Michael Pritchard's Posts (3087)

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12432976878?profile=RESIZE_400xRHS Lindley Collections, one of the finest horticultural libraries in the world, are undertaking a project to document the history of the internationally famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show. This exciting role focuses on cataloguing our historic photography collections relating to Chelsea with a view to making the collection accessible via the public catalogue.

The photography collections sit within the wider RHS Heritage Collections of botanical art, archives, objects and ephemera. They comprise prints, transparencies, and glass negatives, and include coverage of RHS Chelsea since its inception in 1913 to the present day.

We are initially recruiting for an 8-month fixed term post, running until the end of January 2025.

To work for the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is to join a thriving charity, whose mission is to inspire everyone to grow. Everything we do is built on the transformational power of gardening – and the benefits it brings to people, places and our planet.

Job Title:            Project Cataloguer (Photographs)          
Location:            RHS Lindley Library, London                    
Salary:                £18,112pa (£30,187 FTE)
Hours:                 21 hours per week        
Contract:            Fixed term contract until end of January 2025
Details and apply online: https://rhsocli.webitrent.com/rhsocli_webrecruitment/wrd/run/ETREC179GF.open?WVID=9962857kSa

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12432828691?profile=RESIZE_400xThe Oberver newpaper today features part of a recent acquisition by the Bodleian Libraries showing indiginous Alaskans. The photographs were made around 1900 by several photographers, including Missouri-born Beverly Bennett Dobbs and two European emigrants to the US, HG Kaiser and Albert F Johnson, followed a gold rush to Nome, Alaska.

The photographs are part of the Library's Wilson Collection comprising several hundred albums and photographic books  donated by Michael and Jane Wilson and the Wilson Centre of Photography. The deposit, consisting of over 1,000 items from the 19th and early 20th centuries, contains rare salt prints from the dawn of photography made by some of the earliest photographic practitioners. The items include masterpieces of travel photography from across the globe, photographs held in Victorian scrapbooks and family albums, together with early outstanding examples of photographically illustrated books. The photographs in the Wilson Collection are renowned for being of exceptional quality, and outstanding in their range and depth. 

A significant part of the Wilson Collection comprises examples of early photography, including rare salt prints, photographic albums, and scrapbooks. The deposit of these items in the Bodleian’s holdings provide a new opportunity for the study of photographic materials that are either previously unknown, or incredibly rare.

One of the remarkable characteristics of the collection is the presence of a large number of salt prints, for example contained in an album made by early photographer Fallon Horne, portraying his family, friends and home. Salt prints are one of the very earliest photographic processes and are incredibly fragile and rare. The Fallon Horne album will contribute a further 100 salt prints to the Bodleian’s existing holdings. 

The deposit contains several remarkable examples of early travel and exploration photography and British photographic literature

Michael G Wilson OBE says: "Following forty years of collecting works from the history of photography, we are delighted that many of the albums, books and photographs from the Wilson Centre for Photography will now be cared for by the Bodleian Libraries, an institution which provides excellent access to scholars and the wider public. In the coming years, we look forward to further collaborations, exciting discoveries, and fresh perspectives from the Bodleian and its community."

Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian, who himself is a historian of photography, says: "The masterpieces from the Wilson Collection are an unrivalled resource for studying and appreciating the greatest photographs and photographers from the first century of the new art/science. The Wilson Centre has been wonderfully welcoming to researchers and institutions for many years, and the Bodleian, now entrusted with this astonishing collection, the fruit of Michael’s singular vision, looks forward to continuing that great work, and in inspiring students, encouraging researchers, and in enabling the serious understanding of photography’s great contribution to civilisation through its earliest proponents. We are immensely grateful to Michael and Jane for their vote of confidence in our mission."

See: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/apr/20/intimate-portraits-of-indigenous-alaskans-in-pictures
and https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/wilson-collection

Image: B B Dobbs, Inuit man with child. Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, Oxford / Wilson Collection 

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Autograph adds photography to Art UK

12432605660?profile=RESIZE_400xAutograph, the London venue with a mission  to champion the work of artists who use photography and film to highlight questions of race, representation, human rights and social justice, has added artwork to Art UK's website. Included is work from Joy Gregory, Sunil Gupta, Syd Shelton and Roti Fani-Kayode. Some 123 artworks have been added. Separately, Bindi Vora has been appointed senior curator. 

Autograph currently holds approximately 5,000 prints, 10,000+ negatives, 5,000 slides, as well as several thousand contact sheets and a small amount of archival film and ephemera, and the collection continues to grow. 

Art UK is the online home for every public art collection in the United Kingdom. It brings together art from over 3400 British institutions and shows over 300,000 works by over 50,000 artists. 

See: https://artuk.org/visit/venues/autograph-7926

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UCL's School of European Languages, Culture and Society - Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry is hosting two events that will be of interest to BPH readers. 

  • 22 May 2024 / Stereoscopic Vision in the Plantationocene from Debashree Mukherjee, Associate Professor at Columbia University
    This talk draws on my ongoing work towards a monograph titled "Tropical Machines: Extractive Media and Plantation Modernity.” I track 19th century experiments with media technologies in tropical islands that, I argue, served as laboratories for modern regimes of labour, resource extraction, as well as vision. I locate this story in the era of emancipation, in the wake of the abolition of plantation slavery in British colonies in 1834 which created a massive demand for labour to replace the labour of those who were formerly enslaved. This story is therefore plotted along the itineraries of indentured and technically voluntary “coolie” labour from South Asia to sugar colonies such as Mauritius and Fiji. In this talk I focus on the short-lived technology of the stereoscope which was extensively used in the 1860s-1910s to image plantations and their workers. I speculate on the popularity of stereographic “plantation views” to ask if it is time to displace the city and the factory as the founding sites for film history. Building on work that posits the plantation as the precursor to the factory and modern regimes of labour management, I set up a parallel between the stereograph and the plantation as tropical machines that generate new techniques of the body and new regimes of vision.
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-languages-culture/events/2024/may/stereoscopic-vision-plantationocene
  • 2 May 2024 / Camera Geologica: Photography and Resource Extraction, from Siobhan Angus, Assistant Professor at Carleton University
    Challenging the emphasis on immateriality in discourses on photography, this talk focuses on the inextricable links between image-making and resource extraction, revealing how mining is a precondition of photography. Photography begins underground and, in photographs of mines and mining, frequently returns there. Through a materials-driven analysis of visual culture, I illustrate histories of colonization, labour, and environmental degradation to explore the ways in which photography is enmeshed within and enables global extractive capitalism. Reading materiality alongside representation and visual form reveals a complex picture of photography’s implication within extractive capitalism and, in turn, its potential to resist it.
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-languages-culture/events/2024/may/camera-geologica-photography-and-resource-extraction

Both events are free to attend and run from 1700-1830 (BST) at: 

North-West Wing Lecture Theatre G22
Wilkins Main Building
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
 

The event organiser is: 
Kirsty Sinclair Dootson – SELCS
kirsty.dootson@ucl.ac.uk

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We cordially invite you to the lecture from the cycle Collegium historiae artium, which will be given by Anthony Hamber (independent photographic historian, London) on the topic of The 1840s: Transformations in Reprographics.

In January 1839, when the photographic processes of Daguerre and Talbot were announced, there was an existing, mature, and extensive printing and reprographics industry in all industrialised countries. The most significant printing process was that of lithography. Almost immediately there was a wave of experimentation in developing a photomechanical process. Those experimenters were primarily scientists and did not form part of the existing reprographics industries. Photographic historians have tended to repeat the same list of experimenters, primarily from France, Austria, and the United Kingdom. Emerging evidence suggests that during the 1840s – described as a comparative “gap” in scholarly research – photomechanical experimentation was in fact more widespread. This paper examines the speed of the distribution of news of Daguerre’s and Talbot’s processes and discusses a number of the photomechanical experiments that followed. A key consideration examined is why the contemporary printing and reprographics industries did not adopt photography during the 1840s to develop commercial photomechanical processes and accompanying services. A short case study underlines how one individual, with much experience in transfer lithography, played a crucial role in the late 1850s in the development of photozincography at the UK’s national cartographic agency (Ordnance Survey).

The 1840s: Transformations in Reprographics
24 April 2024 at 1630 (CET); 1530 (BST)

Lecture by Dr Anthony Hamber
Hosted by Institute of Art History, Prague
Details and Zoom link: https://www.udu.cas.cz/en/akce/the-1840s-transformations-in-reprographics

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Known as one of the pillars of 20th-century fashion photography, Norman Parkinson dazzles the world from the 1930s to the 1980s with his sparkling inventiveness. He gives new impetus to celebrity portraiture, photographing the most prominent artists and celebrities, including Audrey Hepburn, Jerry Hall, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and Jane Birkin. His long association with Vogue and extensive work for Harper’s BazaarQueenTown & Country and other international magazines earn him worldwide recognition.

Celebrated for the liveliness, spontaneity and humour of his photographs, as well as for his use of outdoor locations around the globe, the British photographer helped change the static, posed approach to fashion photography with his impulsive, imaginative style. 

The exhibition features 79 of Norman Parkinson’s best-known images, as well as recent discoveries from his remarkable photographic portfolio and a selection of 56 covers of major magazines shot between the 1950s and 1970s. Several magnificent pieces from the McCord Stewart Museum’s Dress, Fashion and Textiles collection are also on display: 10 high-end dresses and ensembles made between the 1930s and the 1970s by French designers Christian Dior, Jacques Griffe, Jean Patou, Louis Féraud and Guy Laroche, Italian André Laug and British designers Digby Morton and Hardy Amies, plus four creations by Quebec milliners Fanny Graddon and Yvette Brillon.

The exhibition, shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Centro Cultural de Cascais in Portugal, is curated by Terence Pepper OBE and co-curated by Iconic Images.

Norman Parkinson: Always in Style
19 April-2 September 2024
McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal
https://www.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/exhibitions/norman-parkinson-always-style/

Image: Young Velvets, Young Prices, Hat Fashions, American Vogue, October 1949 © Iconic Images / The Norman Parkinson Archive 2024

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To mark the 120th anniversary of Kingston-born photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s death, this new exhibition presents a magnificent panorama of San Francisco that Muybridge photographed in 1878.The panorama is over five metres, and is one of the highlights of Kingston Museum’s world-class Muybridge collection.

The exhibition also features three modern panoramas of the city by American photographer Mark Klett, British artists Tom Pope and James Doyle, and American historian Nick Wright. It also displays different scenes of Kingston from the nineteenth century to the present day.

San Francisco in Kingston: Muybridge and Panoramas
10 May-2 November 2024
Thursday-Saturday, 1000-1700. Admission free 
Kingston Museum
https://www.kingstonheritage.org.uk/

 

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Alex Schneideman writes... My friend Paddy Summerfield, who has died, was broadly considered Oxford’s greatest photographer since Henry Fox Talbot. Summerfield, a child imbued from infancy in Oxford’s history and art was raised in the same house in Summertown from the age of two until he died.

Having studied at Guildford School of Art (not without controversy) Summerfield became known as a photographer in the 1980s but it was not until the publication by Dewi Lewis in 2014 of his seminal work, Mother and Father that he came to the forefront of British documentary photography.

12428183898?profile=RESIZE_400xThe photobook depicts Summerfield's parents in the garden of their north Oxford home as they tended to the lawn and plants and to each other. As the book progresses we watch as his father increasingly cares for his mother, her eventual disappearance and then the loss of his father too. In most of the photographs the parents’ faces are turned away from the
photographer-son. Summerfields images were typified by a certain spirituality and he maintained that his work had always been about “abandonment and loss” as his parents had turned their attention inward following the tragic early death of his older sister when Summerfield was two years old. However he insisted that ‘Mother and Father’ stood as a durational “love letter” to them both.

Summerfield’s first major publication was important because it established his groundbreaking use of a unique and emotional photographic ‘perspective’. His work would become representative of what became known as the ‘psychological perspective’ - in which Summerfield’s compositions place the viewer in the emotional apex of the scene, blurring the boundaries between the subject, the photographer and the viewer.

Several more books were to follow including The Oxford Pictures (2016), Empty Days (2018), The Holiday Pictures (2019) and Home Movie (2021). Each subsequent title added to Summerfield’s reputation as one of the most important contemporary British documentary photographers.

Summerfield’s photography was typically black and white but in his final years he worked mainly in colour using an old ‘flip phone’ to photograph the garden and the people who
surrounded him. Some of these were published in his final book, The Beginnings of Eternity (2023).

In 2019 Summerfield married his partner, Patricia Baker-Cassidy, who by this time had become his de-facto producer. Baker-Cassidy brought order to the chaos of Paddy’s now notorious bins of thousands of negatives that he had accumulated over decades. A visitor to the Summerfield home would often find Paddy ensconced in writing, reading or discussion with friends and photographers while Baker-Cassidy worked diligently with a film scanner, as together they put together numerous maquettes for planned new publications.

The well respected Oxford Photography Group was often hosted by Summerfield and Baker-Cassidy at his home. He supported the group and worked closely with individual photographers, many of whom went on to be published, exhibited and collected.

12428185293?profile=RESIZE_400xAlmost ten years after the publication of Mother and Father a new body of work was made by a group of photographers (including Alex Schneideman, Vanessa Winship, Sian Davey, Matthew Finn, Alys Tomlinson, Nik Roche and Jem Southam) who wanted to preserve the garden where Mother and Father had taken form and and to pay homage to Summerfield’s work. The resulting images were published as ‘Pictures from the Garden’ (as ever by Dewi Lewis) and an exhibition was staged in Oxford supported by The Photographers Gallery.

Summerfield’s work was supported by curators, academics and other photographers such as Richard Ovenden, Nicholas Serota and Martin Parr, Bill Jay and Peter Turner, then editor of Creative Camera. Summerfield’s own exhibition list is long and varied. He exhibited in solo group shows alongside such photographers as André Kertesz, Martin Parr, John Goto and Gerry Badger (who has written extensively about Summerfield’s work as well as providing texts for his publications). His work is held in national, international, private and institutional collections. It should be noted that Dewi Lewis’s sustained support of Paddy’s work brought it to the widest possible audience.

This year the Bodleian Library completed their acquisition of Summerfield’s extensive archive where plans are underway for a major exhibition in Autumn 2025.

It was a great honour for me to give Paddy what would sadly turn out to be his last solo show, The Holiday Pictures, at Flow Photographic Gallery in 2019. Sue Davis, the founder of The Photographers Gallery, then in failing health herself and accompanied by Zelda Cheatle made the trek from her home in Surrey to North West London to see the show - it was to be the last photography exhibition she would visit before her death some months later.

Paddy was the most photographic person I have ever known. It was as impossible to distinguish the man from the medium as it is sometimes to discern the sea from the sky on a blue day when both seem to merge into one.

Paddy leaves a daughter, Lucy and his wife Patricia.

Paddy Summerfield
18th February 1947 - 11th April 2024

Obituary by Alex Schneideman
London, April 2024

Image: (top) Alex Scheiderman, Paddy and Patricia; (lower two) Paddy Summerfield, from his Mother and Father series. 

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An exhibition of photographs by renowned British photographer John Bulmer has broken all recent visitor records at Hartlepool Art Gallery – and now those important images have found a permanent home there. Over 12,000 people have so far seen the exhibition – ‘John Bulmer - Northern Light’ - which runs until Saturday, 4 May, and captures the fortitude of Hartlepool people during the hardship of the 1960s.

Thanks to a substantial award from the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the support of John Bulmer himself, Hartlepool Borough Council has been able to purchase the images for Hartlepool Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Angela Thomas, Hartlepool Art Gallery Curator, said: “The response from visitors to the exhibition has been phenomenal. People have left lots of comments on our comment cards, sharing their memories of the scenes in the photographs and identifying people they recognise. I’ve never known a response like it. 

12428157277?profile=RESIZE_400x“So we’re thrilled that, thanks to the generous support of Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and John Bulmer himself, these photographs will become part of our permanent collection. “By acquiring these images, we will ensure they are preserved for future generations to look back at that moment in time before much of the local landscape changed beyond recognition.

Leanne Manfredi, National Programmes Lead at the Victoria and Albert Museum, said: “The Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund supports the purchase of a wide range of material for the permanent collections of non-nationally funded organisations in England and Wales. We are delighted that this collection of photographs by John Bulmer has been acquired by Hartlepool Art Gallery and featured in the current exhibition John Bulmer: Northern Light. They will benefit audiences for years to come.”

John Bulmer said: “I’m so glad the photographs will have a permanent home in the town where they were taken. I’m honoured that Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund have supported the purchase and would like to thank all involved.”

Born in 1938, John Bulmer is best-known for his pioneering colour photojournalism in the Sixties, when he worked for, among others, the Sunday Times magazine. In the winter of 1962-63 he visited Hartlepool for Image magazine, taking more than 40 photographs. At the time of his visit, during a bitterly cold winter, Hartlepool was suffering from mass unemployment. Gray’s shipyard had just closed with the loss of 1,400 jobs and the future looked bleak.

His images record the town before it changed, but also the daily life of men and women who were out of work and gathering sea coal from the beach, waiting in the dole queue or visiting the labour exchange. Despite the hardships people were facing, John Bulmer’s photographs convey a sense of resilience, humour and even optimism.

Northern Light / John Bulmer
Hartlepool Art Gallery
until 4 May 2024

Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am – 5pm
Free entry
https://www.culturehartlepool.com/art-gallery/

Images: (top) John Bulmer pictured at the Northern Light exhibition. (lower) Hartlepool Art Gallery Curator Angela Thomas and John Bulmer at the exhibition. Photography: Dave Charnley Photography.

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12427428682?profile=RESIZE_400xThe PHRC conference 2024 is now open for registration. There have always been unacknowledged or under-acknowledged forces that operate around photography. Some of them are human, like family members, camera assistants, darkroom personnel, curators, editors and the like. Others are non-human, like algorithms, chemicals, equipment of various sorts and transportation. The explosion of AI has pushed the field of photography studies to once again consider the practices surrounding photographs, but has at the same time neglected existing assistants like the skills force, the editors, image technicians, programmers, curators, and historians that enable and narrate photographic making. In the face of so many assistants, the primacy of the photographer as a central person through whom we understand photography recedes.

In this PHRC 2024 conference, speakers will consider the role and agency of human and non-human assistants in the making, collecting and dissemination of photographs. The papers to be delivered will employ diverse methodological perspectives that not only enlarge the notion of the photographic assistant, but also consider the role of those assistants (or that assistance) in the formation of photographic practices, images, archives and histories.

The Photographer's Assistant
Photographic History Research Centre
17-18 June 2024
Hybrid event, Online and at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Open for registration and programme here: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/annual-conference-2024/

 
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12426247456?profile=RESIZE_400xThe Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter has announced that it has received a £104,456 grant each year for the next five years from Research England’s Higher Education Museum and Galleries Collection Fund.  The awards recognises and supports the unique and significant contribution that the museum makes to the wider research community and enables this to grow.

The funding will be used for more staff to allow more cataloguing of the museum’s ever-growing collection. It will also enable greater digitisation of the collection so people can enjoy it remotely and give the opportunity to expand the museum’s successful stipend scheme for researchers.

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum is the leading moving image museum in the UK and is home to one of the most significant such collections in the world. It was formed from the collection of the renowned director Bill Douglas and his friend Peter Jewell and many donations have been added since. Experts from around the world come to examine the 90,000-strong collection at the University of Exeter’s Streatham campus. It is also a public museum, free and open to all.

Museum Curator Dr Phil Wickham said: “Our mission is to follow in Bill Douglas’s footsteps and preserve these wonderful objects for the future and give the public and those researching the history of moving image access to them. Our collection – and interest from experts – has grown significantly in the past decade. People entrust their own collections to us because they know we will take very good care of them, and because they will be available for others to study and see.

12426247292?profile=RESIZE_400x“We are thrilled to have been given this funding from Research England. It will allow us to continue building this unique resource and further extend our reach to scholars, students and the public. It will allow us to take on further staff and support to enable further digitisation and cataloguing to open up the collections further, and initiatives to support visits from external researchers.

More than 1,000 items are on display in the museum galleries. The collection is accessible to all and covers three centuries of moving image history, including over 23,000 film books; 1,500 stereoscope cards; 650 magic lantern slides and 23 magic lanterns. There are more than thousands of items relating to stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, shadow puppets from around the world, an original 1896 Lumière Cinématographe, books signed by Thomas Edison and annotated by his inventor W.K.L Dickson, as well as many items used by ordinary film fans that makes the museum a people’s history of the moving image. In addition to objects the collection includes a significant library and archive. 

 See: https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/

Photographs: © Michael Pritchard, October 2022

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Call closing shortly... The National Stereoscopic Association is pleased to announce its fifth annual 'Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography' at the 50th annual 3D-Con held at the Drury Plaza Broadview Hotel, Wichita, Kansas, on July 26, 2024. Presentations of 15 minutes are welcome on any aspect of stereo-media from the inception of stereoscopic photography to immersive stereo media. We project stereoscopically on the 3D-Con's big screen, and our growing community of international scholars represent diverse research from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. All stereoscopic photography subjects from the historical to the contemporary are invited.

Please fill out the contact information form on the web page below. Then upload on a separate file your abstract of 600 words maximum, followed by a biography of no more than 300 words, and five images (optional). Deadline: May 14, 2024

Notification of acceptance by May 24, 2024. Digital images will be expected by June 25, 2024.

Call for Papers
Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography V
July 26, 2024
at the National Stereoscopic Association’s
50th Annual 3D-Con

https://3d-con.com/history.php

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Archive: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

BPH reported on the transfer of Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert's archive to St Andrews University in 2022 and a smaller gift to the School of Scottish Studies Architecture in 2021 (links below). Jeremy has added some further information about his archive on his website. 

It notes: As a proud Scot, and with a knowledge of the important contribution of Scots photographers to the world of photography, it was Jeremy’s wish that his collection of work, spanning the 30-years of his career to date, be held by a Scottish institution ensuring its accessibility to researchers, historians and the wider public.

Jeremy’s photographic collection consists of approximately 20TB of digital photography, comprising the RAW files of almost 1-million images all with captions, dates and keywords embedded. The edit of this work consists of approximately 20,000 images, including digitised versions of the most important stories from the work shot on film.

The collection also holds approximately 7,000+ pages of negatives newly housed and organised into archival boxes. Accompanying this are boxes of contact sheets, boxes of work prints and finished prints.

Boxes of tear sheets from his editorial career, with examples of his images as used in newspapers and magazines exist, as does the miscellanea of his 30-year career as a working photographer in Scotland and Asia.

Read more here: https://www.jeremysuttonhibbert.com/sutton-hibbert-archive-st-andrews

See: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/jeremy-sutton-hibbert-gifts-1-million-photographs-to-st-andrews and https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/school-of-scottish-studies-archive-acquires-sutton-hibbert-photog

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12421819697?profile=RESIZE_400xTo commemorate the centenary of Dorothy Bohm’s birth, Beam Editions has published a new book that takes a fresh look at the work of one of the most prolific and admired female photographers of the second half of the 20th Century. This is a rare opportunity to acquire an original print of an image that will feature in the volume – all sales will contribute to the production of the book. A special edition copy of the book forms part of this offer which is only available until 10 April.

The launch of the book will coincide with the upcoming exhibition of her work at the Photographers Gallery, London in Spring/Summer 2024. It features an introduction from Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photographs, Victoria & Albert Museum, a biographical essay by art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen and short texts by a wide range of notable contributors, each focussing on a single photograph.

Dorothy Bohm at 100. A life in photography
Hardcovers, approx 200 pages
Original print from the volume available until 10 April

Details: https://www.beameditions.uk/dorothy-bohm

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12421818459?profile=RESIZE_400xThe European Society for the History of Photography has published PhotoResearcher with papers from last year's conference on the darkroom. The issue is introduced by Sara Dominici, the conference convenor and includes nine papers presented during the two-day conference. The issue can be purchased in print on as a download

PhotoResaercher, no. 41 2024
The Darkroom. Chemical, Cultural, Industrial
Guest edited by Sara Dominci

European Society for the History of Photography
€21
Details: http://www.eshph.org/journal/photoresearcher-no-41-2024/

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12421817696?profile=RESIZE_400xThe latest issue of The Classic preview the AIPAD photography show in April and Robert Hershkowitz's exhibition of French Calotypes at Photo London in May. Alongside these are interviews with Timothy Prus of the Archive of Modern Conflict, Matt Butson of the Getty Archive who discusses Stefan Lorant, and Antoine Romand, the Paris-based photography expert. Two features look at the Etherton Gallery in Tuscon and a discussion of the framing of photographs in the nineteenth century. 

As usual The Classic can be downloaded for free or copies are available at selected fairs and venues.

See: https://theclassicphotomag.com/the-classic-11/

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12421817066?profile=RESIZE_400xCartomania was a photographic phenomenon that seized the public imagination at the beginning of the 1860s. Small portraits, dubbed cartes de visite, were avidly exchanged with friends and family, quickly earning a reputation as ‘the paper currency of social intercourse’. Compiled into albums and prominently displayed in the home to peruse, assess and discuss, this first explosion of commercial portraiture proved a wildly popular craze, particularly once celebrities embraced the new format.

Paul Frecker’s lavishly illustrated account brings fresh insight into the careers of the enterprising men and women who established studios and into the lives of those who passed before their cameras. With unparalleled depth of research and evocative prose, he vividly brings to life the photographers and many of their subjects. From reigning queens and visiting sultans to grieving mothers and nefarious criminals, all life lies within. Whether dressed in their best or in fancy dress, Cartomania’s devotees and their often extraordinary stories are laid bare in this fascinating view of mid-Victorian society.

Cartomania: Photography and celebrity in the nineteenth century
Paul Frecker
September Publishing
£40, hardcovers
ISBN: 978191461362
Preorder: https://septemberpublishing.org/product/cartomania-hb/

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This talk will reflect upon Dr Amy King's doctoral research undertaken at the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, exploring the photographic archive of Upoto, a Baptist Missionary Society station established in what was the northern Congo Free State in 1890.

Her thesis was titled: Visual Testaments: Re-collecting the Photographic Archive of the Upoto Mission 1890 - 1915. This research project drew upon the unusually rich photographic sources connected with the missionaries who were stationed there in order to interrogate the historical evidence they contain. Methodologically she was interested in how this visual evidence worked with and against different kinds of textual and material sources which have survived from Upoto outside of Africa. Her research was concerned with the kinds of unique historical evidence that photographs contain, and what visual sources can contribute to our understanding of the past.

Her doctoral thesis interrogated the visual strategies through which mission work at Upoto was represented for audiences in Britain in the late nineteenth century and the tensions between the public narratives of evangelical work and more privately documented experiences. It also examined the diverse, complex and evolving relationships between British missionaries and local Bapoto and Bangombe people at Upoto as the Christian community was established.

Her original study of the missionary archive from Upoto has generated new insights into the presence, actions and experiences of Congolese people who lived at Upoto during a period of immense social and cultural upheaval brought by colonialism".

You are warmly invited to the first of our Spring series of 'Opening the Angus' online seminars, when Dr Amy King will be speaking about her work using the marvellous photographic archive of the Baptist Missionary Society, which is held in the Angus Library.

The Photographic Archive of the Upoto Mission, Congo Free State: Some Reflections on Using Visual Sources to Expand Mission Histories
Dr Amy King
Hosted by Centre for Baptist Studies and The Angus Library. The Centre works in partnership with the Angus Library and Archive at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and with the Baptist Historical Society
Online, 11 April 2024 at 1930 (BST)
Free, register here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/select/RdiEJKhzXNnT

ImageL Portrait of Harry and Jessie White and their child, illustration in Harry White, Missionary to the Congo (Roberts 1901, opposite page 1).

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12421394667?profile=RESIZE_400xThe first part of the Directory of Travelling Photographers. Part I: 1841-1881 is now available online via the Romany and Traveller Family History Society website. The intention is to produce a second part for 1882-1901 later this year, and to add further details as they emerge. The primary aims of the publication are to create greater awareness of the role of travelling photographers within the wider community, and to assist with correlation of photographs to photographers.

The idea of creating a Directory of Travelling Photographers was inspired by RTFHS member Chy Hersey’s searches for ‘van dwellers’ in the British Newspaper Archive, connected to an interest in the family history and social history of Romanies and Travellers in the British Isles. As Chy began to gather references, many were of ‘travelling photographers’ – and it soon became evident that relatively little had been researched and documented about this occupation or the lives of the individuals who followed it, even though there were considerable numbers of them even within 20 years of the invention of photography.

There was obviously pioneering work to be done and Chy took up the challenge. The Directory is the result – and now Chy has allowed the RTFHS to make it available online to benefit those who have Romany or Traveller ancestors who give their occupation as ‘photographer’ in historic documents as well as people with a broader interest in the history of photography.

The Directory has a short introduction with notes on search methods and related resources, followed by listings in chronological order. Brief details are given, usually of first reference, together with source of information.  Entries can also be searched for surnames, locations, etc. The lists include some related details which place the lives of travelling photographers in context, such as their family links, area and methods of travel, perils and misfortunes.

Directory of Travelling Photographers. Part I: 1841-1881
Resarched and compiled by Chy Hersey
Published by Romany & Traveller Family History Society (R&TFHS)
Free to download on: https://rtfhs.org.uk/directory-of-travelling-photographers-1841-1881/

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12421358071?profile=RESIZE_400xThe National Science and Media Museum in Bradford has announed that it will re-openin two phases in 2025 following 'unforeseen delays' during its £6m Sound and Vision capital redevelopment.The museum will now reopen to visitors at the start of Bradford’s City of Culture year, with the new Sound and Vision galleries launching later in 2025.

The museum closed in June 2023 to undergo a £6 million transformation bringing in two new permanent galleries, a new passenger lift and an improved entrance. During the lift's excavation contractors discovered an unexpected make-up of ground that has led to delays.

Commenting on the change Jo Quinton-Tulloch, the director of the National Science and Media Museum, said “While the impact of this delay in the short term is frustrating, our Sound and Vision project will future proof the museum for decades to come,” said . “Our new Sound and Vision galleries will completely transform the museum’s visitor offer by showcasing our incredible collections and ensuring visitors can find stories that resonate with them". She added: the additional passenger lift is “a crucial part of our transformation that will enable us to welcome many more visitors in 2025 and beyond. “Despite extensive survey work before the excavation commenced, our contractors encountered an unexpected make-up of ground at the base of the lift, which took much longer to excavate than anticipated. Whilst the impact of this delay in the short term is frustrating, our Sound and Vision project will future proof the museum for decades to come.”

Designed by gallery architects, AOC (Agents of Change), the new galleries will showcase the museum’s core collections through the four key themes of Innovation, Identities, Storytelling and Everywhere, to lead visitors on a journey through the explosion of sound and image technologies, and the impact on our lives. The latest design renders illustrate some of these themes and the key moments and stories that visitors will be able to explore throughout the galleries.  

In the section on Identities, visitors will be able to immerse themselves in an interactive space with ‘sound showers’, a mixing desk and dance floor to evoke the shared experience and thrill of live performances and gigs. A key moment in Storytelling will take visitors through the long history of creating animation from flipbooks and stop motion to digital illustrations through the stories of beloved fictional characters such as the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland. Local radio station, Bradford Community Broadcasting (BCB) will also feature in the new galleries in Everywhere, where an interactive studio space will tell the story of how sound and image technologies have enabled local community representation in broadcasting and give visitors the chance to be a radio DJ.   

In a newly reconfigured part of the galleries which has opened up a double height space, artist Nayan Kulkarni has been commissioned to create an interactive installation called ‘Circus.’ Visitors will be invited to enter a room that comes to life using a captured live feed of themselves, like a chamber of mirrors, encouraging visitors to engage with broadcast technologies and see how image manipulation has changed over time.  

12421358278?profile=RESIZE_400xThe museum has shared some of the designs that can be expected when it reopens next year, including an interactive space with ‘sound showers’, a mixing desk and dance floor to evoke the shared experience and thrill of live performances and gigs. Elsewhere, the artist Nayan Kulkarni has been commissioned to create an interactive installation called Circus, where visitors will enter a 'chamber of mirrors' room filled with a captured live feed of themselves.

Our new gallery designs reveal how the spaces will be dynamic, interactive and inspiring, underlining how all areas of our collection from photography to videogaming are embedded in every aspect of our lives,” said Quinton-Tulloch. “Visitors will be able to see the first ever photographic image, have a go at being a sound engineer, step inside the studio of a local radio station and enter a live art installation. We’ve also worked closely with local communities to ensure we’re telling stories that are relevant to Bradford, showcasing the creativity and diversity of our home city. We look forward to welcoming visitors back into the museum and into our new Sound and Vision galleries in 2025.

See: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/about-us/sound-and-vision-project
and FAQs: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/closure-FAQ

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