The British Journal of Photography reports on the use of Flickr as tool by museums and archives. It quotes Emma Thom, senior web content co-ordinator at the National Media Museum (NMM) in Bradford...

The Commons has expanded the concept of what a museum is. “It used to be the case that museums were seen as four walls – and it’s great if people want to come and look at what we’ve got – but this is an opportunity to take the museum to other people. We’re taking an integrated approach, working with curators and collections teams, to have a stronger web presence, linking our postings to The Commons to our programmes.”

The “no known copyright restrictions” category devised to cover postings to The Commons might have rung alarm bells in the minds of some rights holders, particularly those campaigning against the Orphan Works proposals contained in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill making its way through the British Parliament.

But, according to Thom, copyright issues have not had a big impact on what the NMM is able to do. “Our emphasis is on sharing pictures that are copyright-free – that is what The Commons is all about – and we have thousands of photographs that are out of copyright.” The same is true for many of the other member institutions, with large numbers of images out of copyright or – as is the case of the National Archives (which has some six million) and the Library of Congress – with collections that are largely Government-generated and covered by Crown Copyright or its US equivalent.

The National Media Museum's FLickr stream is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmediamuseum/

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2250132/shared-history-the-commons-initiative-celebrates-its-fifth-anniversary#ixzz2O8wziiya 

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions has released its 2012 numbers. The National Media Museum, Bradford, shows a small increase in numbers which reflects the opening of new galleries. In 2012 the museum received 504000 visitors compared to 486668 in 2011. 

The chart shows the 2008-2012 ALVA numbers for the museum.

Wesleyan University's Associate Professor Jennifer Tucker has been selected for a Fulbright-U.S. Scholar Award, through which she will spend eight months at the University of York in England from December.

Tucker is a historian of British science, technology and medicine, specializing in the study of the connections among British science, photography and the visual arts from 1850 to 1920. At the University of York, she will complete work on her second book, tentatively titled,Facing Facts: The Tichborne Cause Célèbre and the Rise of Modern Visual Evidence. She also plans to begin preliminary research toward her next book project, which will trace the social history of Victorian scientific and popular visual depictions of the ocean life before and after the HMS Challenger expedition (1872-1876), which laid foundations for the modern science of oceanography.

Tucker previously studied in England as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Cambridge. She received an M.Phil degree from the University of Cambridge in 1990.

As a Fulbright scholar, Tucker will finish the writing of her second book in conversation with members of the scholarly community in the University of York’s Department of History of Art. The book is the first historical account of the circulation of visual evidence (photos, engravings, cartoons, and newspaper illustrations) in the high-profile 19th century trials of Arthur Orton, a butcher from Australia who claimed to be Sir Roger Charles Tichborne, the missing heir to an aristocratic English estate.

“The Tichborne affair is best known today as a case of imposture, identity, and disputed inheritance that attracted strong working class support and led to the dissolution of the Court of Chancery in 1875. My study will show that the Tichborne affair was also an overlooked landmark in the history of Victorian visual culture,” Tucker wrote in her application for the Fulbright Scholarship.

At York, Tucker also will begin preliminary research for her next major book project using photographic archives in York and the National Media Museum in Bradford and, she hopes, materials from the London Stereoscopic Company in the private collection of guitarist and songwriter, Brian May, from the British rock band, Queen.

“The University of York has remarkable intellectual and archival resources related to my scholarly projects and core teaching interests. In addition to the University’s extraordinary expertise in 19th century British history of art and visual culture and related fields, it is within an hour of the leading archive for British photographic history, the National Media Museum in Bradford: home to the National Photography, Cinematography, Television and New Media Collections,” Tucker writes in her application. “The National Media Museum is a vast repository of primary and archival materials that are invaluable for the 19th century photographic historian, including thousands of historical photographs, specimens of photographic processes from 1839 to the present, camera technologies, and rare surviving 19th century photographic journals, letters and photographic studio records.”

Read more here: http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2013/03/11/tuckerfulbright/

Scotland-based Elmwood has been selected to carry out fit out works for Media Space at the London Science Museum.

The new galleries are the result of a collaboration between the National Media Museum in Bradford and the London Science Museum, and will include 500 sq m of temporary exhibition space, a 290 sq m flexible studio space for installations and events, and a café bar area designed to take the venue from day into night.

Work is already underway on the new venue. Says Contracts Director Stewart Arnott: “Elmwood has been contracted to carry out the enabling and shellworks for the new venue, ranging from M&E installation, air handling plant, and power and data installation, through to joinery, bespoke furniture, floor and wall finishes, lighting and graphics.

“Each element has to be carried out with sensitivity to the live environment and in accordance with strict criteria. So we’re working extremely closely with both the client and design team to ensure we bring the project in on time, within budget and to a flawless finish.”

Once complete, Media Space is expected to host two major exhibitions and a series of installations and events each year.

See: http://www.elmwoods.com/news/new-newspage-12/

Image: Kate Elliott / Science Museum

In 1862, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) was sent on a four-month educational tour of the Middle East, accompanied by the British photographer Francis Bedford (1815-94). This exhibition documents his journey through the work of Bedford, the first photographer to travel on a royal tour. It explores the cultural and political significance Victorian Britain attached to the region, which was then as complex and contested as it remains today. 

In 1922, an appeal went out from the Royal Photographic Society to suitably recognise the inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot.  Many photographers were happy to join in the subscription and more than £200 was raised (equivalent to about £10,000 today).  In September 1924 the bronze and marble memorial was unveiled in the library of the Society’s headquarters, 35 Russell Square (near the British Museum).  It was crafted by George Hawkings, a monumental sculptor then based in Shepherds Bush, London.  He was President of the Hampshire House Photographic Society, a pioneer in the use of colour photography, and a fine worker in photogravure.  When he died in 1937, he merited a full page obituary in The Photographic Journal.

below: from the British Journal of Photography – the size of the memorial is not recorded 

In 1938, the Society realised that it was losing its lease on Russell Square and sought out a new home, finally settling on an address in Princes Gate.  The move was accomplished early in 1939 and by July the Society’s former quarters had been demolished.

Astonishingly, the last record of the Talbot memorial that I have been able to trace was a proud mention in Hawkings’s 1937 obituary.  Even though 1939 celebrated the centenary of photography, and Miss Matilda Talbot spoke to the Society about her grandfather, nothing was said about moving the memorial.  It would seem astonishing that such a recent and popular piece of history would have been left behind that year – it would not have been difficult or expensive to move – yet nobody that I have spoken to who was familiar with Princes Gate or any of the subsequent Society headquarters has any memory of it.  No published mention of it has been traced after the 1937 obituary.

If anyone has any information on the fate of this memorial, it would be appreciated.  If anyone spots any published reference to it after 1937, that could be very helpful.

many thanks

Larry J Schaaf

right: what was left of the Society’s Russell Square headquarters by July 1939 – BJP

March at the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre:

Seminar:

Louise Purbrick, 'Traces of Nitrate: Archives and Landscapes between Britain and Chile'

Monday, 11 March, 6-7.30pm, Keynes Library (Room 114), 

School of Arts, Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

This seminar is related to the exhibition Traces of Nitrate: Some Documents

11-15 March 2013, Pelz Room, School of Arts, Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

An exhibition of the photographic work in progress of the AHRC funded Traces of Nitrate project developed at the University of Brighton by Ignacio Acosta, Louise Purbrick and Xavier Ribas 

(http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/traces-of-nitrate)

Gallery Talk

Traces of Nitrate: Mining history and photography between Britain and Chile

Friday, 15 March, 1-2 pm, Pelz Room, School of Arts, Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

History and Theory of Photography Reading Group.

On 18 March 2013, 6-7:30 pm, we'll discuss the first chapter 'Sacred Monuments of the Nation's Growth and Hope' and the last 'Afterlives and Legacies' from Elizabeth Edwards, The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885-1918 (Duke University Press, 2012). Room 112, School of Arts, Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

Forthcoming events in May (all in the School of Art, 43 Gordon Square)

01/05/13 - Next reading group, the text will be decided in March, let us know if you have any requests, room 112. 

08/05/13 - Seminar: Graham Smith, 'Rauschenberg's use of photographs in his Combines of the 1950s', Keynes Library.

09/05/13 - Seminar: Magnus Bremmer, 'The Making of a Cloud Observer: On the 19th Century Photographic Cloud-Atlas', Keynes Library.

All our events are free and open to all. Details on 

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/our-research/centres/photography

Further information and images on our blog:

http://photographyresearchcentre.blogspot.co.uk/

Patrizia Di Bello (Dr),

Senior Lecturer, History and Theory of Photography

Birkbeck, University of London,

www.bbk.ac.uk/art-history

The advancement of photo-historical research by prospective curators from the Netherlands or abroad using the original photographs in the National Photo Collection in the Rijksmuseum.

The Manfred & Hanna Heiting Fund enables the Rijksmuseum to award two scholarships every year. The aim of this postgraduate scholarship is to stimulate photo-historical research of the highest quality. The research must result in an article in the field of classical photography. It should be related to the original objects in the extensive and important collection of the Rijksmuseum, and where possible to objects in other collections. This could be an in-depth study of one photograph or photo book and/or its distribution; on a series of photographs or part of an oeuvre; on the aesthetic or technical aspects of photography; on the wider context of a photo book or album; or on combinations of art-historical research and research on materials and techniques . The international research bursary is for a period of 6 months. The researcher will work independently and will be allocated a place in the reading room of the Rijksprentenkabinet (Print Room) and have access to all the museum’s collections and library.

Subject: Call for applicants, Manfred and Hanna Heiting Fund: Photo-historical Research Programme, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam announces the research programme for photo-historical Research in the Print Room of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Funding for this project has been provided by the Manfred and Hanna Heiting Fund: two grants per annum, for the duration 6 months per grant, over a new period of 5 years.

Aim: to research subject(s) – photographs (19th, as well as 20th century photography), series, photo books, albums- in the National Photo-collection at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

Requirements for applicants: Talented post-graduates in Art History or the History of Photography.

Required result: a paper or an article, to be submitted, resulting in a publication in the series Rijksmuseum Studies in Photography.

Starting : We want to start summer 2013  in the premises of the Print Room/Library/ of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Applicants can work in the Study Room of the Print Room of the Rijksmuseum.

Advertisement: The advertisement is attached to this mail. Proposals to be written in English!

Closing date for proposals : 15^th of May  https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/organisation/vacancies/manfred-and-hanna-heiting-scholarship

The National Media Museum has launched a series of 90 second video bites. In the first of the series Colin Harding talks about Francis Bedford.

See: http://nationalmediamuseum.tumblr.com/post/44300693721/francis-bedford-in-90-seconds

The sad news has reached BPH that Professor Margaret Harker Farrand died on 16 February 2013 aged 93. According to Margaret's solicitor she was 'ready to go'. The funeral will take place at 11am on Monday, 11 March, at St Bartholomew Church, Egdean, near Pulborough, East Sussex, RH20 1JU. 

Margaret  was a respected architectural and commercial photographer, a photographic historian and author, an educator at the Regent Street Poly (now the University of Westminster) where she became a Professor and important to The Royal Photographic Society and its collection over many years. She joined The Society in 1941 and became its first woman President serving 1958-60.  

Margaret was also active with the Institute of British Photographers, now the BIPP, the European Society for the History of Photography and many other bodies. 

A fuller obituary will be published here shortly.  

The RPS has published an obituary here: http://www.rps.org/news/detail/society_news/obituary_-_margaret_harker-farrand_1920-2013) and an extensive obituary will appear in The Society's April Journal.

Images: right Margaret Harker, 1952. Courtesy the archive of Dr S D Jouhar FRPS FPSA; below: with RPS Presidents c.1960

On Wednesday, 6 March Professor Ute Eskildsen, former Director and Head of Photography at Museum Folkwang, Essen, will explore the documentary aspects of the Krupp archive and trace how certain images were used and distributed. Close inspection of such photographs reveals that they are never simple documents of industrial interests alone.

Drawing on the rich industrial heritage of the Ruhr Valley, with its obvious parallels with the industrialisation of the south Wales valleys, this lecture forms part of a series accompanying a project by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections – a project made possible through a major gift from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Ute Eskildsen was until recently Acting Director and Head of Photography at the Museum Folkwang, Essen.See: http://www.goethe.de/kue/bku/kur/kur/ag/esk/enindex.htm

In partnership with the eCPR, at University of Wales Newport, the lecture series will reflect the exciting work that Amgueddfa Cymru is undertaking from 2012 to 2015.

For further partner details visit: www.newport.ac.uk/research/ResearchGroups/ecpr/Pages/eCPR.aspx

www.museumwales.ac.uk

Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 5.45pm

The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited. To reserve your place, please email:
Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk with your name and contact telephone number.

Image: Wheel tyres being moved by hand, Krupp Works Essen, 28. Oct. 1899. Courtesy of Historisches Archiv Krupp, Essen

Dr Anthony H Cooper writes...The British Geological Survey National Archive of Geological Photographs “GeoScenic” is online, but may not be a resource that members have come across. The collection includes over 50,000 photographs dating back to around 1850 with around 30,000 GeoScience images and 20,000 special collection images. They can be searched using subject browsing, or the advanced search that allows date ranges to be specified. There is also a map browser for geographically located images. Many of the geological photographs are records of the landscape and industry dating from the present back to the late 18^th Century.

It can be accessed at:

http://geoscenic.bgs.ac.uk/asset-bank/action/viewHome and images 1000 x 1000px may be downloaded without charge for non-commercial use. 

Of particular interest to British Photographic History are the special collections, many of which have been donated to the Survey and are listed below with the number of photographs in each shown in parentheses. Included among them are the collection of Survey staff photographs includes many notable geologists, amongst them: John Phillips, T.H.Huxley, Sir Robert Impey Muchision, Sir Archibold Geike and Henry Thomas De La Beche. The Leeds Cave Club collection charts early underground exploration while the Teale collection of photographs illustrate the Africa of the 1900-1930’s as encountered by some of the first geologists to survey those parts.

I highlight this collection to the membership and suggest that perhaps a link to the National Archive of Geological Photographs could be added to the quick resources listing.

Special collections:

•                Dr. R. Kidston Carboniferous fossil plants (3618)

•                H.W. Haywood, Leeds Cave Club (633)

•                British Science Association (BAAS) (6936)

•                Vesuvius - historical images (37)

•                Henry Mowbray Cadell archives (532)

•                1936 Royal Society expedition to Montserrat - The A.G. MacGregor archive (338)

•                W.J. Reynolds Collection (181)

•                Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, London. c1855 -1900. GSM.MG.E.5 (45)

•                Survey staff photographs. Geological Survey and Museum and Royal School of Mines, 1850-1910. IGS1.639 (138)

•                J.V. Stephens Italy collection taken during the Second World War (170)

•                Mount Etna eruption 1892 (9)

•                F.W. Harmer collection, East Anglia (45)

•                George Scott Johnstone collection - Scottish mountains (1893)

•                E.O. Teale photograph collection 1900s-1930s (mostly Africa) (421)

Image: W. Norrie, Ross of Mull (looking through Nun's Cave), 1890

The London Stereoscopic Company has launched the first set of facsimile French Diableries cards…..with more to come.  The scenes depicted in these Diableries were made in clay, on a table-top, with amazing skill, by a small bunch of gifted sculptors, and then photographed with a stereo camera. The resulting stereo pair of prints was made on thin albumen paper, and water-colours were applied - not to the front surface, as in the case of normal stereo cards - but to the back of the prints. The eyes of each skeleton were then pricked out with a sharp instrument, and small pieces of red gel, or blobs of reddened varnish, were applied to the back of the pricked holes. Behind this pair of prints was added a layer of tissue paper, which hid the 'works' to the rear surface of the view. The print and the backing tissue were then mounted together, sandwiched between two cardboard frames - each with twin cut-out 'windows' for the prints, and the whole was glued together to make a French Tissue stereo card.

The cards, called 'Diableries' (which translates roughly as 'Devilments') depict a whole imaginary underworld, populated by devils, satyrs and skeletons which are very much alive and, for the most part, having fun. The cards are works of art in themselves, and are known as FRENCH TISSUES, constructed in a special way to enable them to be viewed (in a stereoscope) illuminated from the front, for a normal 'day' appearance in monochrome, or illuminated from the back, transforming the view into a 'night' scene, in which hidden colours magically appear, and the eyes of the skeletons leap out in red, in a most macabre way!

These facsimile cards, loving restored and created by Brian May – where does he find the time? – are quite magical, even down to the glowing red eyes which glint menacingly in the light.

For further details and how to order the cards and accompanying “Owl” stereoscope, see the London Stereoscopic Company website http://www.londonstereo.com/index.html

The 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (iCHSTM 2013), to be held in Manchester, UK from Sunday 21 to Sunday 28 July, contains a number of sessions dealing with photography and science within an historical context. Registration is now open. Go to <http://www.ichstm2013.com/registration/> and follow the link to open the registration form. Registration will be available at the early discounted rate until Sunday 14 April, and at a higher rate until Monday 1 July, which is the final deadline.

The first draft listing of of pre-arranged symposia, including individual abstracts for around 1100 papers, is now available and can be seen at http://www.ichstm2013.com/programme/guide/. 

The strand Visual Sciences includes: 

This talk seeks to probe and extend our current understanding of the relation between photography and ubiquity. One of the ways in which we understand this relation is through digitization and debates on new or digital media concerned with the proliferation of photography in public and private life. Another way is through the assimilation, if not of photography then of the photographic, in the discourses and practices of ubiquitous computing. Professor Kember will explore what is at stake in the shift from a sense that photography is everywhere to a sense that the photographic is ‘everyware’ (Greenfield), meaning, ‘ever more pervasive, ever harder to perceive’.

Sarah Kember is Professor of New Technologies of Communication, Goldsmiths, University of London. She works at the intersection of new media and feminist science and technology studies. Professor Kember co-edits the journal photographies and is the author (with Joanna Zylinska), most recently, of Life After New Media. Mediation as a Vital Process, (MIT Press, 2012).

The History of Photography research seminar series aims to be a discursive platform for the discussion and dissemination of current research on photography.  From art as photography and early photographic technology to ethnographic photographs and contemporary photography as art, the seminar welcomes contributions from researchers across the board, whether independent or affiliated with museums, galleries, archives, libraries or higher education, and endeavors to provide scholars with a challenging opportunity to present work in progress and test out new ideas.

The seminars usually take place once a term, on Wednesday evenings at 5.30pm in the Research Forum. The papers, and formal discussion, are followed by informal discussion and refreshments.

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

Open to all, free admission 

Charlotte Cotton who was heading the National Media Museum/Science Museum's Media Space project until her sudden departure in 2012 has been lined up to curate Positive View Foundation's second exhibition of 2013 which will be a celebration of 100 years of Vanity Fair magazine. It will be held at Somerset House in November.

http://www.positiveviewfoundation.org.uk/

Our ability to see and record live events from right across the world has shrunk the globe, making virtual neighbours of us all. It is a defining characteristic of our modern world. The final episode in the series reveals the fascinating stories that made such everyday miracles possible. It tells the story of the handful of extraordinary inventions and their inventors who tackled the complexities of chemistry and electronics and discovered how to capture and reproduce still and moving images.

Michael Mosley and academics Prof Mark Miodownik and Dr Cassie Newland tell the amazing story of three of the greatest and most transformative inventions of all time - photography, moving pictures and television.

The experts explain how these inventions came about by sparks of inventive genius and steady incremental improvements hammered out in workshops and studios. They separate myth from reality in the lives of the great inventors and celebrate some of the most remarkable stories in British history.

The programme includes filming at Lacock Abbey and Richard Cynan-Jones who made a calotype of host Michael Mosley. 

Broadcast on 14 February and available on the BBC iPlayer here. 

On October 31 2013 IRPA-KIK organises a conference on management and conservation of photographic collections. Many institutions (museums, libraries, archives, etc.) that have photographic collections are facing problems concerning their management: storage, inventory, digitalization, access, copyright issues, status and value attached to the collection 
etc.

The conference offers professionals who are confronted with these problems an occasion to develop a practical and ethical framework for the conservation of photographic collections.

If you would like to present a paper on one of the diverse topics concerning this theme, you can send your proposal to IRPA-KIK before March 31 2013.

Main colloquium topics

• Collections care and management
  • (Preventive) conservation
  • Risk management
  • Storage for photographic collections
• Access
  • Copyright
  • Digitization
  • Exhibition
• The status of the image
• Advocacy

Language

The principal language of the conference will be English, but papers in French will also be welcome.

More information: see conference website: http://org.kikirpa.be/coma2013/