Picture Party: Your Invitation to 50 Years of Photography and Connection

• [00:03:45] Picture Party Comes to Life
  Dr. Senf describes the concept behind the CCP’s 50th anniversary exhibit — a “party” where each photograph is a guest, and visitors help complete the celebration.

• [00:06:55] Building Relationships With Images
  We explore how the exhibit encourages viewers to find personal meaning and connection through themed visual groupings.

• [00:10:18] Behind the Scenes of Student Impact
  Discover how the CCP shapes student experience at the University of Arizona — from internships to courses that use photography to teach academic thinking.

• [00:13:37] The Power of Primary Sources
  Senf shares how interacting with original materials gives students a deeper emotional and intellectual connection to history.

• [00:16:42] Ansel Adams and the Art of Control
  How Adams’ precise, handcrafted approach to image-making sheds light on today’s creative questions about AI and authenticity.

• [00:21:24] Looking Ahead at AI and Photography
  Dr. Senf reflects on how the rise of AI mirrors past evolutions in photography — and what we should consider as creators and viewers.

In this episode of Life Along The Streetcar, we return to the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) with Dr. Becky Senf, Chief Curator and trusted guide to one of Tucson’s most treasured institutions. As the CCP celebrates its 50th anniversary, Dr. Senf helps us reflect not only on what the Center has accomplished but also on where photography, and its place in our culture, is headed next.

This is more than a conversation about archives and exhibitions. It’s about how images shape our lives, how students learn through a lens, and how new technologies like AI are challenging what it means to create. Whether you’re an artist, historian, or curious Tucsonan, this episode is a celebration of past legacies and future possibilities.

🎉 Celebrating 50 Years — A Picture Party Like No Other

At the heart of the episode is the CCP’s 50th anniversary exhibit, cleverly titled “Picture Party.” But this isn’t your typical gallery show. Designed with the feel of a social gathering, “Picture Party” invites viewers to treat photographs as party guests, some loud, some shy, some that spark connection, and others that demand introspection.

Dr. Senf explains how this interactive curatorial approach turns passive viewers into participants. The images are grouped thematically, sparking new meanings and relationships depending on how they are viewed. The exhibit, open through December 20, is a joyful celebration of the Center’s vast collection, but also a powerful reminder that photography is never static. It evolves with each gaze.

📚 Photography as a Learning Tool — Students Behind the Lens

While the CCP is known for housing one of the world’s most significant photography archives, its role as an educational engine is equally impactful. Dr. Senf shares how the Center supports University of Arizona students through internships, research opportunities, and curriculum-integrated programming.

Whether it’s helping freshmen explore the concept of “perspective” in Univ 101 or training future curators in the hands-on management of historical archives, the CCP is a living classroom. It’s where students learn that photography is a way of thinking, analyzing, and expressing.

Dr. Senf speaks passionately about how archival work helps students connect with the past in tangible ways, often evoking personal and emotional reactions that can’t be replicated in digital-only environments.

🤖 Beyond the Frame — Photography in the Age of AI

As we move deeper into the 21st century, photography is facing a new frontier: artificial intelligence. Dr. Senf offers thoughtful reflections on how AI is reshaping the creative landscape, not unlike the digital revolution did decades ago.

What would Ansel Adams think of today’s AI-generated imagery? Senf believes he would have been deeply curious, but also concerned about authorship, authenticity, and artistic intention. This discussion moves beyond technology and into philosophy: what makes a photograph meaningful, and who gets to claim creative ownership?

The CCP is not standing still in the face of these questions. As a research institution, it continues to track technological developments, ensuring that its collections and exhibitions remain relevant in a world where the definition of “photographer” is rapidly evolving.

🖼️ Visit the Center for Creative Photography — Experience the Living Legacy

If you haven’t visited the CCP yet, there’s no better time than now. With “Picture Party” on display through December 20 and a legacy spanning 50 years, the Center is offering a truly unique experience to both locals and visitors.

Whether you want to stand face-to-face with iconic images, explore hidden stories behind the lens, or see how photography is shaping the future, the CCP welcomes you in. And it’s all right here in Tucson, just steps from the Sun Link streetcar route.

🎧 Listen to the episode above
🎥 Watch the full interview video
📍 Plan your visit at ccp.arizona.edu

Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a bit of sun in the old pueblo. And you’re listening to Katy. Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community. Sponsored, all volunteer powered rock n roll radio station. This week, we’re going to conclude our conversation with Doctor Becky SIM, the chief curator at the center for Creative Photography on the University of Arizona campus.

Tom Heath
And we’re going to discuss today how the center serves the student community and what Ansel Adams might have thought about. I today’s June 22nd, 2025. My name is Tom Heath, and you’re listening to life Along the Street car. Every Sunday we shine a light on social, cultural and economic impacts shaping Tucson’s urban core, from a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between.

Tom Heath
You get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on downtown radio.org, or through the Downtown Radio Tucson app on your phone to connect with us directly about the show, follow life along the streetcar on Facebook and Instagram, or head to life along the streetcar doors. Org most episodes are posted there with the audio and video version.

Tom Heath
Plus, you’ll find past shows, information on our book, and an easy contact button there. If you want to reach out. Well, today is part two of a series we started last week with Doctor Becky Seventh. She is the curator for the center for Creative Photography, celebrating a big 50 year anniversary and somebody, super excited having the show.

Tom Heath
And our conversation was just so enthralling. We couldn’t limited to one episode. You know how that goes. So we, talked a little bit about the center, her past, how the center got created and how she got involved. This week, we’re going to switch gears a little bit and talk more about its role as a student organization and how it serves the community at the university, and also touch upon things like what Ansel Adams would, think about AI.

Tom Heath
So good, good questions for, for pondering this Sunday morning. Here’s part, the second half of the interview with, Doctor Becky. Symphony. And you mentioned the students. So it’s kind of switch the focus a little bit. You’re you’re this massive institution really providing information around the globe. But you also are in the university campus. So how do you balance that out with the needs of the university students?

Dr. Becky Senf
Yeah. Well, so for one thing, we have students who work with us and we’re very much a training ground for people who might be exploring careers, whether it’s in archives or museum practice or scholarship. And research. So that’s one aspect of the way that we engage with students. But of course, faculty members bring their classes so they might bring a class to the exhibition in the exhibitions, I should say, are free and open to the public.

Dr. Becky Senf
They’re not just for the campus, they’re for anyone. But of course, faculty members take advantage of those classes. But then we also have the ability to demonstrate for students, what it means to do primary source research. So because we have these incredible collections and they’re open to the public for research, students can come and do research projects using the archive collections that we have and, and or also learn about research practice, you know, how do you ask a question, how do you look for the material that will support that?

Dr. Becky Senf
What is that whole process like? Because as an undergraduate student, you’re just learning that.

Tom Heath
Yeah, I can I can see that. It’s not just like as you said earlier, it’s not just about the photography students. You could have people from all different disciplines coming in to learn about the, the documentation or the, the, the recording of that history component that they’re, that they’re researching. That’s that’s fascinating to me. Again, as someone who’s really weird hobby is to look at old newspapers, all of a sudden very excited about what’s in some of those collections.

Dr. Becky Senf
Well, it’s it’s you’re right. It’s not just, photography students at all. It’s there’s a class at the university called Univ 101 and it’s to help teach incoming students about how to do college and how to think in a college way that’s different from thinking in a high school way. And one of the teachers who, offers that course, she’s a librarian and a neighbor, and a friend of mine has brought students to exhibitions because she finds that a good way to talk about perspective and point of view.

Dr. Becky Senf
When you have all these photographs on the wall, they are literally taking different perspectives. But she can use that very literal nature of a photograph that has a very specific point of view, and talk about the analogy of point of view and perspective in in writing or in research or in thinking or in speaking the last.

Tom Heath
And this is embarrassing because it’s a while ago for the last exhibition I went to, is that with, Linda McCartney? And I was so impressed with her, you know, the beautiful work that she has and all of these iconic photos and you just know she had access that maybe others didn’t. But what I enjoyed the most were this collection of Polaroids that were put up that I was so surprised to see some of these very intimate moments that, you know, now, we would just take it on our phone, but, you know, a Polaroid photo and maybe a little scratching on the little white like I used to do that.

Tom Heath
But I think that’s that’s that perspective that you’re talking about. That for me was so kind of eye opening that that world existed and just how comfortable she was and how everyone was so comfortable with her because it goes beyond the photograph. It goes into her relationships with these, these subjects that allowed her, you know, to take that photo at that time.

Tom Heath
If if I’m assuming that, you know, you heard that you heard the winners of the Polaroid.

Dr. Becky Senf
Yeah. I you’re getting at one of the points about archives that I find really very powerful and frankly, quite emotionally moving is how intimate they are, because the finished print is, is a product that goes through this long process and is is very deliberate. But things like Polaroids or other kinds of note taking or correspondence or sometimes even just, well, things like somebody’s wedding ring or their glasses, it’s very intimate.

Dr. Becky Senf
You’re looking at the things that were sometimes physically close to the photographer or emotionally close to the photographer. And I think that we were talking before we started recording about this idea of the, the information overload of this age. And I think that that causes many of us to search for authentic experiences. And there’s something really authentic about reading a letter between two people that nobody was writing for a future audience.

Dr. Becky Senf
They were writing it for that moment, and what they had to express in that moment. Or one of the things that’s in the 50th anniversary show at the center, it’s called Picture Party, our show, our dodging and burning tools. So these are the the objects that photographers produced to actually create their photographs with an enlarger in the darkroom.

Dr. Becky Senf
And there weren’t commercially made dodging and burning tools. These were things that you made out of wire and tape or cardboard or they’re very, they’re not fancy. They’re very utilitarian. And to look at, we have a number of different people’s dodging and burning tools, and to see the way each photographer crafted these tools that are designed to block light, when you’re projecting your negative onto your photographic paper and, and what materials did they look to and how did they create them?

Dr. Becky Senf
And Ansel Adams is are much more bespoke and fancy than John Goodman, who was a German immigrant to the United States. They were they must have been about the same age. But John Goodman’s are worn and when I picked up one of his, burning tools, it was a piece of cardboard, and it had all this tape around the edges.

Dr. Becky Senf
It has a little hole where you can focus the light through the hole. And it, as I picked it up, it creased where my hand touched it. And this is going to sound silly, but it was like I felt his ghost move through me because my hand was right where his hand had been thousands of times, maybe tens of thousands of times.

Dr. Becky Senf
And I knew it was right where his hand had been because of the way the cardboard creased. And it was it was really fascinating to. I was right there. My hand was touching where his hand had been. And so that kind of intimacy and the connection, and I never would have guessed that picking up a piece of a cardboard tool would mean anything.

Dr. Becky Senf
But it it it did.

Tom Heath
Yeah, I know, and being in locations where history has happened and thinking about the people that have stood or stepped or looked at this view, I, I can feel that that sort of a spiritual connection as well, as the center focused on specifically still photography or is video and, and motion involved?

Dr. Becky Senf
We there are some we are focused on still photography. There are some still photographers who, in the course of their practice create, we might call them time based media. Short video pieces or sometimes longer video pieces. So we might collect those works in the course of thinking about a photographer’s career overall. But there are institutions that focus on motion picture.

Dr. Becky Senf
And so that’s it’s pretty distinctly different.

Tom Heath
We are talking with Doctor Becky, seventh chief curator at the center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona. Today is part two of a two part series you can listen to, her introduction and the the sort of the history and foundation of the center’s, origin on last week’s episode, which you can find a life along the streetcar.org.

Tom Heath
But, we’ll be back to finish up the rest of the interview in just a moment. And I want to remind you, now that you’re listening to life along the streetcar on downtown radio, streaming on downtown radio.org.

Speaker 4
This podcast is sponsored by Tom Heath and the Heath team and over home Loans. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, continue listening or head over to Lifelong The Street Kokomo. For current events and information on what to do while visiting Tucson. Tom Heath and MLS number 182420 Nova and MLS number 3087 Vic number 0902429. Equal Housing Opportunity.

Tom Heath
All right. So if you’re just joining us, we are towards the tail end of a two part series with Doctor Becky, symphony chief curator at the center for Creative Photography. We’ve talked about all kinds of things and find it very interesting that at this point in history, when the center was really kind of coming into existence, photography was not really considered an art form.

Tom Heath
It was just sort of a documentary process. So as we listened to the ad promo there for the Tucson Gallery, I know from firsthand experience that we can see some really good photographers in their collection. And clearly photography has taken that leap in into the art world. And I think efforts like the center for Creative Photography are probably a big, a big part of that.

Tom Heath
So we’re gonna finish up the rest of that interview with Doctor Becky Somef. You are the scholar. So this is more of a scholar question. But I’m just curious as what you’ve described as sort of Ansel Adams vision and, his ever adapting world. What is if he were talking about AI today? Like, where does that play into, photography?

Tom Heath
I mean, it’s got to have changed the game a little bit.

Dr. Becky Senf
Yeah. AI is absolutely, part of the photography world right now. We’re in a very early moment. I think if I’m going to channel Ansel Adams, I think his concern would be authorship. That it feels like one of the dangers with AI, and this is true and for all creatives, is that it can absorb the style and then produce new content in that style.

Dr. Becky Senf
And of course, style is is closely linked to authorship. And so I think a lot of authors of all kinds are concerned about the way that they’re unique. Creative output can be mimicked by AI. What I don’t think we’ve seen a lot of yet in photography is using AI as a creative tool in and of itself, and I mean, if I think back to the last major photographic innovation, which was digital photography in the commercial world, digital photography got adopted very rapidly.

Dr. Becky Senf
It was a incredibly useful tool and had all of these advantages over analog. But in the art space, it took a long time for digital to be adopted, and initially many people were just producing analog photographs using digital technology. They were they were not doing anything radically different. They were just using a new tool to create the same thing.

Dr. Becky Senf
But over time, we’ve seen some photographers explore what digital technology allows them to uniquely do in an expressive way. And so I expect we’ll see the same thing happen. I mean, there have been early attempts, but I would say that they’re, early, you know, they they don’t reflect a kind of rigor or nuance that will come, I think, over time.

Tom Heath
So I potentially as this as a, as a way to help someone else tap more into their creative outlet. But versus someone who doesn’t have the creative outlet, tapping into someone else’s vision to create an image that would would. Because, I mean, I could quite simply say create this in an Ansel Adams style, and it will take all of the thousands and thousands of photographs that it can find and, and, and, and use that style to create a new piece.

Dr. Becky Senf
Right.

Tom Heath
Okay. Interesting. So is AI something that you’re as a, as the center or are you a keen me keenly. Keenly, I don’t know. Are you focused on this. Is this something you’re looking at or are you really kind of going historically or are you forward thinking in this manner now?

Dr. Becky Senf
We we definitely are forward thinking. And and AI is something that we need to think about and talk about. It’s we’re not seeing it in the works that are being offered to us yet in terms of things that we might consider collecting. Or the, the artworks that are being produced right now that we’re investigating and and showing at the CCP.

Dr. Becky Senf
But I think that part of our, our goal and our mission as an institution that’s thinking about the photographic medium, is is to be thinking about these technological changes. And there are tons and tons of ramifications. I mean, think about the way that digital technology and cameras are creating files with larger, larger and larger files. Right. And capture is, so much greater.

Dr. Becky Senf
Well, where does all of that get stored? Each one of those bigger files takes up more storage space, and storage space costs money. Ultimately. And so all of those every piece of technology has a downstream impact. And so, yeah, it’s very much our our responsibility to be thinking about all of those components.

Tom Heath
I just just think back to, my first, first camera where I just dropped in a little thing of film and my flash bulb turned around four times that I get new flashbulb has changed a little bit. It has since then.

Dr. Becky Senf
Also, the prints coming out of that camera probably weren’t fabulous. You know.

Tom Heath
Like Walgreens did fabulous with them. It’s a great job where I get duplicates of those and they steal on those. So 50th anniversary tell us we’ve got celebrations happening. Are there are there multiple events. Is there a big event. Is there a day with with with all kinds of stuff happening? What do we need to know?

Dr. Becky Senf
Yeah. So first I want to invite people to our exhibition. It’s called Picture Party and opened in early May. And it’s a sampling of the kinds of things that we have in the collection. Because we have such a vast collection, we can’t show it all. We can’t even really represent it at all. So what we thought we would do is give examples of the way that the collection is like this infinite resource that can be brought together and combined in new ways, and each time it’s brought together and combined in new ways, it creates the potential for new meaning.

Dr. Becky Senf
And not only does that is that potential exist for us as curators? It exists for visiting scholars. It exists for artists who use the collection for research. And then it also exists for visitors, because every single visitor who comes is bringing their own life experience, their perspective, their interests and their concerns, their passions. And so as they approach the work of art, they’re going to have their own personal experience with it.

Dr. Becky Senf
So we we use this idea of Picture Party as the theme for the show, because we were thinking about the way that the individual works of art are like guests at a party, and you can have a dinner date with two people, and that conversation is going to be a certain kind of intensity or depth because of who those two people are and what their similarities and differences are.

Dr. Becky Senf
Or you can have like a dinner party where maybe you have six or 8 or 10 people and the host is going to choose people who have something in common, who will like each other, or who will bring a certain energy together. But but maybe their differences create all kinds of exciting potential for conversations or new ideas to come up.

Dr. Becky Senf
So we have these groupings, and this.

Tom Heath
Is like a pretty intense way to look at a yes, a group of, of of photography and equipment. Yeah.

Dr. Becky Senf
Well it’s fun. I mean, it’s for us, we are we do think about these this way. You know, each picture is like a person. It has all of this. There are visual things happening there, ideas happening. It carries a history. It has a maker. And so we’re thinking about all of those pieces as we bring a show together.

Dr. Becky Senf
And so these groupings might have a thread or a theme that hold them together. But there are lots of differences. And then we also have an example that’s like a big reception or a big cocktail party where perhaps the people don’t know one another at all. So we have a big salon wall of portraits included in the show.

Dr. Becky Senf
There’s no text that accompanies this. It’s really a visual opportunity to think about where there are comparisons to be made, what things are similar, what things are different, how are the facial expressions or the body language telling you something about the subjects of these photographs? Some of them are self-portraits. Some of them are portraits. They spanned the whole of the 20th century and into the 21st century.

Dr. Becky Senf
So each one is like a different kind of party. And we’ve created labels that guide people in the comparison and contrast of 2 or 3 pictures, or a group of pictures. But we’re really excited for people to come experience what we’ve offered, but also to think about what they’re bringing to it and how their presence activates the art.

Dr. Becky Senf
And this massive collection. We have 120,000 photographs that the CCP need people to activate them. And the way that they’re activated in 1975 when they go on the wall, versus how they get activated in 2025 when they go on the wall and and how they get activated depending on what they’re next to. Is it a whole landscape show?

Dr. Becky Senf
Will that changes the way maybe you approach it or if it’s a whole portraiture show now you’re thinking about it in a different way, or it’s a show about color photography, or it’s a show about the way that the, you know, maybe it’s a show about politics, and each one of those different containers creates a different interaction with the with the photographs.

Tom Heath
So it’s open in May. How long do we have to experience this?

Dr. Becky Senf
It goes through December 20th okay.

Tom Heath
So we’ve got some time and speaking of time, we’re kind of running low on that. So really briefly then how do people get more information about all the events? I assume you have one of them website things we sure do.

Dr. Becky Senf
It’s ccp.arizona.edu that contains information about the show. And we’ll be planning programs in the fall when we open a new exhibition, with an artist named Kelly Connell. Her show is called pictures for us. The center is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 to 430, and we’re free, and open to everyone. So if you’re one of your listeners has never been to the CCP, I’d encourage them to come see us and explore what we’ve got going.

Dr. Becky Senf
And then over the summer, we have something called the Chill Zone, which is, as it sounds, a nice, cool spot on the U of A campus where people can come read, look at pictures, do some art projects, and then see the picture party exhibition as well.

Tom Heath
Well, like you said, someone who has a mild enthusiasm for photography, may have found a spot as the curator for, the center for Creative Photography. I really appreciate your time. I think we’re going to have to to have you back on. We’re not going to wait another 50 or so. Maybe we’ll do something a little bit sooner.

Tom Heath
Because it’s just fascinating to me. All of the things we just kind of touched upon. So thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Becky Senf
Sure. My pleasure.

Tom Heath
Doctor Becky South, chief curator at the center for Creative Photography on the University of Arizona campus. Beautiful facility. If you’ve not yet had a chance to get out there, I do recommend, taking a look there and maybe touch upon some of the other topics we’ve covered here on the show, like the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture.

Tom Heath
Coppola, the University of Arizona museum of Art, they’re all kind of clustered together there. So if you’re out and about taking a look, you might want to check them all out. Oh, my name is Tom Heath. You’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar in downtown radio 99.1 FM and streaming on Downtown radio.org.

Speaker 4
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Tom Heath
Well, in just a few minutes, Ted is going to be on the airwaves with his show Words and Work. Every Sunday, he sits down with members of, the Labor movement writers and really brings some thoughtful conversation to the airwaves here in downtown radio land, coming up on, at the top of the hour then, is Ty Logan with Heavy metal, and then we’re back into some music.

Tom Heath
After that, you can check out the whole lineup on Downtown radio.org and, see the the background of all the DJs, the bios and, and, kind of how they got their starts and their passion. And while you’re there, there’s a donate button, and it doesn’t hurt us if you donate because, you know, you probably know this. We’re all volunteer run on the station, which means the show host, the deejays, the board, the, the people that keep the the equipment running and maintenance in the computers up to date in the software safe.

Tom Heath
They’re all all volunteers. You know, when you make a donation, it goes to support programing or making the situation a little bit better here on downtown radio. Or maybe just to pay the rent because, we got to do that too. Well, let’s see here. What do we got? What do we got? Oh, coming up next week, we’ve got, the team from Social Venture Partners.

Tom Heath
We’ve had Britney Battle on in the past talking about their, their big fast pitch competition, helping nonprofits get the word out and raise some money, in the meantime. But we’re also now going to be, kind of diving a little bit more deeper into the social venture partners. And they have come up with, they come up with, but they, they’ve sort of decided to harness a lot of their energy and focus on one major issue, and that is to end this cycle of, of, generational poverty.

Tom Heath
It is a huge task. It’s not something that’s going to be fixed in a short time, but with the, the powers of the social venture partnership, the different allies that they have, the different resources, both monetarily and, experientially, I think they’ve got a good grasp on, on what they need to do. So we’re going to be chatting with the new CEO over there.

Tom Heath
And, and, we’ll have, a, a really good frank conversation about the way that they’re shaping, policy and making things happen that, will improve life for the next generation in their on out. And if there’s topics you want us to cover, something you think we should be discussing that we’re not, or if you just have a cool website that we need to be talking about, hit us up.

Tom Heath
The best way is to, tag us on that social media, Facebook and Instagram is where we’re currently housed. And you can also go over to our website, which is, life along the streetcar.org, because the contact button there or contact at life along the streetcar.org. It’s not hard, to get Ahold of us. And while you’re on that site, you can see, the interview we did with Doctor Becky Smith.

Tom Heath
The video version, as well as many other episodes, we were able to record video in our studio. So those are available on that website as well.

Tom Heath
Speaking of, social media, I kind of want to circle back and hope you can check out the Instagram and Facebook because, James has been doing a fabulous job of, of getting our videos out in digestible chunks and, getting a lot of, great feedback and traction on that. So if you haven’t, please check out Lifelong Street Car on Instagram and Facebook and, tell us what you think about his work, because James Portis is our executive producer, Amanda Maltose is our associate producer, and I am Tom Heath.

Tom Heath
I am your host. Happy to be here each week. Our opening music is from Ryan Hood, and today we’re going to close with some music from Jim Croce. All the way back from 1972, and an album called Don’t Mess Around With Jim, and the song is Photographs and Memories. Have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar and memories.