Blockbuster exhibition Only in England: Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr is to tour venues throughout the UK after the Science Museum Group secured a National Lottery grant of almost £70,000. The two-year tour has been made possible by funding from Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Programme, which aims to bring major shows to a wider range of venues beyond the established national touring circuit.

Only in England features nearly 200 prints by two of the most distinguished and influential British photographers of the last 50 years. Inspired by what they saw as uniquely British traditions and eccentricities, Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr photographed people and communities around the UK from large towns to small coastal resorts. Touring their iconic work to some of these locations, the exhibition offers an opportunity for local communities to engage with a one-of-a-kind photography experience.

Kate Bush, Head of Photography, Science Museum Group, said: ‘I’m delighted that Only in England has been selected by Arts Council England to receive this support. It’s wonderful to see our exhibition programme recognised in this way and it’s exciting that many more people will be able to see this truly significant part of our world class National Photography Collection.’

The exhibition, which opened the Science Museum’s Media Space in September 2013, met with critical acclaim and welcomed 43,968 visitors during its run in London, before transferring to the National Media Museum in Bradford. The exhibition is currently open at National Museums Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery until 7 June 2015.

Image: Location unknown, possible Morcambe, 1967-68 by Tony Ray-Jones. © National Media Museum

Bloomsbury Auctions is holding an auction next week which includes a significant number of nineteenth century photographs from W H F Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, and other significant British and French photographers. The catalogue can be seen online here. 

Image: Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), Mrs Herbert Duckworth (Julia Jackson), 1867.

The Science Museum Group's Head of Photography, Kate Bush, looks at the history of the Science Museum Group’s photography collections.The blog can be found here.

Image: Drawn by Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection at Media Space © Kate Elliott

We all think we know what photographs are, and why we have them...writes Elizabeth Edwards, De Montfort University. Photography's default history is told as art – it shouldn't be. Photographs are everywhere. For the past 150 years they have penetrated, entangled and perhaps defined almost every area of human endeavour that we care to name – medicine, industry, tourism, relationships, archaeology, social policy – and that’s just for starters. They have rendered both the visible and invisible in certain ways that have shaped our world.

Some of the earliest efforts to represent that world are to be found in the Tate Britain’s new exhibition Salt and Silver, featuring salt prints taken between 1840 and 1860. Salt prints are the result of the first negative/positive process that made photography the reproducible form with which we are familiar. They are beautiful and jewel-like, their photographic chemicals absorbed deep into the fibres of their papers. It gives them a softness which, combined with fading caused by chemical instability, produces ethereal qualities quite unlike anything else. These are precious, connoisseurial objects, the exhibition strap-line – “rare and revealing” – makes that clear to us.

But these fragile and precious prints (they cost a fortune at auction) caused me to ponder the kinds of photographic histories are presented to the public. Why does the default value of photography always seem to be “art”? This implies that photography’s ultimate purpose is aesthetic discernment and expression. But I don’t think that this alone communicates the importance or power of photography.

David Hill & Robert Adamson, Five Newhaven Fisherwomen, c. 1844. © Wilson Centre for Photography

Other histories

This was really brought home to me when I belatedly visited the Science Museum’s Drawn by Light, an array of material from the Royal Photographic Society’s collection. Science and photographic practice were important strands in the exhibition. But these interests slipped almost seamlessly into a narrative of photography’s aesthetic aspirations and the great names of the photographic canon: from Julia Margaret Cameron to Martin Parr. Despite some interesting juxtapositions, somehow they crowded out the other important voices.

It’s a shame that this is the photographic history that is told by default. There are hundreds of photographic histories, in science, medicine, architecture, industry. But these are too often shoe-horned into a category called “art” to be made visible or interesting.

Edouard Denis Baldus, The Floods of 1856, Brotteaux Quarter of Lyon, 1856. © Wilson Centre for Photography

Recently I was talking to a colleague working on industrial photographs. These provide a visual narrative of how we have structured an economic base, of practices that have involved the labour of thousands upon thousands of ordinary people (that category beloved of politicians). Fascinating, but nobody wanted to do an exhibition because this was not “art”, he was told.

There are a multitude of reasons for this: the institutional and disciplinary investments in making photographs one kind of thing and not another, the siren pull of the art market which dictates what is desirable and important and what is not. But what of the rest – the photographic workhorses that have shaped ideas since the 1850s? While pleasingly evident in new academic work, they are largely written out of gallery agendas, except as the odd foray into “comparative material”.

The cosy canon

Canons of anything come with a cosy conceptual cogency. They provide frameworks, which save you the hard work of thinking outside the box. Certainly other kinds of photographs intrude into gallery spaces. But they often do so – not because of their intrinsic historical interest, but because they appeal to contemporary aesthetic sensibilities.

It is in this way that some 19th-century photographers have been “recognised” through the application of those sensibilities. This might be as proto-modernists (Roger Fenton’s The Queen’s Target for example), surrealists (the fascination with a photograph Benjamin Stone took in 1898), post-modernists or whatever. Juxtaposed with contemporary art photography this may be fun and quirky and provide an interesting provocation. But I’m not sure it does anything to explain the richness of photography’s contribution to the way we see the world. It doesn’t challenge us, it doesn’t explain why we, as an exhibition-going public, need to know about it.

William Fox Talbot, Articles of China, 1844. © Wilson Centre for Photography

There are, of course, notable exceptions. Autograph’s brave and ghastly, but historically and emotionally compelling, exhibition Without Sanctuary (2011) on American lynching photographs, was all the more shocking because the photographs were presented as cultural objects, scruffy, damaged postcards that people wrote on and handled.

Or the Photographer’s Gallery Mass Observation: This is Your Photo (2013) which integrated photographs with the wider archive. Even more so their current exhibition Human Rights Human Wrongs. But these important forays tend to be stand-alone, issue-led exhibitions rather than integrated into histories of photographic culture.

Auguste Salzmann, Statuette en Calcaire; Type Chypriot 1858-1865. © Wilson Centre for Photography

This brings me back to the Tate exhibition. The content of the salt prints is wide and varied, signalling how the all-embracing reach of photography was seeded from the beginning, yet that it tends to get lost in the aesthetic and connoisseurial histories of photography that dominate, as we are asked to contemplate the fine object.

But the photographs here are more than precious and beautiful objects. Photographs of Middle Eastern antiquities were perhaps part of a desire for scientific archaeological evidence in an imperial age. Others are part of the post-rebellion political need for consolidation through a search for authentic origins of Indian heritage – one later refigured within nationalist frameworks (Linneaus Tripe’s architectural studies in India).

Yet perversely the very immediacy of photographs also confronts us with the unknowability of other people’s lives in other ages. That is what makes them so compelling and opens them to possibilities beyond structures of the canon – if we allow them to.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards. A visual and historical anthropologist, Professor Edwards has worked extensively on the relationships between photography, anthropology and history, on the social practices of photography, on the materiality of photographs and on photography and historical imagination.

She has previously held posts as Curator of Photographs at Pitt Rivers Museum and lecturer in visual anthropology at the University of Oxford, and at the University of the Arts London.

In addition to major monographs, she has published over 80 essays in journals and exhibition catalogues over the years, is on the board of major journals in the field including Visual Studies and History of Photography.

She is currently working on late nineteenth and early twentieth century photographic societies and networks of photographic knowledge, on the market in ‘ethnographic’ photographs across scientific and popular domains in the nineteenth century, and the relationship between photography and historical method.

Houghton's Ticka camera is a well-known collectible made by Houghtons Ltd and introduced c.1905. Collector and Special Auction Services camera specialist Jonathan Brown recent came across a previously unknown prototype Ticka from c1929 in a local auction for a modest sum. Not unsurprisingly it was quickly sold on for £1500 to a French dealer.

The camera is not marked as a Ticka but has a patent number 337454 on it assigned to Houghton Butcher Mfg Co Ltd in 1929. The finish looks like the 'tropical' metal finish found on several other Houghton-Butcher cameras from the same period. It has a ratchet film advance to prevent double exposure (the subject of the patent), a window for the film counter and a sports finder on it incorporating the lever for opening the back.

Photo: courtesy SAS with thanks for sharing.

There have been reports in the press suggesting that the Library of Birmingham photography collections have been 'saved'.  This is not the case and the following statement helpful:

Dr Michael Pritchard, Director-General, The Royal Photographic Society commented: "Having sought clarification about the situation The RPS understands from sources within Birmingham City Council that, contrary to some recent press reports, the four posts of those working with the photography collections held at the Library of Birmingham have not been 'saved'.

The Society understand that about five posts will be saved across the whole library. These will be divided between the Children's Library, the Music Library and the Archives Heritage and Photography Department. No specific details of any of these posts or their allocation within the overall service has yet been announced.

There is currently therefore no proposal for a specific post that is responsible for the photography collections nor any other requiring the specialist knowledge required to manage them.

The RPS remains very concerned that the internationally important photography collections held at the Library of Birmingham therefore remain at risk with no substantive proposal from the Council to secure public access to them, or one which would ensure the provision of appropriate resources to catalogue, interpret and conserve and provided informed access for current and future generations".

The Department of History, University of Nottingham, in partnership with the British Museum invites applications from suitably qualified UK/EU candidates for a full-time 3-year Collaborative Doctoral Award, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, to conduct research on the theme: ‘Site-Seeing: Postcards of the Middle East & the Visual Construction of Place, 1890s to 1990s.

The PhD project will examine the role of the photographic picture postcard as a crucial technology of 20th-century visual culture and modern place-making. It will draw on the Museum’s expansive collection of postcards of the Middle East, spanning colonial and postcolonial periods, and analyse the production and use of these postcards both as visual media and as material objects.

The Studentship will start on 1 October 2015. For further details of the award, the research project and procedures for applying, please see link below. The deadline for applications is 12 noon on Friday 27 February 2015.

Full details: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/documents/funding/bm-uon-cda-advert.pdf

Advert: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AKM821/collaborative-doctoral-award/

New York Public Library's exhibition Public Eye: 175 Years of Sharing Photography is a fascinating history of photography based on its own holdings of books, printed materials and photographs. The exhibition includes plenty British material from Talbot's Pencil of Nature and an Anna Atkins album to Frith's Gossiping Photographer and more recent work.

Thanks to the development of new technology and social media, more photographs are created, viewed, and shared today than ever before. Public Eye, the first-ever retrospective survey of photography organized by NYPL, takes advantage of this moment to reframe the way we look at photographs from the past. What are some of the platforms and networks through which photographs have been shared? In what ways have we, as photography’s public and one of its subjects, been engaged over time? To what ends has the street served as a venue for photographic practice since its beginnings? And, of more recent concern, are we risking our privacy in pursuit of a more public photography? Ranging from photography’s official announcement in 1839 to manifestations of its current pervasiveness, this landmark exhibition, drawn entirely from the Library’s collections, explores the various ways in which photography has been shared and made public. Photography has always been social.

See: http://www.nypl.org/public-eye

It is on show until 4 September 2015.

A PhD research scholarship including stipend and tuition fee costs is offered within the Photographic History Research Centre in the School of Humanities. It is available to UK or EU students who are suitably qualified and have outstanding potential as a researcher.

Applications are invited for projects that address any aspect of photographic industry and business in the nineteenth and/or twentieth centuries, a field which has received limited attention in history of photography. Projects might examine, for instance, the practices of a specific studio or business, labour in the photographic industry, a specific community or location, marketing methods, commercially orientated photographic practices, or aspects of industrial research and development. The project will contribute to PHRC’s world-leading research focus on the methods for expanded histories of photography and the social, cultural and economic practices of photography.

We seek applicants with a strong academic background in subjects such as history, art history, science and technology studies, business history or visual culture studies.

For a more detailed description of the scholarship and the subject area at DMU please visit http://www.dmu.ac.uk/research/graduate-school/phd-scholarships.aspx or contact Professor Elizabeth Edwards on email eedwards@dmu.ac.uk

In offering this scholarship the University aims to further develop its proven research strengths in Photographic History. It is an excellent opportunity for a candidate of exceptional promise to contribute to a stimulating, world-class research environment.

Applications are invited from UK or EU students with a Master’s degree or good first degree (First, 2:1 or equivalent) in a relevant subject. Doctoral scholarships are available for up to three years full-time study starting October 2015 and provide a bursary of ca. £14,057 pa in addition to University tuition fees.

To receive an application pack, please contact Morgan Erdlenbruch via email at Morgan.Erdlenbruch@dmu.ac.uk. Completed applications should be returned together with two supporting references.

Please quote ref: DMU Research Scholarships 2015: ADH FB2.

School of Humanities, Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities De Montfort University, Leicester

Deadline for applications: March 30th  Interviews w/c April 20th.

Bonhams auction of Fine Books and photographs on 18 March 2015 includes a set of Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851, including 154 mounted Calotypes. The nine volume set is a presentation set for Richard Cobden, one of the Commissioners. It is estimated at £25,000-35,000. 

The lot description reads: 

FOOTNOTES

• A COMPLETE SET OF THE PRESENTATION ISSUE OF 'THE GREAT EXHIBITION CATALOGUE' AND 'REPORT OF THE JURIES' - RICHARD COBDEN'S COPY.
  
  Nikolaas Henneman (Talbot's one time photographic assistant) was responsible for printing all the photographs needed for the Reports(approximately 20,150 assuming that all the proposed 130 copies were completed), from albumenised glass plate negatives and calotype paper negatives by Claude Marie Ferrier and Hugh Owen respectively. Henneman was commissioned by the Royal Commissioners of the Great Exhibition to undertake the printing of the positives on Talbot's silver chloride paper. However, as Talbot commented at the time, "[the Committee] are so extraordinarily stingy, notwithstanding they have a surplus of £200,000, and make such hard conditions with [Henneman], that it is doubtful whether he will earn anything by his labour" (Gernsheim, p.207). The photographs include views of the exterior and interior of Paxton's main building, together with important images of exhibits ranging from agricultural machinery and steam trains to inflatable boats and garden statues. 
  
  Provenance: Richard Cobden (1804-1865), commissioner for the Great Exhibition, manusfacturer and politician, Anti-Corn Law League campaigner, presentation leaf in each volume; Durnford Library bookplate. Cobden was a leading figure in the success of the Exhibition. "If there is a single person who represented internationalism at the time of the Great Exhibiton it was Richard Cobden... [it] provided a great opportunity to promote his internationalist beliefs, beliefs he largely shared with Prince Albert... [stating] at a public meeting in Birmingham 'We shall by that means [the Exhibition] break down the barriers that have separated the people of different nations, and witness the universal republic...'" (The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display, edited by Jeffrey A. Auerbach, 1999).

See more here: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22713/lot/104/

This long-awaited book from Ken and Jenny Jacobson will be published on 19 March. The inspiration for the book was a remarkable discovery made by the authors at a small country auction in 2006 (See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514218/Mystery-photographs-...)  One lightly regarded lot was a distressed mahogany box crammed with long-lost early photographs. These daguerreotypes were later confirmed as once belonging to John Ruskin, the great 19th-century art critic, writer, artist and social reformer. Moreover, the many scenes of Italy, France and Switzerland included the largest collection of daguerreotypes of Venice in the world and probably the earliest surviving photographs of the Alps.

Despite his sometimes vehemently negative sentiments regarding the camera, John Ruskin never stopped using photography. He assiduously collected, commissioned and produced daguerreotypes and paper photographs; he pioneered the use of the collotype and platinotype processes for book illustration. Many of the recovered daguerreotypes reveal surprising compositions and have enabled insights into how Ruskin’s use of them influenced the style of his watercolours.

Core to this book is a fully illustrated catalogue raisonné of the 325 known John Ruskin daguerreotypes. The overwhelming majority of the newly-discovered plates are published here for the first time. There are an additional 276 illustrations in the text and an essay describing the technical procedures used in conserving Ruskin’s photographs. Ten chapters extensively study Ruskin’s photographic endeavours. A chronology, glossary, twenty-page bibliography and comprehensive index complete this handsome hardback book.

Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin's Lost Daguerreotypes
Ken Jacobson & Jenny Jacobson

Publication date: 19 March 2015 – ISBN 9780956301277 – Price: £85
432 pages (including 601 illustrations)

To reserve a copy at the special price of £75, available until 31 March 2015, please contact: Alice Ford-Smith (a.ford-smith@quaritch.com)

New York auction house Swann Gallery's upcoming auction of Fine Photography on 19 February 2015 includes a ninth-plate daguerreotype of The Monument in the City of London. 

The lot description is here: 

Sale 2374 Lot 3

(CASED IMAGE) 
Ninth-plate daguerreotype of London's iconic Monument to the Great Fire, at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke; in a leather case. Circa 1850

Estimate $4,000 - 6,000 

The monument, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren to commemorate the Great Fire Of London, was erected in 1667. Today, visitors climb 311 steps to the top of this historic landmark to see spectacular views of London.

See the lot and full catalogue here.

The project to restore the University of Westminster's cinema to its former glory continues and the opening is scheduled for the early summer. Shira Macleod, formerly of the Riverside Studios has been appointed as Director.

The site is where the UK's first photographic studio was opened by Richard Beard in March 1841 at the Polytechnic Institution, where the Lumière brothers held the first public screening of film using their new Cinématographe in February 1896 and, later, on the Polytechnic of Central London was an important institution for photographic education. 

There are still opportunities to support the project including the naming of seats.

The photographs here show the building work in progress. 

See more here: http://www.birthplaceofcinema.com/

The Conservation of Photographs is a relatively new discipline in the cultural heritage preservation field with its beginnings in the late 1960’s early 1970’s. However, it has its roots firmly grounded in the formative years of photography as practitioners and the emergent photographic industry grappled with its inherent instability. The treatment of faults in both material systems and their chemistries and the need to develop more stable photographic processes have hugely impacted and influenced the evolution of the photographic process itself. Today the result of materials and image instability continues to present huge challenges to contemporary users, photographers, the photographic industry, collectors and collections both public and private in the wider heritage field worldwide.

This seminar will look at the conservation of photographs past and present. It will also consider the huge challenges faced by both private and institutional collections, with regard to the future preservation of both historic and contemporary photography in all its diverse material forms. The preservation and conservation of contemporary photography alone is already presenting huge challenges to collections and conservators, presenting issues that are already impacting and will continue to impact collectors, the art market and ultimately the value and veracity of contemporary images.

Admission is free and open to all.

Ian L. Moor and Angela H. Moor

The Conservation of Historic and Contemporary Photographs

17.00, Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Research Forum South Room, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

Ian and Angela Moor have been at the forefront of the development of photographic conservation in the UK since the early 1970s, both as researchers and developers of photographic conservation techniques, and as consultants and advisers to major collections of photography. They established The Centre for Photographic Conservation in 1981. Ian is a partner/director and Head of Conservation and Angela is Conservator Administrator at The Centre for Photographic Conservation.

James Hyman Gallery, the UK’s leading commercial gallery for vintage 19th and 20th century photography, is pleased to present the latest in a series of monographic and thematic exhibitions addressing photographs from the earliest days of the medium. 

The Age of Salt: Art, Science and Early Photography, which is open to the public from 3 February to 6 March, takes as its starting point one of William Henry Fox Talbot’s greatest works and one of the finest prints outside a museum. Entitled Veronica in Bloom (1840), this exceptional print dates from the very moment in which the birth of photography was announced. 

The exhibition traces the development of photography both through technical advance and through the forging of a new aesthetic, initially in dialogue with painting and then freed from this relationship. These pioneering moments include intimate untrimmed salt prints by Calvert Richard Jones and Edouard Baldus, remarkable salt prints made in Britain, France and Italy and, subsequently, the evolution of new techniques including collodion on glass, albumen printing and forms of photomechanical engravings from heliogravures by Charles Negre and Henri le Secq through to photogalvanographs by Roger Fenton. 

The Age of Salt: Art, Science and Early Photography anticipates Tate Britain's exhibition of early salt prints entitled Salt and Silver (25 February - 7 June 2015) and the Media Space's Revelations: Experiments in Early Photography (20 March - 13 September 2015).

See more by clicking here.

The latest V&A re-hang of the permanent collection displays focuses on the wider visions of photographers through series and sequences of images, rather than through individual photographs. The display includes photographs from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and features work by Sally Mann, Josef Sudek, Eadweard Muybridge, Lewis Baltz, Masahisa Fukase, Sian Bonnell and Sze Tsung Leong.

A History of Photography: Series and Sequences

Fri 6 February 2015 – Sun 1 November 2015

V&A Gallery 100

http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/3820/a-history-of-photography-series-and-sequences-5358/

With the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a new BBC TV programme examines his life and reviews his relationship with young girls. Towards the end of the programme an albumen photograph attributed to Carroll and in the collection of the Musee Cantini, Marseille, (click here to see it) of, allegedly, a naked teenage Lorena Liddell, the elder sister of Alice, is given as evidence of a darker interest by Carroll's in girls.

Of the photograph, conservator Nick Burnett states 'My gut instnct is it's by Lewis Carroll'. A facial recognition expert also believes it is of Lorena Carroll.  

Having seen the programme I am unconvinced by the programme's claims. At best the photograph itself and provenance requires further research: simply being albumen from a glass negative and later dealer's pencil inscription is probably not sufficient to say one way or the other.

Make your own mind up and view the programme on BBC iPlayer here Available for 28 days from 31 January 2015.

Image: Presenter Martha Kearney looks at a Carroll negative from The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford.

UPDATE: A leading Carroll scholar has stated he is 'unconvinced' by the programme's conclusion and notes that the size of the plate/print suggests it dates from Carroll's Christ College period by which time Lorena would have been a more mature woman. 

Are you organised, professional, approachable, great at engaging a diverse range of people with new ideas and opportunities? These are the key qualities we are looking for in our Volunteer Coordinator at the National Media Museum in Bradford. You will work closely with people across the Museum to continue to develop our volunteer programme, taking a strategic approach to maximise and deliver beneficial and engaging opportunities for the volunteers and for the Museum. You will have successful experience working independently to co-ordinate an established volunteer programme and demonstrate enthusiasm and commitment to further developing this area.

Click here to see more

BBC Radio 3's The Essay is running a series of five programmes each evening between 16-20 February 2015 at 2245, under the banner of 'The Five Photographs that (you didn't know) changed Everything'. The photographs being discussed are not generally found in the history books; they are not generally art; and the photographers who made them are not generally known beyond a small coterie of photographic historians.

The five photographs discussed in this series of essays changed the way we see ourselves and our place in the world. They had an enormous impact in the fields of medicine, architecture, astronomy, law and cultural history. The series has been supported and developed in association with De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre and The Royal Photographic Society. 

The programmes, with their provisional transmission dates are:

Monday 16^th February.

1. A woman’s left hand.  Kelley Wilder on the x-ray that changed medicine.

The photograph of Anna Bertha Ludwig Rontgens left hand taken in 1896 astounded the scientific world and alarmed the public. For the scientists it signalled the beginning of medical radiography. For the public it gave rise to fears about intrusion and privacy in much the same way as  the introduction of the TSA  body scanner did in 2007. From medical imaging to airport security, Kelley Wilder shows how  x-ray photography changed the world.

Kelley Wilder is Reader in Photographic History,  De Montfort University, Leicester

Tuesday 17^th February.

2.  . Draper’s Nebula. Omar Nassim on  how a photo of space changed our view of the universe and our place within it.

Today high-resolution  photographs of nebulae or galaxies saturate our culture to such an extent that they are almost kitsch. But  when Henry Draper took the very first pictures  of a nebula in 1880 it was one of the greatest achievements of photography.  Omar Nasim tells the story of how this photograph defied the imagination and raised questions not just about the size of the universe but about the very origins of humanity.

Omar Nasim is lecturer in the School of History at the University of Kent.

Wednesday 18^th February.

3. . The Dogon.  Jeanne Haffner on how aerial photography changed the spaces we live in. The  birds-eye photograph of the Dogon tribe working their fields in Mali was taken by the French Africanist Marcel Griaule.   He’d trained in aerial photography during the first world war and he argued that the Dogon landscape, seen from the air, revealed the patterns and  secrets of the lives of its inhabitants, patterns which could teach Western city planners and architects how to build  a happier society. 

Jeanne Haffner is lecturer in the Department of History and Science at Harvard University.

Thursday 19^th February.

4. The Broom cottages. Elizabeth Edwards on the photo that changed the way we see ourselves.

The man who took the photo, W. Jerome Harrison, launched a scheme for recording the country’s past in which amateur photographers up and down the land took pictures of the buildings which were important  them. Wiki-buildings and English Heritage do this now on a much grander scale. But Elizabeth Edwards argues that the mass participation of people  in defining what matters  about the past began  with Harrison, and changed the way in which a nation viewed  itself. 

Elizabeth Edwards is Research Professor of Photographic History and Director of the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester

Friday 20^th February.

5. The Tichbourne Claimant. Jennifer Tucker on the photo that changed the law.

In 1863 a butcher sat for his photograph in the remote town of Wagga Wagga, Australia. Three years later this likeness had Britain transfixed.   Jennifer tucker tells the story of  how it was central to the longest legal battle in 19th century England,  and  sparked  a debate about evidence, the law, ethics and facial recognition that has continued ever since. 

Jennifer Tucker is Associate Professor of History and Science in Society at Wesleyan University, USA

The programmes will be available on the BBC iPlayer after transmission.