Michael Wong's Blog (656)

Newsreel archive British Pathé has uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films, in high resolution, to its YouTube channel. This unprecedented release of vintage news reports and cinemagazines is part of a drive to make the archive more accessible to…

46 photographs, which form part of the 19th century China Magazine, depicting life in the Far East during the 1860s, have sold for more than six times their estimated value when they recently went under the hammer at Dominic WInters.

Dropped off by a couple from Cumbria who happened to be…

Residents of the streets of East London are captured with startling clarity by the enigmatic C A Mathew. The purpose of the photographs remains unknown, but on the morning of Saturday 20th April, 1912, our photographer walked the short distance from Liverpool Street Station into the heart of Spitalfields, taking his camera with him.

In contrast to the more formal,…

In the 19th century the East represented the realm of exoticism, fantasy and mystery. Literature and painting in particular used the lands beyond Europe as canvases for fertile explorations of the unknown and unlimited boundaries for imagination. By the latter half of the century, however, several pioneer photographers travelled to the Middle East and North Africa,…

Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the nineteenth century, Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879) was commissioned by the city of Paris to document both the picturesque, medieval streets of old Paris and the broad boulevards and grand public structures that Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann built in their place for Emperor Napoleon III. This…

In 1839, just two years after Victoria became queen of Great Britain and Ireland, the medium of photography was announced to the world. This exhibition explores the relationship between the new art and the young queen, whose passion for collecting photographs began in the 1840s and whose photographic image became synonymous with an entire age. With important loans from…

Artistic images of women posing nude for legendary photography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge could soon become a familiar sight along Kingston’s riverside.

The company behind the new Riverside Kingston restaurant development, next to Kingston Bridge, has announced bold plans to commemorate one of the town’s most famous sons by emblazoning its building with stills from his…

A key event in the birth of photography is being celebrated with illuminations at the place depicted in one of the first photographic negatives. The lights are part of the second Illuminating Lacock Abbey light festival by the National Trust and marks a year celebrating Fox Talbot's achievements.

Kristine Heuser, from the National…

A new photography exhibit in Rangoon is offering a glimpse of what Burma was like in the 19th century.

Hosted by the Italian Embassy and the Yangon Heritage Trust, a local NGO dedicated to preserving Rangoon’s heritage, the exhibit is showcasing nearly 50 photographs that shed light on architectural styles from over a century ago, as well local fashions, the daily life…

Photography has become the most direct medium for people across the world to understand China since its introduction of photography to the country in the mid-nineteenth century. Owing to the special political circumstances, Hong Kong then became a natural stopover for foreign photographers on their way to the Mainland. These photographers took many pictures on the early…

The Bethlem Archives & Museum in Monks Orchard Road, Beckenham, records the lives and achievements of people experiencing mental health issues and documents the rich history of the institution, which began in 1247, along with its affiliated hospitals. Recognised as Europe’s oldest institution…

The work of Limerick photographer Franz S. Haselbeck is one of the greatest Irish photographic collections, chronicling an exciting period in Irish history. Haselbeck was never fully appreciated during his lifetime (1885–1973), but his granddaughter, Patricia Haselbeck Flynn, recently painstakingly catalogued his archives, some of which are now on display in Limerick…

The National Portrait Gallery, London, has appointed Phillip Prodger (right), founding Curator of Photography at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, as Head of Photographs Collection, from 1 June 2014. He has been at the Peabody since 2008. 

Prodger will lead the Gallery’s…

OUImages, the online digital media library of the University of Oxford, brings together every element of Oxford's visual identity into a single, easily accessible database.

Within some of the most beautiful architecture in the world, Oxford's colleges, museums and libraries house some of the finest, and most diverse, art collections and historical artifacts, and its…

Allegory and Illusion: Early Portrait Photography from South Asia presents approximately 120 photographs and a selection of albums, glass plate negatives, cabinet cards, cartes-de-visites, and postcards illustrating the rich tradition of portrait photography in India, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Nepal from the mid-19th century to early 20th century. The…

An installation by Charlotte Cory, one of the country's leading surreal photographic artists. The exhibition is an imaginative, witty and informative exploration of the Brontës and the history of early photography, drawing on the Victorian craze for collecting cartes des visite – portraits once produced in their millions and now discarded. Using twenty-first century…

Walter Kevis worked as a photographer from the 1870s to 1908. Following his marriage to Emma, they settled in Petworth, where he specialised in portrait photography. He also undertook much outdoor work too.

His shop in Lombard Street had a built-in studio made of wood and glass on the second floor where most of his photographs were taken, His wide…

It has been reported that the deadline placed by the UK government on a temporary export ban on the ‘Signor 1857' - an album containing 35 works by various photographers, belonging to Julia Margaret Cameron, lapsed last night.

A prospective UK buyer was -…

In 1908, thirty-one-year-old American adventurer Robert Sterling Clark organized a scientific expedition to northern China for the purpose of creating a detailed geographical survey of the area, recording daily meteorological observations, photographing the people, places, and landscapes, and collecting samples of the flora and fauna.

Departing…

For those BPH readers with an interest in Whitby, or the genius of Sutcliffe as one of Britain's most famous photographers - he was awarded an honorary fellow by The RPS in 1935, and was a prolific writer for Amateur Photographer - there is an article to celebrate his birthday which you can read in the Whitby Gazette …