center, the fruits of which it shares with the world through its content-rich collection pages. The photo pages break down the collection’s contents by medium (Daguerreotypes, calotypes, cyanotypes, albumen prints) and provide a historical, cultural and/or scientific essay for each image. There is a lot to be learned here. 

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center — University of Texas at Austin Unique among photo–collecting institutions, the Ransom Center takes a broad view of photography, with holdings in diverse areas of photography, including fine arts, photojournalism, documentary photography, contemporary art, and literary imagery. In addition to 5 million photographic prints and negatives, you’ll find 400 pieces of original photographic apparatus and more than 35,000 (and counting) books about photographic history, theory, and technique. The Center founded its photography department with the acquisition of the Gernsheim Collection in 1963, at the time the largest privately–owned photohistorical archive in the United States, and has recently taken custodianship the crown jewel of photojournalism archives, the Magnum Agency collection. The comprehensive nature of their collections has made the Ransom Center a major hub for photo research and scholarship. Both the photo collection and the photo library have excellent searchable online databases, making these rich and diverse holdings accessible. The Center makes photographic copies of its materials available to scholars, and offers reproductions of some photographs for personal use. 

Henri-Cartier-Bresson Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson and his family came up with the idea of a foundation that would preserve his work in its entirety, while offering an exhibition venue for photographers and other visual artists. Opening its doors a year before Cartier-Bresson’s passing in 2004, the Foundation now curates three exhibitions a year, organizes a lecture series and screens films daily (including documentaries on Cartier-Bresson). The Foundation extends its support of photographers by offering a major international grant of 30,000 euros for reportage photography projects that are charaterized as ones “that would otherwise be difficult to achieve." 

International Center for Photography, New York In their elegant digs on New York’s Avenue of the Americas, the International Center for Photography’s museum exhibits challenging new work while reconsidering the meaning and resonance of historical work. Its substantial photography collections reflect changes in the medium since its inception and is replete with documentary and reportage photography. The museum and collection round out the Center’s comprehensive mission as a school, and a center for photographers.
 

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division The Library is treasure house of remarkable and varied photographic collections that document the history, society and culture of the United States. As the premier public archive in the nation, the Library makes its riches accessible to the public through a sophisticated online catalogue. Meticulous records are illustrated with images offered in “thumbnail” as well as high resolution versions. Such a fixture among American institutions may easy to overlook, but the importance of this photographic resource cannot be overstated.  

Los Angeles County Museum of Art Although not as well known as the Museum’s encyclopedic international art collections (or the famous fossils of the neighboring La Brea tar pits), the LACMA has a strong contemporary photography collection that merits attention. The largely post-1940 collection ranges from honored names such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Berenice Abbott to mid-century trouble-makers such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Robert Frank - and let us not forget the unsung photographic work of author William S. Burroughs (!) The Museum also collects the work of established international photographers as well as those known and emerging on the L.A. scene. The photography department’s modest but well documented online Highlights give a sense of the quality of the exhibitions and programs. 

Maison Europeene de la Photographie, Paris A rapid succession of dynamic and collaborative international exhibits makes this Paris center a cultural crossroads for photography. The Maison collects only contemporary photography, citing Robert Frank’s groundbreaking work “The Americans” (1958) as the starting point of their collection. Their sharp website is in French, with a polished English translation. 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Perhaps overshadowed by the museum’s more famous treasures, the Met’s Photograph Collection is less renowned, but surprisingly comprehensive. Some outstanding highlights are the early prints gifted to the museum by artist and photography advocate Alfred Stieglitz as well as the photo archive and personal papers of American icon Walker Evans.  

Minneapolis Institute for the Arts The MIA has organized its collection in a compact and easy to use format for the web. Hundreds of legendary names in photographic history are included. Possibly the neatest cluster of great photographs available under one URL. 

MoMA, New York Photography may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of MoMA, but America’s preeminent contemporary art institution not only has a permanent exhibition space devoted to its photography collection, but has long been a champion of cutting-edge fine art photographers. Their permanent collection, which includes the Edward Steichen archive, can be viewed at MoMA’s Erna and Victor Hasselblad Photography Study. There is a small gallery of selected works from the collection on the website, each described with a short art historical essay. Even more interesting is the series of online photography exhibitions that, while light on images, are rich with critical and historical content.  

Moscow House of Photography Russia’s premier photography institution appears to be five photography organizations rolled into one. Exhibitions, contests, festivals, workshops, publications and special projects – the Moscow House does it all. The collections preserve Russia’s varied photographic legacy, while the exhibition schedule mixes historic and contemporary material, both Russian and international. Large online photo galleries give a good sense of current and past exhibitions. The House’s chic website is fully translated into English.  

Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago The MoCP's permanent collection - which focuses on post-WW2 American photographers - provides a good overview of the range of intellectual and artistic movements, as well as the analogue and digital processes of the medium’s history. MoCP’ s new search engine 'Mobius' (2009) probes the collection of 8, 500 photos and photography-related objects, including the unique holdings of “The Midwest Photographers Project”. Searches can be saved and shared with others. 

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts may have started collecting photography fairly recently, but it has certainly made up for lost time under the expert stewardship of Anne Wilkes Tucker, who has been named “America's Best Curator” by Time Magazine. Tucker has directed the museum’s photography department for all of its 25 years, and the permanent collection now includes work that spans the currents of early 20th century international photography, from pictoralism to abstraction, and features some of the era’s most important photographers. To balance things out, their late 20th century collection focuses on the great documentary work of the time with an emphasis on the mid to late 20th century experiments of photographers Robert Frank, John Baldessari, Robert Cumming, and Lorna Simpson. The Museum’s exhibitions reflect an interest in the untold stories of photography, which has contributed much to the institution’s growing reputation. 

Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego The museum’s collection and exhibition schedule are strong on modern and contemporary work of the sort that deals with social and historical issues. Its other, complimentary, strength is a commitment to public outreach and public education programs, through lectures, workshops and after-school programs.  

National Media Museum, Yorkshire (UK) Formerly the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, this friendly web site lets you know that the Museum’s mission is didactic. A variety of well-documented online exhibitions explains and illustrates its rich collections. Highlights include the world’s first photographic negative, a wide range of objects tracing the development of photographic equipment, a substantial holding of works and personal papers by British photo pioneer Fox Talbot, an archive of works donated by The Royal Photography Society, as well as contemporary British work by Eve Arnold and Martin Parr. 

New York Public Library Digital Gallery The fabled New York Public Library’s sophisticated site offers free online access to a fascinating collection of three hundred thousand digital images. Amazingly, they are not all about New York! 

Oakland Museum of California, Oakland (CA) The Oakland Museum of California’s photography collection specializes, as does the museum itself, in the Californian perspective. The jewel in their crown is the Dorothea Lange archive, which covers the career of this outstanding documentary photographer. The collection spans from her early portrait work, to the ground breaking documenting of the dust bowl migration, to the repercussions of war on Californian society. The Museum offers an online selection of Lange’s most recognized work for reproduction.  

One Man’s Eye, Photographs from the Alan Siegel Collection A gallery of classic photographic works presented from the private collector’s point of view. Alan Siegel comments on selected photos from his thematic galleries, providing personal insight into his choices and the factors that guide his “collector’s eye”. A sophisticated site that beautifully showcases Siegel’s wide ranging, museum level collection.  

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Collecting photographs has been a priority for SF MoMA’s since the museum’s beginnings in the 1930s, and major photography shows are a staple in the institution’s exhibition schedules. The photography department’s section of the museum web site features a representative selection of historical and contemporary images from its varied collection.  

SF Camerawork This is the online resource center for SF Camerawork, the San Francisco based community-minded organization that fosters the work of emerging and mid-career photographers. Exhibitions in their online and physical gallery spaces, a lecture series, workshops and the journal Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts are there to engage the wider world on photography’s aesthetic and social concerns. The organization’s mentoring program invites photographers to act locally and teach the craft to youth at risk. 

Smithsonian Photography Initiative The Smithsonian Institution boasts more than 13 million photographs covering science, art, history, technology and more - and now the Smithsonian Photographic Initiative is providing the public easy entrée to these extraordinary images. There are currently 1.1 million digitized Smithsonian images. The Initiative’s user-friendly site, which won a Webby Award, allows visitors to view images from its many museums, galleries, and research centers, even from the National Zoo! Users can search for an image by topic, country, photographer, medium, decade, collection, or simply search by key word. Each photograph has accompanying text so the viewer can learn about the subject in the photo. For a bit of hands-on fun, site visitors can click “Enter the Frame” to choose specific images, create their own photo sequence, and even e-mail it to friends. Educators should visit Learning Resources, where they’ll find lesson plans and other teaching tools. The site also offers online exhibitions, scholarly commentary, and dialogues about photographic imagery. 

Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach Community College The SMP’s s articulate and efficient web site describes this notable regional museum’s exhibitions which are weighted towards documentary and reportage. The permanent collection is strong on 20th century American art photographers; its educational mission presents itself throughout many aspects of the programming. 

Thessaloniki Museum of Photography The photography museum of Greece mounts exhibitions, collects historical and contemporary work, and publishes research and criticism on the subject of Greek photography. Their elegant site is in Greek and English. 

UC Riverside, California Museum of Photography Perhaps because of its university affiliation, the Museum’s perspective is particularly focused on photography’s role in influencing society as a whole, as well as reflecting how photography shapes the lives of individuals. Exhibitions often feature photography and photo-related media explorations on social and cultural themes.  

Victoria & Albert Museum Photo Collection London’s famed Victoria & Albert Museum has been collecting photographs since 1852 and now has an impressive collection of over 500,000 images, with a solid representation of historical and contemporary work. The site provides an excellent online framework for its collection, including a search engine to find and view digitized collection items, a history of photography as represented by works from the collection, pages of useful links, a reading list for contemporary photography, articles on photo conservation, and most intriguing of all, descriptions of photographs for blind and partially sited visitors.  

Winterthur Fotomuseum Fotomuseum Winterthur, located in Zurich, features work by contemporary photographers and artists. Its Web site, in English, offers an online gallery, organized by artist. The 300 photographers and other artists represented include Robert Frank, August Sander, and Weegee. In addition to the publicly accessible gallery, curators, students, and specialists can register to gain access to the entire online collection. The museum also includes a library, seminar rooms, a lounge, a shop, and a bistro. All visitors can purchase various photo books and publications at the museum’s online shop.