The PAO at U.S. Embassy Beijing, Donald Bishop, discussed American holidays via Web chat with China Youth Net in 2005. (Courtesy, Donald Bishop)
Public Diplomacy Council is building a gallery of photos in the online photo community Flickr that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the way public diplomacy works, from the early days of USIA to today. Current and past public diplomacy officers are asked to to donate their photos to enlarge and enrich the collection.
As of today (5 October 2013), the collection has 110 photos, showing public diplomacy officers and staff at work with press, at exhibits, posting election returns, and in meetings with colleagues and counterparts. Other images display a rich array of production graphics in newsletters and covers of books and magazines. Most photos have captions and brief descriptions.
Exhibit guide Michael Hurley demonstrates a gas-powered pogo stick at the exhibition Outdoor Recreation USA in the USSR in the early 1970s.
Joe Johnson, Kathy Brion, and Brian Carlson are collecting the images and curating the project. They can be reached by e-mail at pdinpictures [at] yahoo [dot] com, which is also the address to send photos. In addition to attaching the images, include in your message for each photo (1) a caption that gives the story of the photo, (2) identify as many people as possible, and (3) indicate that the people displayed in the photo have no objection to being included in the collection.
