The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed an international occurrence of art movements aiming at a return to skilled craftsmanship and individual handiwork, usually summarized under the Arts and Crafts Movement. These movements can be described as “an unfocused reaction against industrialization” (Crawford). Installing small workshops and reviving old techniques, they often associated their ideals with medieval times.
Around 1880, photography joined this aesthetic movement with the rise of pictorialism, equally promoting elaborate techniques and opposing simplified photographic possibilities and mechanical mass production. Manipulation of the negative as well as the positive was one of the main, albeit contested topics in international pictorial circles throughout their existence. Photographers aimed at ever more complex forms of picture making that demanded most skillful users, thereby removing themselves from the growing crowd of practicing photographers (Keller). Although this fact today is widely known within the history of photography, its roots in a broader orientation towards ideals associated with medieval arts and crafts still need to be examined. Furthermore, references to iconographic models of medieval art are a recurring phenomenon of pictorial photography that has yet to be explored.
This session aims to close this gap in research by clarifying in what way pictorialists used prevailing ideals and iconographic models of medieval times to warrant their strategies of establishing photography as an art. When, how and to what purpose were references and allusions to medieval models and styles employed? Which picture of medieval times did pictorialists create in order to be able to use it to their ends?
Papers might address issues of organization, iconography, gender, artistic and photographic networks and practices, national and international circles and exhibitions, and paradigms of handcraft. We invite papers from scholars and postgraduate students casting an analyzing look at the complex relationship between pictorial photography and its incorporation of references to medieval models and ideals.
Please send your inquiries and abstracts of no more than 300 words to caroline.fuchs@univie.ac.at. The deadline for abstract submission is September 15, 2011. For further information about the conference including travel grants visit the following website: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/ 

CFP: Medieval Views: The Role of the Medieval in Pictorial Photography 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 10-13, 2012, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo)

Jack Tait has kindly supplied two files which provide important information on British postwar photographic education and some of the people involved:

1. A small file version of the CV instances chapter originally written for Jack's PhD but omitted due to lack of space in the final thesis. It covers his involvement with photographic education with particular reference to creative activity. CV%20Creative%20instances.pdf

2. A list of names with dates where possible of all the people he met who were connected with Photographic Education.Photo%20Education%20staff.pdf

Jack is keen to make these available for researchers and interested parties as he says:

"It might then give some researchers a starting point for their investigations. I propose to keep adding to this as when new material emerges. It might be seen in conjunction with Mike Hallett's reviews which he produced for the BJP which were very extensive. I have tried to make it as accurate as possible and apologies to anyone whose name I have missed out.

The order of names is arbitrary and does not indicate the extent of the individual's contribution. Some contributions are large and significant and others less so but whose part is still important and might fill in gaps in people's research. It is of course up to others to rank order this list and to assign values to the contributions."

BPH is happy to host these files. If researchers make use of the material please credit Jack Tait and BPH. 

Bushey Museum and Art Gallery, located near Watford, opens a temporary exhibition Amateur Photography in Bushey on 4 August. The display in the museum's entrance area displays cameras from the museum collection ranging from an 1870s George Hare quarter-plate tailboard camera up to modern digital cameras by way of an original Kodak, various Brownies, a Leica, AGI, Instamatic and many others. The cameras were owned or used by Bushey residents and the display has been arranged by museum volunteers Michael Pritchard and Patrick Forsyth.

Over forty cameras are on display (part only showing in course of arrangement, right) including the only camera actually made in Bushey - the J. Langham Thompson Thompson Land oscilloscope camera dating from the 1950s-1960s. The exhibition runs until early December 2011.

The museum is located close to the M1 and M25 and there is parking available close by.  Details of the museum's location and openings times can be found here: http://www.busheymuseum.org

The Design Museum, London, is holding a retrospective of Britain’s leading product designer titled Kenneth Grange - Making Britain Modern. Grange was responsible for designing some of the most iconic and familiar products and appliances that shape our daily lives. These include Kodak cameras such as the Instamatic range during the late 1950s-1970s. The exhibition is well worth visiting.

Correspondence between Kodak and Grange is held in the Kodak Historical Archive at the British Library.

More details are here: http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2011/kenneth-grange

The exhibition is at: Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD. Open: 10.00 -17.45 daily. Last admission: 17.15. Admissions: £10.00 Adults, £9.00 Concessions, £6.00 Students under 12s Free.
T: 020 7940 8790 W: www.designmuseum.org 

The photographs below show the entrance of the exhibition and part of the exhibit dealing with the Instamatic camera - which is just part of the photographic/Kodak content.  

The director of George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film will retire in one year, on July 31, 2012, the organization announced Friday. Anthony Bannon has been director of the museum since 1996 and his 15-year tenure makes him the longest-standing director in the history of the museum. An international search will begin in coming months and Bannon will assist in the search process, Eastman House officials said.

"I am totally invested in George Eastman House and its wonderful extended family, but I feel it is time," said Bannon, the Ron and Donna Fielding Director. "We have set into place a new and vigorous strategic direction, and it is time for new energy and vision to move that forward.

“I have been saying for years that our forbearers here at George Eastman House wrote the book about the photograph and film as objects worthy of preservation, of care, and of significance. Now it comes to us to share how these work in history and culture and to use them as vehicles that can carry us to any destination we might choose."

During Bannon’s tenure the museum created three post-graduate preservation schools, alliances with museums and universities, collectors clubs in large U.S. cities and many of the most-attended exhibitions in the museum's 64-year history, museum officials said. The museum also digitized its collections and began social-media campaigns to share its collections with the world.

Bannon led an effort to diversify the board of trustees, which now has more of a national focus with many members from outside the Rochester area, museum officials said. He also led creation of collectors clubs in large cities such as New York City and Los Angeles, and has initiated plans for satellite schools in photograph conservation in South Korea and Qatar.

Bannon plans to remain as George Eastman House Senior Scholar, a title appointed by the organization’s board of trustees. He said he plans to continue working in the arts field as speaker, writer and consultant.

See: http://www.rbj.net/article.asp?aID=188227

In a new 3D documentary commissioned for Sky 3D, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D takes the viewer on a fascinating journey from the gentle 3D of the Victorian era to the extreme out-of-the-screen 3D of the 1980s. The documentary will be screened on Sky 3D on 7 July 2011.

3D has endured a long bumpy journey. From William Friese Greene simply walking along a Hyde Park pathway in an 1893 3D short to Johnny Depp’s swashbuckling antics in Pirates of the Caribbean IV in 2011, 3D has come and gone several times. Some pundits are arguing that the current 3D era is already coming to an end, pointing to slowing 3D ticket sales; others are saying that there is no going back now and that, for the first time, technology and economics finally make 3D a viable form of mainstream entertainment.

Over the last 100 years, the 3D industry has been scattered with various attempts to lure audiences back into the movie theatres. It is this story that Brian May, ex-guitarist of rock band Queen, explores in the Sky 3D’s latest documentary commission, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D, scheduled for broadcast July 7th.

Not only is Brian May a qualified astro physicist, he is also a passionate advocate of stereoscopic 3D, particularly Victorian 3D of which he has accumulated a substantial collection of Victorian 3D memorabilia over the past forty years. Brian May’s lifelong 3D interest has materialised into a book, A Village Lost and Found, published in 2009. The book includes a proprietary 3D viewer known as the OWL, which brings the book’s 2D images into 3D life and was actually designed by Brian May himself.

Produced by Bigger Pictures in conjunction with Widescreen Productions ,who also produced Britain from the Sky 3D series, (which is currently being broadcast every Thursday on Sky 3D) Brian May’s 3D documentary is a genuinely fascinating look into stereo 3D right from the very early days of Victorian stereoscopic filming to the digital 3D of today. Clips include the insane film “Coming At Ya!” a 1980’s western film that, as you can probably guess from the title, used 3D as its main selling point with nearly every sequence featuring action jumping out of the screen. This is so rarely seen in today’s 3D movies and television shows. Yes, it is gimmicky, but still really fun now and again.

For more click here: http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3dtv/brian-mays-brief-history-of-3d-review-sky-3d/4196

London's Victoria and Albert Museum is to open a new photography gallery expected to be in 2012. The outgoing Director Mark Jones has comitted the museum to creating the new and enlarged space for photography in what is now a furniture study room on the first floor. The current gallery in room 38A on the ground floor opened in 2003.

The V&A with its long association with photography since the 1850s has been criticised for failing to allow its dynamic photography curators to deal with photography in an appropriate setting. A problem that has failed to go away since the closing of the Canon sponsored Photography Gallery and a series of well-received specialist shows in the museum's exhibition space.

The opening of the National Media Museum's London presence Media Space just over the road and the re-opening of the Photographers' Gallery in its new building, both due in 2012, threatened to further show up the V&A's poor physical space for showcasing photography from its permanent collection.

Watch this space for more information as it becomes available.

This role is a job share opportunity, working 13 weeks of the year during school holidays only. You will provide high-quality administrative support to the Museum’s Collections & Knowledge and Programme teams.

It’s a rewarding role in a fascinating environment. Award winning, visionary and truly unique, the National Media Museum embraces photography, film, television, radio and the web. Part of the NMSI family of museums, it aims to engage, inspire and educate through comprehensive collections, innovative education programmes and a powerful yet sensitive approach to contemporary issues.

See: http://www.careerbuilder.co.uk/Jobs/Admin-Secretarial/Bradford/Collections-and-Programme-Assistant/J8E7HH6GM0KRDH0PJ7F/

Photograph conservator, Qatar Museums Authority, Media Museum Project, Doha, Qatar. The Media Museum collection consists of over 80,000 19th and 20th century photographs, cameras and cinema equipment. Photographs
range from early daguerreotypes through albums and photographically-illustrated books to contemporary colour photographs.

Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) has acquired masterpieces through the years, which QMA is committed to preserve and showcase to the world. QMA is dedicated to accomplish the vision of His Highness The Emir of Qatar through education and cultural interaction with communities in and outside of Qatar.

QMA's mission is to unite and focus the efforts of all museums in the State of Qatar for the acquisition, preservation and interpretation of collections and monuments held in trust for the Qatari people, to be shared with national and tourist audiences. In addition QMA will travel exhibitions or loan to other institutions to promote QMA's mission abroad.

Brief Description/ Purpose of Job: As the first full-time conservator to be hired for the Media Museum project you will be responsible for the long term preservation of the collections. You will be responsible for setting up the conservation laboratory, treatment projects on rare photographs and planning an efficient workflow.

Detailed Description/Job Responsibilities: Ability to perform comprehensive treatments on a wide variety of photographic materials, advising on the conservation aspects of any existing and new stores or display areas, advising on the display and use of the collections, carrying out condition surveys and preservation needs assessments, reparing written reports on survey findings, re-housing the collection as needed, advising the curatorial staff on conservation matters, ordering of conservation supplies, keeping up to date with developments in conservation and helping to organize an international conference and workshop on photographic conservation in the Middle East to take place in 2012.

Job Requirements: MA or Accreditation with ICON in photographic conservation, qualifications in paper or photograph conservation completed recognized programs. 5 years professional work experience, a portfolio of conservation treatments and professional activities plus competence references, knowledge of Arabic a plus.

Additional Details: Salary range depending on qualifications 19000-26000 Qatari Riyals per month (approx. UKP38,500-52,500 per year) (approx. $62,500-85,500 per year). Position includes accommodation.

How To Apply: Preferred method of application is using our Recruitment Website. http://prodapp.qma.com.qa:8008/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisJobSchPG&_ri=821&SeededSearchFlag=N&Contractor=Y&Employee=Y&OASF=IRC_VIS_JOB_SEARCH_PAGE&_ti=522118242&oapc=7&OAMC=75477_8_0&menu=Y&oaMenuLevel=1&oas=j0F_0xz_DckQurE1mKLFBw..

University of St Andrews - School of Art History. We are seeking to appoint a temporary Teaching Fellow with expertise in any area of the History of Photography to contribute to the School's undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. You should have or be about to complete your Ph.D. and will have some teaching experience at university level. The post will be for 9 months from 5 September 2011 to 15 June 2012.

You will be required to teach two Honours modules and one Postgraduate module in subjects to be agreed with the Head of School and will contribute to the team-taught 2nd-year modules on 'History & Theory of European Art, Architecture and Design, from the French Revolution to Vienna 1900' and 'Art, Culture and Politics from 1900 to Now'.

* Applications will be considered from candidates with less experience/knowledge of the area for appointment on Grade 5, salary range £24,370 - 29,099 per annum pro rata, with the duties to be agreed and altered accordingly.

Informal enquiries may be made to the Head of School, Brendan Cassidy: bfc1@st-andrews.ac.uk

Apply


£29,972 - £35,788 per annum, pro rata

Start: 5 September 2011

Fixed Term for 9 months
Interviews will be held on 5 August 2011

Ref No: CD1001

Closing Date: 21 July 2011

Further Particulars - www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk

Ian Leith reports that a new version of the English Heritage/National Monuments Record guide to the archive is now available online. The 48 pages guide details the mainly photographic & measured drawings holdings of the NMR up to early 2011 and is a selective guide to main holdings. Go to: http://www.englishheritagearchives.org.uk/Catalogues/Default.aspx Ian has kindly provided a version that can be accessed here as a word document: EH/NMR collections list 2011

For access to items from the collection please go to NMR Enquiry & Research Services - Enquiry.ResearchServices@english-heritage.org.uk  quoting the code or numbering indicated. Ian Leith can be contacted at NMR Acquisitions, English Heritage, tel: +44 (0)1793 414730.  

Following on from the success of the 2009 Visual Literacy Series Staging, Manipulation and Photographic Truth, this year the Society will be holding two major events based on Photography and the City. Details of the first are below.

London: 18th June 2011 in partnership with the University of Westminster. Andy Golding and Eileen Perrier will focus on how to think through the production of photographic projects, how to contextualise the city, its development and inhabitants and consider ways in which the city and its social conditions, (housing, work, poverty, war), cultural trends (music, film, fashion) and artistic production can be represented through photography.

They will discuss the genres of documentary, urban landscape, street photography, fashion, photojournalism, conceptual art and constructed photography in representing city themes. Informed by significant historical images, beginning with Henry Fox Talbot's photograph of the construction of Trafalgar Square, they will show the development of student work from their summer school Photographing London leading to the most fascinating and revealing images. The teaching and learning experience has evidenced a structure to creative practice and has resulted in a valuable and growing archive of city based photography.

Tom Hunter will talk about his own photographic practice and how it responds to the city. His work, which focuses on his local neighborhood of Hackney in East London covers topics including the representation of marginal groups, such as squatters and travellers within the city. His work also sets out to document the changing face of the inner city by looking at council estates through their architecture, the residents and their histories. He will also be looking at local businesses which chart the different waves of immigration which have made such a powerful impact on the history and development on the East End of London. www.tomhunter.org

Marco Bohr Representing Tokyo Marco Bohr's presentation will focus on the different approaches used by Japanese photographers to represent the megapolis Tokyo. From the student uprisings in the late 1960s to the post-recessionary period of the 1990s, the photographic representation of Tokyo is inextricably linked to social, political and ideological shifts in Japanese society. Marco's talk will focus on how photographers utilized photographic techniques, such as blurriness, high key printing or overexposure, to create a subjective vision of a dense urban landscape. The varying impressions of Tokyo project a cityscape that is fluid, evolving and multifaceted. Marco is currently completing his PhD on Japanese photography of the 1990s at the University of Westminster.

Rut Blees Luxemburg will talk about her photographs which explore the public spaces of the city, where the ambitions and unexpected sensual elaborations of the ?modern project? are revealed and contested. In her photographic work she brings to light the overlooked, the dismissed and the unforeseen of the urban complex and creates immersive and vertiginous compositions that challenge prevailing representations of the city. Her large-scale photographic works expand the concept of the common sensual in relation to urban public space and representation. RBL?s work has been exhibited internationally and included in key publications and exhibitions on contemporary photography and art. Her monograph ?Common sensual? collects the artist?s work including her collaborative forays into opera, literature, architecture and urban culture. www.rutbleesluxemburg.com

Members and Students £15/Non Members £20
To book call reception on 01225 325 733 or email reception@rps.org

Originally published as a serial between 1844 and 1846, The Pencil of Nature was the first book to be illustrated entirely with photographs. Early enthusiast William Henry Fox Talbot hoped to spur public interest in photography—but was forced to cease publication after just six installments. In its time, The Pencil of Nature was not a commercial success. However, as with some other great works of art, it has been required to undergo the test of time in order to be duly recognized and appreciated.

More than 165 years later, Talbot’s book is recognized as a major contribution to both the history of photography and the development of the book. Indeed, it has been said that the importance of The Pencil of Nature in the history of photography is comparable to that of the Gutenberg Bible in the history of printing. Talbot invented the Calotype process and his photographs transformed everyday subjects into works of art. Architectural studies and local landscapes, still-lifes, close-ups, and even a single, carefully executed portrait—Talbot’s twenty-four prints remain strikingly modern and quietly beautiful.

The Pencil of Nature has been published in several different incarnations since its original appearance. Da Capo press published a reproduction in 1969 and Hans Kraus published the most accurate facsimile along with a commentary by Larry Schaaf in 1989.

This KWS edition is has been reproduced from the original plates held in the National Media Museum, Bradford. A 35-page illustrated introduction by Colin Harding, Curator of Photographic Technology at the Museum, gives shape to Talbot’s life and times, how Talbot became interested in the notion of a “photogenic drawing” process (placing photographic images on paper), how he invented the Calotype (the process by which photographic images could be developed on paper) in 1840, how he used the Calotype process to take photographs, and finally, how he conceived of The Pencil of Nature—the means by which he could show, for the first time in a book, the art of photography to the world.

Published at $150 the book is available on Amazon.co.uk for £98.33. Interestingly Amazon also offers a free copy of The Pencil of Nature (not the KWS version) for the Kindle (see: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pencil-of-Nature-ebook/dp/B004TPLAU6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1307877780&sr=1-1)

The publisher's description is here: http://kwspub.com/The%20Pencil%20of%20Nature.html

Quaritch is hosting a wonderful exhibition of highlights from the Terry Bennett collection until Saturday (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/exhibition-early-chinese) in their former premises in Lower John Street close to Paccadilly Circus and Soho. At an informal reception last night Lindsey Stewart of Quaritch and Terry Bennett introduced the exhibition and some of the key pieces on show. The collection has been compiled by Bennett over a twenty year period and is probably the best of its type in the world. Quaritch have published the first two volumes of Bennett's history of photography in China and the next volume is due out in 2011/12.

The exhibition closes on Saturday - do take the opportunity to see an exceptional collection of historic photographs of China.