Early scientific ‘photographs of the invisible’ — from x-ray to photomicrography, motion studies to pictures of electrical charges — have had a profound effect on the development of modern and contemporary art.  Bringing together world-renowned artists, curators and academics, and coinciding with the final days of Revelations: Experiments in Photography, this one-day symposium examines the importance of early scientific photography for the creative arts and the ways in which its meanings have shifted across time and space.

Speakers include:

• John Blakinger, Stanford University / National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
• Marta Braun, Ryerson University
• Ben Burbridge, University of Sussex / co-curator Revelations
• Ori Gersht, artist
• Marek Kukula, Royal Observatory Greenwich
• Corey Keller, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Sarah Pickering, artist
• Kelley Wilder, De Montfort University  

Panels will be chaired by: Greg Hobson (National Media Museum / co-curator Revelations); David Alan Mellor (University of Sussex); and Sean O’Hagan (The Guardian).

Organised in collaboration with the Centre for the Visual, University of Sussex.

Beyond Vision: Art, Photography and Science
12 September 2015
10:30 – 17:30

£15 adult/ £12.50 senior/ £10 concessions

For more information and to book tickets visit the Science Museum website here.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Professor of Photographic History, Director of Photographic History Research Centre, at De Montfort University, Leicester, has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). The honour is given in recognition of outstanding research and it is the first time that a photographic historian has been recognised by the Academy in this way.

Edwards is retiring from DMU at the end of the year and her post has been advertised and applications remain open until 18 September.  

The IS&T Archiving Conference brings together an international community of imaging experts and technicians as well as curators, managers, and researchers from libraries, archives, museums, records management repositories, information technology institutions, and commercial enterprises to explore and discuss the field of digitization of cultural heritage and archiving. The conference presents the latest research results on digitization and curation, provides a forum to explore new strategies and policies, and reports on successful projects that can serve as benchmarks in the field. Archiving 2016 is a blend of short courses, invited focal papers, keynote talks, and peer-reviewed oral and interactive display presentations, offering attendees a unique opportunity for gaining and exchanging knowledge and building networks among professionals.

You can see more here or download the attachment here: Archiving2016_Call_for_Papers.pdf. 

York, and more recently Bradford-based, Impressions Gallery, along with London's The Photographers' Gallery, are the United Kingdom's oldest extant photography galleries. They have both survived the years and continue to produce exciting, ground-breaking and simply, interesting, exhibitions of photography, albeit with significant Arts Council England funding. 

To coincide with the transfer of its archives, which date back to its founding in 1972, to the National Media Museum, Impressions Gallery has produced an 80-page book summarising its history and outlining its current activities and ethos. Compiled by Director Anne McNeil and Head of Programme Pippa Oldfield, the book is part history and part hagiography. It may also be a justification for the Gallery's existence - despite the fact that Impressions Gallery hardly needs a book to justify itself. In the current declining public funding climate it probably does no harm to show national and local politicians and funding bodies such as ACE what it has achieved over its forty-plus years. The pages are interspersed with inserted sections showing where its exhibitions have toured to, the photographers it has exhibited, and its reach in its new home in the city of Bradford. 

This book is not the history of Impressions Gallery that some would want, but it is far more than simply a justification for why the Gallery exists. The book will prove to be a starting point for historians looking at Britain's still modest photography scene and it does much to show why Impressions Gallery has justified its funding over the years. 

As for the Impressions Gallery archives these are now, in theory, accessible to researchers and the public through Insight at the National Media Museum. It is from those that a fuller history of Impressions Gallery and the UK's post-1970s gallery scene will need to be based upon.

Visit Impressions Gallery here: http://www.impressions-gallery.com/

The History and Archives department of the German Photographic Association (DGPh) is awarding a grant concerning the history of the German-language photobook. This grant, which, initially, is going to be advertised over a ten-year period at two-yearly intervals, is intended specifically to promote historical research into all aspects of photojournalism as a part of general photography history. The grant owes its existence to the initiative and legacy of the internationally renowned designer, curator, collector and photography promoter Manfred Heiting (DGPh).

Treatment of the following, related topical fields is conceivable, for instance:

• History of photomechanical printing methods as well as of the associated industries (printers/graphic arts institutions/block factories, paper makers, press builders) in the late 19th and 20th century
• History of photographic publishers
• The photographer and the book
• On the relationship of photographers and publishers as image suppliers and image exploiters

To read more and to apply, see: http://www.dgph.de/preise/dgph-stipendium-zur-geschichte-des-deutschsprachigen-photobuchs

Christina Riggs, FSA, will discuss the use of photography in the excavation of the legendary Egyptian tomb, which Howard Carter discovered in 1922. How did photography shape the way the excavation was conducted, the presentation of the find in the press, and the archaeologists’ own ideas about what they had found? This lecture will present work-in-progress on Dr Riggs’ current project, ‘Photographing Tutankhamun’, a study of the tomb’s 3,000-strong photographic archive.  The project has been supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, and a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

Image: Howard Carter peers into the gilded shrines surrounding the burial of king Tutankhamun. Photograph by Harry Burton. Copyright the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

See more and book (tickets are free) at: https://www.sal.org.uk/events/2016/02/the-camera-and-the-king-photographing-the-excavation-of-tutankhamuns-tomb/

The status of photographs in the history of museum collections is a complex one. From its very beginnings the double capacity of photography - as a tool for making a visual record on the one hand and an aesthetic form in its own right on the other - has created tensions about its place in the hierarchy of museum objects. While major collections of 'art' photography have grown in status and visibility, photographs not designated 'art' are often invisible in museums. Yet almost every museum has photographs as part of its ecosystem, gathered as information, corroboration or documentation, shaping the understanding of other classes of objects, and many of these collections remain uncatalogued and their significance unrecognised. 

This volume presents a series of case studies on the historical collecting and usage of photographs in museums. Using critically informed empirical investigation, it explores substantive and historiographical questions such as what is the historical patterning in the way photographs have been produced, collected and retained by museums? How do categories of the aesthetic and evidential shape the history of collecting photographs? What has been the work of photographs in museums? What does an understanding of photograph collections add to our understanding of collections history more broadly? What are the methodological demands of research on photograph collections?

The case studies cover a wide range of museums and collection types, from art galleries to maritime museums, national collections to local history museums, and international perspectives including Cuba, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Together they offer a fascinating insight into both the history of collections and collecting, and into the practices and poetics of archives across a range of disciplines, including the history of science, museum studies, archaeology and anthropology.

Editor(s): Elizabeth Edwards, Christopher Morton

See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/photographs-museums-collections-9781472533661/

Bromley House Library, Nottingham, is opening The Pauline Heathcote Archive at Bromley House Library on 29 July at 2.30pm. Bromley House was the home of the first commercial photographic studio in Nottingham and was in use from 1841 until 1955. Eric Butler has been working with Bernard Heathcote and Bromley House to set up a research centre for the history of photography based on Pauline Heathcote’s extensive and thorough research notes. There is also a small photographic museum celebrating the important photographic heritage of Bromley House.

The main archive and other exhibits are housed on the third floor. The reception will be held on the first floor where some examples from Pauline’s Archive together with some exhibits will be displayed. There is, unfortunately, no lift access.

If you are interesting in attending the opening RSVP by 22 July 2015 to Bromley House Library, Bromley House, Angel Row, Nottingham, NG1 6HL. t: 0115 9473134 w: http://www.bromleyhouse.org/

Bry-sur-Marne, France, the birthplace of Louis Daguerre, which has done much to reclaim his legacy in recent  years, will be the venue for The Daguerreotype Symposium organised Daguerreobase in collaboration with the European Daguerreotype Association (EDA). It will take the them of Outside the Studio. Landscape and Cityscape Daguerreotypes. It will take place from 8-9 October 2015. 

Read more here.

De Montfort University is pleased to announce the availability of one Wilson Fellowship for its MA in Photographic History. The Fellowship 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 Wilson Fellowship, please submit your cv and a proposal outlining your MA thesis topic, in English, to the Admissions Committee by 3 August. This proposal should be no longer than 4,000 words. For applications to the MA, please contact Student Recruitment at the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at adhadmissions@dmu.ac.uk or apply online through our website. For questions about the MA programme or the Wilson Fellowship please contact Programme Leader, Dr Kelley Wilder at kwilder@dmu.ac.uk.

The Wilson Fellowship will be awarded to applicants 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 a course description at our web pages.

Regular BPH readers will be aware of the general story of the Quillan Leaf. Some of you may have attended the recent Rethinking Early Photography conference at the University of Lincoln where Professor Larry Schaaf, gave a public lecture which, for the first time, told the story of the leaf. It presented the outcome of further research which identified the likely author of the leaf image, adding a new name to British photography's early canon. 

BPH is pleased to provide exclusive advance access to a video of Schaaf's lecture at the link here http://youtu.be/iP3sloApu50: or below and titled The Damned Leaf: Musings on History, Hysteria and Historiography.

BPH offers its thanks to Professor Schaaf, Dr Owen Clayton, the conference organiser, and Adam O'Meara who undertook the video production. 

'Professor Schaaf's talk will be made public on the conference website on Monday, with other conference keynote talks to follow - check back for a link.

The Royal Collection Trust, Windsor Castle, is offering a paid curatorial internship in the photographs department. The aim is to encourage the successful applicant to gain new skills and the opportunity to develop knowledge of one of the world's largest art collections. 

About the role

From 1840s prints to present day film, the collection of photographic items is internationally renowned. You will gain first-hand experience in a wide range of curatorial activities, including researching the photographs and assisting with their display and presentation through a range of media. You'll also help with the administrations of loans and exhibitions, and have the opportunity to develop an insight into a specific area of curatorial responsibility through individual project work.

With the chance to benefit from the expertise of Curators within our Photograph Collection team, you'll be able to develop your skills and enjoy the rewards of working in an exciting and high-profile organisation.  

About you

With a keen interest in the history of photography, art and the Royal Collection, you have the ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team. You have an organised approach and excellent written and verbal communication skills, and you know how to use initiative and take responsibility. Above all, you're eager to immerse yourself in the unique learning opportunities that the collection presents.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to use your passion for history of art and enthusiastic approach to develop new skills and take the next step in your career.

How to apply

 For further information and to apply online, please visit http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/about/working-for-royal-collection-trust

Windsor Castle

£15,307.50 per annum (pro rata)

The closing date for applications is 21 July 2015.

Royal Collection Trust is committed to equality of opportunity.

Biblioteca Nacional de España has organised an exhibition curated by Helena Pérez Gallardo, Delfín Rodríguez Ruiz titled Looking at Architecture. Monumental Photography in the XIX Century. It runs from 3 July-4 October 2015 in Madrid at the Biblioteca Nacional de España.  

Since the birth of the daguerreotype, buildings and monuments have been one of the main objects photographed. This exhibition intends to reveal the different links that connected photography, architecture and engineering in the nineteenth century through a broad investigation into the holdings of the National Library of Spain and accompanied by works of great importance belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Prado National Museum, among other institutions.

The exhibition, which is divided into six sessions that include over two hundred works, will use treatises, engravings and albums to explain what the representation of architecture was like up to that moment and why there emerged a need to reproduce architecture in Europe, to then respond to the reasons that motivated the choice of the works and monuments to be photographed, concluding with what was the main destination for all of these photographs. In short, Looking at Architecture intends to show the how, why, when, who, what for and for what reason photography of architecture was produced, and particularly what where the characteristics of its practice in Spain.

It is accompanied by a book of the same title. 

Biblioteca Nacional de España
Paseo de Recoletos, 20-22
28071 Madrid

Mar-Sab / Tue-Sat: 10.00 – 20.00 h
Dom, Fest / Sun, Hol: 10.00 – 14.00 h

Entrada / Admission: Gratuita / Free

Metro: Metro: Serrano / Colón

More info: www.bne.es

Edinburgh International Book Festival is presenting Alison Morrison-Low and Sara Stevenson, curators of the National Museums of Scotland major exhibition (and associated publication) Photography: A Victorian Sensiation at a special event on 18 August. In an age where we are all happy snappers, we forget the photographic revolution that took place in 19th century Britain. Join the National Museum of Scotland’s curator A D Morrison-Low (pictured, right) and Sara Stevenson, formerly chief curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, to discover how the Victorian craze for the photograph transformed the way we capture images today and mirrors our own modern-day fascination for recording the world around us. Chaired by Ruth Wishart. Book here. 

In addition, the Museum is also hosting a series of events around the exhibition including a history of photography short course, a lecture on stereoscopy by Denis Pellerin and a symposium on Scottish photography. See all the events here.

Details of the symposiuum programme which includes presentations from John Falconer, Roger Taylor, Anne Lyden, Helen James, Mary Panzer, Sara Stevenson and Ray McKenzie can be seen here.

A treasure trove of materials relating to John Logie Baird’s first-ever transmission of trans-Atlantic television pictures is at risk of being exported unless a UK buyer can be found to match the £78,750 asking price. In order to provide a last chance to keep the archive in the UK, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on the items in the hope a UK buyer can be found in the time permitted. BPH understands that a UK museum is looking in to the possibility of finding the funds to acquire the material. 

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said:

Britain led the world in the development of television technology in the 1920’s, all due to the pioneering work of John Logie Baird and his colleagues. It belongs in Britain where it would be of huge importance for the study of the history of television, and I hope a UK buyer will come forward to save it for the nation.

Between November 1926 and April 1927 – John Logie Baird and his assistant, Benjamin Clapp developed the idea of rigging up a receiving station and television receiver in America and transmitting pictures over telephone lines from Baird’s laboratories in London, to Clapp’s house in Surrey and from there (where there was a powerful transmitter station), by wireless to the East Coast of the United States of America.

The archive is comprised of: Benjamin Clapp’s radio log books for the USA receiving station and his amateur radio station (GK2Z) used in the transmission, related paper ephemera, and a gramophone “Phonovision” disc (SWT515-4), containing an early video recording made on 20th September 1927. It is the only known Phonovision disc which depicts images of ‘Stookie Bill’, one of Baird’s famous ventriloquist dummies which is in the collection of the National Media Museum. It is the earliest Phonovision disc in existence, and thus the world’s earliest surviving video recording.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey took the decision to defer granting an export licence for the items following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), administered by Arts Council England. The RCEWA made their recommendation on the grounds that the items are closely connected with our history and national life and that they are of outstanding significance for the study of the history of national and international television and for our wider understanding of twentieth century communications.

RCEWA Member Christopher Rowell said:

The Columbia disc and the notes connected with this world first of a transantlantic video recording represents British ingenuity and invention at the highest level. The notes contain the first ever use of the acronym ‘TV’ for television. The excitement of the achievement rests in these objects, which we hope will remain in this country as a permanent testament to Logie Baird and his team. Their departure abroad would also be a serious loss to scholarship.

The decision on the export licence application for the phonovision disc and ephemera will be deferred for a period ending on 28 September 2015 inclusive. This period may be extended until 28 December 2015 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase the items is made at the recommended price of £78,750.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, is currently seeking a freelance consultant lecturer for the MA in Photography (Historical and Contemporary). The Programme Director is Dr Juliet Hacking. The consultant lecturer will take on the role of Programme Unit Leader and lead tutor for ‘Contemporary Photography, 1968 until now’, a 30 credit unit, for the academic year 2015-16. The teaching will take place one day per week in Semesters One and Two (with occasion commitments on other days). The successful candidate will be paid according to a day rate, with a contract specifying the total number of days to be worked. Applicants must have a PhD in a relevant field and the ability to work in the UK.

For further information/to apply for the role, please send a CV and covering letter by midday on 10th July 2015 to vacancies@sothebysinstitute.com

This exhibition showcases Historic England's photographic collections, which date from the 1850s to the present day. Photographers have taken pictures of England's buildings and landscapes since photography was first invented. These photographs were taken for many reasons – to capture the picturesque, to make a living, to promote or condemn, or to record what is disappearing or is normally hidden. Collectively these images have changed the way we see and understand our environment.

A book of the same title has also been published. It features over 300 striking photographs from the Historic England Archive, an unparalleled collection of 9 million images on England's buildings and landscapes from the 1850s to the present. Viewed collectively, its photographic collections record the changing face of England from the beginning of photography to the present day. They form a remarkable national asset, a huge memory bank that helps us understand and interpret the past, informs the present and assists with future management and appreciation of the historic environment.

With informative essays and captions by the authors, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in photography, architecture, archaeology or social history.

Picturing England: The photographic collections of Historic England by Mike Evans, Gary Winter & Ann Woodward. £45.00, 344pp. ISBN 978-1-84802-099-3. Read more or order here.

Picturing England: The photographic collections of Historic England on show at:
Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square: 2 July 2015 – 21 September 2015

In a sign of growing confidence for the future of Bradford's National Media Museum and the start of the realisation of the Museum's exciting development plan the Science Museum Group is seeking an architec/lead designer for a new interactive gallery which will look at light, sound and perception, the basis of all the Museum's technology collections.

The winning team will oversee the design and construction of a new exhibition space. According to the contract notice: ‘This commission is intended to appoint a design practice that is able to provide architectural/gallery design services, but also help procure, manage and lead a team of specialist designers under the guidance of the external project manager...The lead designer will be expected to coordinate their own design, along with the design input of their team of specialist designers, with the 30 interactive exhibits designed and procured separately by the client team.’

The opening of the gallery is expected to be December 2016 and the value of construction work is anticipated to be £520,000, which does not include the cost of purchasing exhibits which will come from the Museum's collection.

The announcement comes after Bradford Council and the Science Museum Group pledged £1 million each towards improvements at the high-profile museum. The Museum has developed an exciting plan for its future although it depends on securing funding. 

The deadline for for submission of tenders is 17 July. See: http://sciencemuseum.mytenders.org/Search/Show/Search_View.aspx?ID=JUN110530

The V&A last night opened Captain Linnaeus Tripe Photographer of India and Burma 1852-1860. William Dalrymple and Museum Director Martin Roth introduced the exhibition which features some of the earliest and most striking views of the landscape and architecture of India and Burma, by a pioneering British photographer. It forms part of the V&A India Festival.

The exhibition was co-curated by Emeritus Professor Roger Taylor (shown below with Martin Roth) and is accompanied by a superb publication.   

See more here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/captain-linneaus-tripe-photographer-of-india-and-burma-1852-1860/

Every so often BPH comes across something that looks interesting or harks back to photographic history in some way. The Lumigraphe is a camera obscura which combines the functionality of your smartphone's camera to take photographs... no need for sensitised photogenic drawing paper. Just think what Talbot could have done with it... Plus you can use it with sensitised paper too.

In the words of the designer: 'The Lumigraphe is a camera obscura for your smartphone that authentically captures the beautiful effects of this historic optical device. Photos and videos shot with the Lumigraphe have a distinct look defined by beautiful color saturation and a soft, dream-like focus. The natural grain and delicate vignette create a quality that feels like film - with a depth and texture beyond anything you can make with a digital filter.' As they so no need for Instagram filters, this is all real life and real world...

It may look a but cumbersome but maybe smaller models or even a reflex model can be designed. 

You can read more about it here - and there's only until 6 July to make sure the project is funded: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lumigraphe/lumigraphe-a-camera-obscura-for-your-smartphone?ref=nav_search

and if you want a conventional pinhole camera then check out the ONDU here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ondu-/ondu-pinhole-cameras-mk-ii?ref=nav_search