alexander gardner: aye, that i am, mister president. now, if you wouldn't me mind moving to the other side of the table. that angle favors you. tom hanks: after four years and more casualties than in any conflict in the nation's history, the civil war is almost over. but the image made on this day will be the last official portrait ever taken of the 16th president of the united states. abraham lincoln has six weeks to live. abraham lincoln: taddy. with malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as god gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. tom hanks: booth is there. a face in the crowd on the steps of the east portico. on march 17th, 1865, booth and two boyhood friends, along with confederate agent lewis powell and smuggler george atzerodt, lay in wait along the president's route to visit the campbell military hospital. but lincoln cancels th

alexander gardner: mr. lewis powell. have a seat.iled attempt on the life of secretary of state seward, lewis powell hides in washington for three days before wandering into mary surratt's boarding house and into the arms of the police. alexander gardner: and don't you move now, laddie! tom hanks: powell is sentenced to death. on april 27th, david herold is brought aboard the uss montauk. the young man who followed john wilkes booth to the bitter end is condemned to die. and at the request of secretary of state stanton, alexander gardner takes one more picture on april 27th. lafayette baker: dr. frederick may, can you positively identify the body? dr. may: is there a scar upon the back of its neck? lafayette baker: there is. dr. barnes: let me describe it before it's seen by me. it's on the left side and has the appearance more like the cicatrix of a burn than that of a surgical operation. it was occasioned when i removed a fibroid tumor from his neck. it is exactly as you have described it. dr. may: yes, that is he. that is john wil

now, alexander gardner here presents us with a portrait, seemingly a document of their visit, but notice is powered here, how he intervenes in this image. note that he directs the gaze of each of the men. they don't look at each other, and they don't engage with each other. they look at us. they are gazes and their poses -- there gazes and their poses are controlled. he controls where they sit and how they stand. so it appears to be a simple portrait but in fact, he has , intervened here to show us a very particular kind of representation. and this particular image was reproduced on the cover of harpers weekly. we will come back to media, but just to show you how these images start to end up in the media. perhaps less well-known are these kind of artistic images. this is a particular genre of a photographic reduction or photographic era called the pictorialism, and pictorialism was an international photography movement that essentially rejected the mechanical aspects of photography in favor of the se kind of labor intensive processes which would emphasize the artistry of the photographer