Psychologist to discuss news photos at La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library

As part of its Dialogues in Art & Architecture series, The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library will present Michael Shaw discussing “Reading the Pictures: Understanding the Role and Power of News Photos in Our Increasingly Visual World,” 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24 at 1008 Wall St. The event is free.

His lecture will be on the expanding role of editorial photos in society as news in its own right, as sophisticated containers of information, as sophisticated PR and spin, and more and more, as media and opinion generated from the grassroots by the public and social media.

Shaw is a clinical psychologist and publisher of the award-winning visual politics site, BagNewsNotes.com and has lectured widely on the politics and media dynamics of news photos.

His research has dealt primarily with the process of visual narrative and the psychological function of metaphor. Previously, he served as the consulting psychotherapist at The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and at Otis College of Art and Design.

He is also a contributor to the Huffington Post where he writes the regular blog feature, Reading the Pictures.

For more information, contact the Athenaeum: (858) 454-5872, ljathenaeum.org