Michael Pritchard's Posts (3128)

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12201021457?profile=originalThe Bodleian Library is delighted presenting a lecture by Ken Jacobson marking the appearance of a book published by Bernard Quaritch and written by Ken and Jenny Jacobson: Carrying Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes.

At a small country auction in 2006, the authors discovered one lightly regarded lot, a distressed mahogany box crammed with long-lost early photographs. They were daguerreotypes and all are now confirmed as once belonging to John Ruskin, the great nineteenth-century art critic, writer, artist and social reformer. Moreover, the box turned out to contain the largest collection of daguerreotypes of Venice in the world and probably the earliest surviving photographs of the Alps.

Ruskin's daguerreotypes aided the creation and influenced the style of his watercolours and in some instances reflected his emotional state of mind. Despite his sometimes vehemently negative sentiments regarding the camera, Ruskin ambivalent attitude towards the new art meant he never stopped using photography.

Despite being intended as simple documents, the quality and unorthodox style of many of Ruskin's daguerreotypes will come as a revelation to both photographic historians and Ruskin scholars. There are exemplars, however, within the history of both painting and photography that provide a historical and aesthetic framework within which Ruskin's work can be located.

The lecture on 3 June will be followed by a reception 6-7pm in the Visiting Scholars' Centre, Weston Library (2nd floor). Registration is required.

See: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/whats-on/upcoming-events/2015/jun/carrying-off-the-palaces

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12201011656?profile=originalPhoto London, London city wide celebration of photography centred on Somerset House attracted more than 20,000 visitors over five days. 70 galleries from 20 countries participated in the first edition of the fair, along with 10 publishers and 3 special exhibitors. They showed the best photography from all over the world, with strong sales across a range of photography from vintage and rare prints to contemporary and new work by established and emerging talent.

Michael Benson, Director of Photo London said: "The reaction to our first edition has been astonishing - far exceeding our own expectations and predictions. Indeed many of our exhibitors have told us that Photo London is the best art fair they have ever attended. Our aim was not to be the biggest, simply to be the best and with our first edition we have taken a huge stride in that direction."

12201011285?profile=originalPhotoLondon saw a major public programme which included three specially commissioned exhibitions, including Beneath the Surface showing works from the V&A's Photographs Collection will remain open until the end of August (see image left); performances and talks. Sebastião Salgado's accepted the first Photo London Master of Photography Award.

Photo London will returned in 2016 from 19-22 May 2016. See more and sign up for emails here: http://photolondon.org/

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12201010684?profile=originalIt is announced that The Irving Penn Foundation is providing a generous grant toward the production of the book, Platinum and Palladium Photographs: Technical and Aesthetic History, Connoisseurship, and Preservation.

This publication represents the extended proceedings of the International Symposium on this subject, held at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, last October, and reported on BPH here

The book will be published by The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works Photographic Materials Group (AIC/PMG), Washington, DC.  The book project coordinator and chief editor will be Constance McCabe, Head of Photograph  Conservation, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The probable date of publication is Summer 2016.

As readers will know, Irving Penn played a critical role in the modern history of the art of platinum photography, passionately exploring the medium in his quest for the perfect and permanent platinum print, which led to a revitalization of this exquisite photographic process. What some readers may not know is that the origin of this present collaborative study of platinum and palladium photographs, which finally involved about 40 researchers across some 20 institutions, can be traced to the preparations for the National Gallery of Art’s 2005 exhibition and publication, Irving Penn: Platinum Prints, during which many questions were raised regarding the highly technical nature of Penn’s photographs and platinum prints in general.  Now, ten years later, new scientific research has made great advances toward a meaningful understanding of the chemical, technical, and aesthetic nature of these complex photographs.

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12201010096?profile=originalBPH Is pleased to report that Julien Faure-Conorton has been awarded a doctorate for his thesis on Robert Demachy. Julien defended his work on 11 May at the EHESS, Paris. His research was carried out under the supervision of Michel Frizot and was titled Characterization, contextualization and reception of Robert Demachy’s photographic work (1859-1936). An abstract is available here. Following his defence he was award the title of Doctor of Art History and Theory, summa cum laude.

Julien is working on an exhibition which examines the work of Robert Demachy and is interested in hearing from institutions interested in hosting it. He can be contacted here:  

Julien FAURE-CONORTON, Ph.D.

Docteur en Histoire et Théorie des Arts

Historien de la Photographie / Photography Historian

j.faureconorton@gmail.com

+33 (0)6 83 16 12 04

LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/pub/julien-faure-conorton/60/453/696/en

Twitter : @Photo_Secession

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12201006883?profile=originalCaptain Linnaeus Tripe (1822-1902) was a pioneer of early photography who created an outstanding body of work depicting the landscape and architecture of India and Burma (now Myanmar) in the 1850s. This major presentation of Tripe’s photographs will include more than 60 of his most striking views taken between 1852 and 1860.

On display will be Tripe’s photographs of architectural sites and monuments, ancient and contemporary religious and secular buildings, as well as roads, bridges, moats, landscape vistas and geological formations throughout India and Burma. Many of the images are the first photographic records of these sites and the prints on view represent the highlights of Tripe’s output. They will be shown alongside bound albums of his work, a panoramic scroll and two models of monuments similar to his subjects.

Linnaeus Tripe was born in 1822 in Devon, the ninth of 12 children, joining the East India Company army in 1839 and stationed in India throughout the 1840s. He learned to photograph during several years on leave in England in the early 1850s. The exhibition will highlight Tripe’s considerable skill at a time when photography was about to undergo rapid change and the practice and recognition was becoming more widely adopted. It will also show his understanding that photography could be used to convey information about unknown cultures and places to the general public.

The photographs on view represent two major expeditions and preserve an important period in Indian, Burmese and British history. In 1855 Tripe was appointed by the governor-general of India to accompany a mission to Burma to study the area. Here Tripe became the first person to photograph the region’s remarkable architecture and landscapes. He then went on to be the first to photograph extensively in south India after his subsequent appointment as photographer to the Madras government. Through this official role Tripe aimed to capture as much of the south Indian region as possible. After each trip he returned with more than 200 large format paper negatives, from which he carefully oversaw the complex printing in his Bangalore studio that he founded for this purpose.

Tripe’s photographs are technically complex and he is known for his innovative precision with the camera, paying close attention to both his composition and its realisation when printing. To evoke atmospheric effects Tripe retouched most of his negatives by applying pigment in thin layers and included in the exhibition will be a selection of waxed-paper negatives that reveal these working methods. Also on display will be a segment of a panoramic scroll showing the inscriptions around the base of the Great Pagoda temple in Tanjore. Composed of more than 20 prints assembled and mounted onto a long canvas scroll, it is now regarded as a considerable technical achievement, given the physical and climatic conditions of the time.

Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860 is organized jointly by the National Gallery of Art, Washington and and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in association with the V&A. It includes photographs from the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Library and many private lenders, as well as photographs and objects from the V&A’s own extensive collection of Tripe’s works. The exhibtion is curated by Roger Taylor, Professor Emeritus, Photographic History, De Montfort University. It has been adapted for the V&A by Martin Barnes, V&A Senior Curator of Photographs.

Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860 Part of the V&A India Festival
24 June – 11 October 2015 www.vam.ac.uk/linnaeustripe| #LinnaeusTripe

Image: Amerapoora: Colossal Statue of Gautama Close to the North End of the Wooden Bridge, 1855, Collection of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro

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12201013259?profile=originalSoldiers and Suffragettes curator, Anna Sparham, Edwardian postcard expert, Guy Atkins and women’s history specialist Di Atkinson, will discuss the remarkable career of Christina Broom and review the role of the image in Edwardian society. There will also be an exclusive after hours viewing of the exhibition at the first of the museum's late night openings of the exhibition.

See more here

Soldiers and Suffragettes: The Photography of Christina Broom
Friday 19 June – Sunday 1 November 2015 

For information on the exhibition and associated events see more here.

Christina Broom is widely considered to be the UK’s first female press photographer, beginning her photographic career at the age of 40, in 1903, when she published her first news photographs as postcards.

This major exhibition, the first entirely dedicated to her, will feature a cross-section of her impressive work including many photographs that have previously been in private collections and never-before-seen on public display. These will be joined by original glass plate negatives, postcards, and objects which build a fuller picture of Broom’s character and her career, including personal possessions, letters, event passes, autograph books, notebooks and cuttings books.

For more information about the exhibition click here.

Image: 'Bermondsey B’hoys’ from the 2nd Grenadier Guards inside their base at Wellington Barracks in either 1914 or 1915 © Museum of London

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12201006657?profile=originalThe London Photograph Fair has announced a collaboration with the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust at its debut Special Edition. Based at Dimbola Museum and Galleries in Freshwater on the Isle of White (the former home of the Camerons), the Trust will be bringing original photographs, albums and personal artifacts from their collection to London; a rare treat to see these artworks on the mainland, even more so in the perfect neo-Gothic surroundings of Two Temple Place, Embankment.

Expert talks on Julia Margaret Cameron's life and career, plus demonstrations of her technique will also be given. The venue - the magnificent Thames-side mansion commissioned by William Waldorf Astor - is one of London's hidden architectural gems, opening to the public for only the second time this year.

The London Photograph Fair is a boutique event for fine, rare, and vintage photographs. International dealers will be offering the opportunity to purchase works from the entire history of the medium, including fine art, travel, exploration, fashion, architectural and press photographs, as well as albums and photobooks.

The London Photograph Fair takes place on 23 and 24 May 2015. See: http://www.photofair.co.uk/

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12201005697?profile=originalThe Bodleian Libraries has launched an ambitious project to create a new web-based research tool that will allow scholars and members of the public to view and search the complete photographic works of British photographic pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot. This online catalogue raisonné will include images of thousands of photographs and negatives by Talbot and his close circle. It will shed new light on Talbot’s photographic discoveries and will invite academics and the public to help fill in the blanks about mystery images.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) was one of the greatest polymaths of the Victorian age, and is most famous today for being the British ‘founder of photography’. He recognised that negatives, with their ability to make multiple prints on paper, would define the central path of photography right through to the digital age. During his career Talbot and his collaborators created more than 4,500 distinct images. Approximately 25,000 of his original negatives and prints are known to survive worldwide. Some are held in the Bodleian’s recently acquired W.H.F. Talbot archive, while other major collections are held by the British Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Media Museum and numerous other institutions, and in the ownership of private individuals worldwide. Collectively, these negatives and prints map the technical and aesthetic progress of the new art of photography, however there is still more that researchers want to find out about these works and, more broadly, the invention of photography and the emergence of Talbot himself as the first photographic artist.

‘A Catalogue Raisonné of Talbot’s work will help unlock the enormous artistic, documentary and technical information embodied in these images,’ said Professor Larry J. Schaaf, Director of the Talbot catalogue raisonné at the Bodleian Libraries and also a Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Oxford.

Catalogues raisonnés are common in the world of art, serving as a detailed academic inventory of an artist’s work. However, nothing of this scale has been attempted for photography. The website, due to go live later in 2015, will be an essential resource for scholars in the history of photography, history of art and the history of science. It will include a great deal of documentary content, such as early images of cities and landscapes that will be of interest in many fields. The images of prints and negatives on the website will be accompanied by notes, annotations and essays with links to relevant publications and other sites. The resource will include the work of Talbot as well as his close circle of family and colleagues who collaborated in his photographic work, including his wife Constance and his mother Lady Elisabeth Feilding.

In contrast to traditional catalogues raisonnés, which are often published as printed volumes, the Talbot catalogue will be a dynamic online publication, allowing material to be published in draft form in order to make as much information available as early as possible. The website will invite members of the public and scholars from a range of fields – from architecture to botany – to add to the catalogue, for example by helping identify unknown people or buildings in photographs or contributing research related to Talbot’s life and work.

‘With a volunteer army of contributors, I hope we’ll discover new photographs and that new research questions will arise,’ said Schaaf. He adopted a similar interactive approach as founder and editor of the online database The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot, which contains annotated full transcriptions of more than 10,000 of Talbot’s letters.

Schaaf has been researching Talbot for more than four decades and has studied Talbot originals in nearly all collections worldwide. His research was greatly enhanced by the generous co-operation of Talbot’s descendants at Lacock Abbey, particularly the late Anthony Burnett-Brown, the great-great grandson of the inventor.

Schaaf developed pioneering databases of Talbot’s work in the early 1980s, before digital humanities became the force that it is today. The Bodleian’s Talbot Catalogue Raisonné will build on these extensive databases and present them in a modern and publicly accessible form. It will contain records on the entire corpus of images produced by Talbot and his close circle. In order to add a rich collection of images to the catalogue raisonné, the project will draw on collections from a number of institutions including the National Media Museum in Bradford, the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Smithsonian Institution and the British Library. Generous funding has been provided by the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

A blog has been launched to provide updates on the development of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné and it can be found online at http://foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

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Research: Who was Christina?

12201004088?profile=originalThe image of Christina by Mervyn O'Gorman will be familiar having been used to promote the exhibition Drawn by Light. The Royal Photographic Society Collection which is still showing at the National Media Museum, Bradford. The Mailonline is trying to find out who Christina was in a feature here. It has interviewed Drawn by Light curator 'and Leeds University lecturer' (better known to BPH readers a National Media Museum curator) Colin Harding who did some biographical research without finding an answer. He has suggested that she was not O'Gorman's daughter but possibly a niece. 

O'Gorman was born in Brighton is 1871 and studied science at University College, Dubin. He later worked in electrical engineering and had a penchant for cars, eventually being crowned vice president of the Royal Automobile Club. 

The talented entrepreneur married Florence Rasch in 1897, and during the first World War, he became a lieutenant-colonel in the RFC.

When he died in 1958 at the age of 87, Melvyn's obituary described him as 'a man of agile mind and Hibernian eloquence'.

12201004488?profile=originalThe article is well worth a read and if you know the answer to who Christina was and what happened to her please contact BPH. It would be nice to scoop the Mail!

Image: The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Media Museum. 

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12201008094?profile=originalThe arrival of photography in London in 1839 would change the way people saw their city, and each other, forever and the collections at LMA contain an extraordinary range of images, recording the capital and its people in stunning detail.

This exhibition presents some of the most striking images of London and Londoners from the era, from the first known photograph of the capital to the opening of Blackwall Tunnel, taking in the Crystal Palace, the first Tube line and life on the city’s streets.

London Metropolitan Archives 
Free during normal opening hours
5 May-8 October 

See: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visiting-the-city/archives-and-city-history/london-metropolitan-archives/Pages/default.aspx

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12201011252?profile=originalBrett Rogers OBE, Director of The Photographers' Gallery, London, will give a talk titled: 'Game Changers' Ten key photography shows that set the agenda for photography curating on Wednesday 29 April at 4.30pm. It will take place in the Main Lecture Theatre, London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle, SE1 6SB and is part of LCC Photography's talks programme. The talk is free and all are welcome. 

See: www.lcc.arts.ac.uk

Image: Viviane Sassen, In Bloom, Dazed and Confused, July 2011. Courtesy: the artist and The Photographers' Gallery. 

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12201006685?profile=originalBelow are details of the 2015 summer term programme for the History of Photography Seminars. The seminars are free/open to all and will take place at The Courtauld Institute of Art.

  • Tuesday, 5 May – Liena Vayzman (LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York): Claude Cahun’s Photographic Self-Portraits: Staging the Self and the Aesthetics of Resistance. 5.30pm, Research Forum Seminar Room  more information
  • Wednesday, 10 June – David Campany: Polished steel and palpitating flesh: Photography Between Image and Object. 5.30pm, Research Forum Seminar Room   more information

 Further information : http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/calendar.shtml

Research Forum

The Courtauld Institute of Art

Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

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12201007896?profile=originalBPH learnt recently that Marc Boulay was to return to his native Canada after a successful spell as photography archivist at the University of St Andrews Library. We asked Marc to say a few words...

Following a very rewarding seven years, this marks my last week as Photographic Archivist within the Special Collections Division of the University of St Andrews Library.  I am returning to Toronto, Canada, and in May shall begin a new career path working with Axiell ALM, specialising in collections management systems for archives, libraries and museums around the world. A change of direction for certain, but rest assured my passion for photography will endure!

I have greatly enjoyed working with my colleagues in the UK and am so very grateful for everyone’s willingness to share their time and energy in advancing the aims of the Photographic Collection at St Andrews. The material held here is truly amazing and, I’m proud to say, is now more readily available for research by a wider public. Following my years of building infrastructure, developing the collection in new directions, and establishing a vibrant network of likeminded colleagues, my departure is bittersweet, as it is now that the work taking place at St Andrews is gaining proper momentum. 

Looking back, what moves me most is my time with each of you, the precious all too rare moments basking in the wonder of the collections, and the enthusiasm for photography in Scotland and the rest of the UK which endures all! As evidence of this, check out the Season of Photography website, which is but one of the more public initiatives I am proud to have contributed to over the years.

I know that I am leaving the Photographic Collection in good hands and I will certainly watch with great interest to see how it evolves in the years to come.  

Marc Boulay / marc.boulay@axiell.com (from 4 May)

 

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Obituary: Terry King FRPS

12201007475?profile=originalBPH has been notified that Terry King FRPS died on 20 April. Terry was a photographer, teacher and poet as well as an accomplished photographer and practitioner across a range alternative photographic process. Terry was chair of the RPS Historical Group between 2003 and 2007 and gained his Fellowship for a set of gum bichromate prints.

He ran Hands-On Pictures for many years in Twickenham and, latterly, in Kingston-on-Thames.

Details of the funeral arrangements will be posted when known. 

A fuller obituary is on The RPS website. 

Image: Terry King, a daguerreotype by Mike Robinson

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12201008478?profile=originalDespite huge popularity across the social strata in the United States of America, Victorian tintype photography never attained the same level of acceptance in Great Britain and as a result it has been annexed to the periphery of photographic history. The photographic establishment's adherence to the inflexible structure of the British class system created a hierarchy of respectability within photography and the tintype's negative reputation was nurtured in contemporary journals and publications, including the British Journal of Photography.

12201009272?profile=originalThis stigma continued into the 20th Century as Helmut Gernsheim and Alison Gernsheim's 1955 tome The History of Photography still derided tintypes as “these hideous, cheap-looking pictures”, decades after they had become synonymous with lower class itinerant or seasonal portrait photographers or as spur-of-the-moment seaside novelties. Fast forward to the 21st Century and tintype photography is now enjoying a renaissance amongst the alternative photographic process community and contemporary tintypes are again being created across the globe.

This exhibition of original 19th Century photographs will reveal the tintype as an invaluable document of working class people and their photographers, and help to reposition tintypes as a significant and worthy subject within photographic history.

Victorian Britain and the Tintype Photograph. An exhibition of Victorian tintypes curated by Sheila Masson

English Speaking Union Scotland Gallery, 23 Atholl Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 8HQ

Saturday 27th June - 19th July 2015


Contactbritishtintypes@gmail.com
www.britishtintypes.com
www.facebook.com/britishtintypes
Twitter: @britishtintypes

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12201013489?profile=originalThe Royal Society for Asian Affairs (RSAA), a registered charity with Royal Charter, with a mission 'to promote greater knowledge and understanding of Central Asia and countries from the Middle East to Japan' and the specific objective 'to conserve all of the Society’s valuable archives, photographic and written' is offering thirteen lots of rare books and early and important photographs at a Sotheby's auction later this month. The lots are expected to realise around £250,000. A number of academics, curators and librarians have mounted a campaign to protest against the sale.

Amongst the photographs being sold are important albums by J C Watson showing China c.1867-1870; John Thomson's Antiquities of Cambodia, c1867; J C White photographs of Sikhim and Tibet and others.The lots can be seen here.

The sale appears to be the result of the RSAA's spending exceeding income since at least 2009, although it does have investments of nearly £300,000. The RSAA's accounts and Charity Commission filings can be viewed here.

This is not the first time that the RSAA has tried to sell part of its historic archive. In 2014 a unique map annotated by T E Lawrence was offered at a Sotheby's auction with an estimate of £70,000-100,000. It was withdrawn soon after news of the sale broke. Read more here.

There have been a number of sales from UK museum and gallery collections as local authorities have attempted to preserve services in the face of government funding cuts. This recently prompted an unprecedented joint statement by ten of the UK's leading funding, membership and museum bodies on unethical sales of public collections. The signatories which include Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund will refuse to work with, or provide grants or funding, to museums whose governing bodies choose to sell items from their collections in contravention of long-standing de-accessioning protocols. 

At the time of writing the RSAA was unavailable for comment and it has been asked for a statement on the forthcoming sale. This will be published here when it is provided. 

Image: From lot 257. Watson, Major J.C., Dr John Dudgeon, John Thomson, (and others?). ALBUM OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF PEKING (BEIJING), NINGPO (NINGBO), AND ENVIRONS. [CHINA, LATE 1860S]. Estimate £40,000 — 60,000

Original post: 8 April 2015 / UPDATED: 18 April

The RSAA issued a statement on 15 April acknowledging 'the deep and understandable concerns' of members and non-members. It added that the sale was essential to ensure the long-term future of the Society and that 'no further sales are envisaged'.

UPDATE 2: 4 May

The sale realised £136,250 (including buyer's premium) and it is likely that the RSAA will net less than £100,000, much less than the exoected £250,000 plus originally expected. 

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Bursary: MA Photographic History

12200943683?profile=originalDe Montfort University is pleased to announce the availability of one Taylor Bursary for its MA in Photographic History. The Bursary offers £5,000 toward the defrayal of tuition and other costs related to the MA, and is open to all students UK, EU and International.

To apply for the Taylor Bursary, please submit your cv and a proposal outlining your MA thesis topic, in English, to the Programme Leader by 15 May 2015. This proposal should be around, but no longer than 4,000 words. For questions about the MA programme or the Taylor Bursary Fellowship please contact Programme Leader, Dr Kelley Wilder at kwilder@dmu.ac.uk

The Taylor Bursary will be awarded to the applicant who will contribute significantly to the field of photographic history.

The MA in Photographic History is the first course of its kind in the UK, taking as it does the social and material history of photography at its centre. It lays the foundations for understanding the scope of photographic history and provides the tools to carry out the independent research in this larger context, working in particular from primary source material. You will work with public and private collections throughout Britain, handling photographic material, learning analogue photographic processes, writing history from objects in collections, comparing historical photographic movements, and debating the canon of photographic history. You also learn about digital preservation and access issues through practical design projects involving website and database design. Research Methods are a core component, providing students with essential handling, writing, digitising and presentation skills needed for MA and Research level work, as well as jobs in the field.

For further details on the course and application process, please see the course description here.

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12201018896?profile=originalEdinburgh's Stills' presents a two-person exhibition showcasing historically important work by Anna Atkins (1799-1871) and Margaret Watkins (1884-1969), who made pioneering photographic work in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively. All works in this exhibition will be on loan from collections in Scotland.

Fascinated by science and art, Anna Atkins became one of the earliest pioneers of photography. In 1843, she started to produce British Algae; Cyanotype Impressions, the first book ever to be illustrated with photographs. The cyanotype process allowed her to experiment with a new method of accurately depicting botanical specimens in a book.

The modernist photographer Margaret Watkins had a successful career in New York and was active in the Clarence White school of photography before circumstances led to her relocation to Glasgow in the late 1920s. Her work became largely forgotten until, after her death, hundreds of photographs were discovered by her friend and neighbour.

ANNA ATKINS: Cyanotypes

MARGARET WATKINS: Advertising photography

Saturday 25 April - Sunday 12 July 2015

Open daily | 11am - 6pm | FREE

Read more here

Images: (left) Anna Atkins Ptilota Sericea, (circa 1843) cyanotype © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection; (right) Margaret Watkins, 'Hand Cigarette Holder' ('Myers Gloves'), (1924). Courtesy of the Margaret Watkins' Archive c/o Joe Mulholland, Glasgow

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12201018279?profile=originalDebbie Ireland will talk about Isabella Bird and how she - the nineteenth century’s most renowned woman travel writer - became a photographer. The talk takes place at The Royal Photographic Society in Bath on 5 May 2015 and coincides with the publication of Debbie's new book of the same tile. A student of John Thomson, Bird (who was also a RPS member) recorded her three very different journeys in Chinai including her exploration of the Yangtze Valley and beyond.

At the talk here will be an opportunity to purchase and have signed copies of Debbie's newly published book. Isabella Bird A Photographic Journal of Travels Through China 1894-1896 (£25, Ammonite Press, April 2015) covers three journeys, beginning in the small port of Chefoo in 1894, where she arrived without money or luggage having been expelled from Korea. The photographic journal ends in 1896 with Isabella’s exploration of the Yangtze River and beyond.

12201018487?profile=originalThis lavish pictorial record, produced in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), features 200 unique photographs taken by Isabella during her final Chinese expedition. The photographs and original observations, commented on by travel expert Deborah Ireland, transport readers to nineteenth century China and the insightful social observations of a passionate, courageous and unstoppable woman.

Deborah Ireland has spent seventeen years working in photography, having held the positions of Assistant Curator of The Royal Photographic Society’s Collection, head of the AA World Travel picture library and a judge for Travel Photographer of the Year since its inception in 2003. Deborah’s interest in the history of travel photography led her to research and write for The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), leading to the publication of Isabella Bird.

- See more at: http://www.rps.org/events/2015/may/05/isabella-bird---photographic-travels-through-china-189496

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