The National Media Museum, Bradford, has appointed Jo Quinton-Tulloch as its Head of Museum. Jo Quinton-Tulloch is currently the Head of Exhibitions at the Science Museum in London. She will take up her post in Bradford in September 2012. Jo has worked in museums for 18 years and has a wealth of experience in establishing successful exhibitions and programmes at the Science Museum, and also at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, in Falmouth.

Making the announcement, Heather Mayfield, Deputy Director of the Science Museum, said: “I am delighted that Jo has agreed to take on this role, in London and Falmouth she has led the delivery of world class exhibitions and programmes working with audiences, artists and curators. I look forward to seeing her using the National Media Museum collections in new and exciting ways.”

Jo will focus on building on the National Media Museum’s cultural programme and reputation, ensuring future success by maximising the impact of its vibrant exhibitions, events and activities. Her priority will be to ensure optimum public access to the National Collections held and cared for in Bradford, through the Museum’s displays, digital delivery and research.

In addition she will work with the Science Museum and National Media Museum to deliver the upcoming £4 million Media Space project. The Media Space will see the two institutions join forces to launch a major new permanent gallery in the Science Museum alongside a unique shared exhibition programme in Spring 2013.

Jo said: “I’m delighted to have the opportunity to work with such a significant collection and build on the existing programme to further establish the National Media Museum as an important cultural destination, locally and nationally. It’s a very exciting time to be part of the Museum and I’m looking forward to joining the team in September.”

The Head of Museum appointment has been made after Colin Philpott stepped down as Director of the National Media Museum following a senior level restructure of the parent organisation in December 2011.

Jo Quinton-Tulloch Biography

Jo Quinton-Tulloch has been Head of Exhibitions and Programmes at the Science Museum since 2004. During this time she has been responsible delivering exhibitions from small temporary shows such as Penicillin, to an up-grade of the Space gallery, through to the multi-million pound, award winningAtmosphere permanent gallery and associated climate changing programme.

Jo manages the innovative Art Programme which delivers artists’ projects in the Science Museum, including artist residencies and temporary exhibitions. She also oversees the programme of ‘Live Science’ activities which allow the public to meet scientists and take part in experiments on gallery, and the contemporary science team who deliver up-to-date news and programmes across many platforms.

Jo’s career in museums started when she joined the Science Museum as a part-time Explainer in 1994 while completing a Masters in Science Communication at Imperial College. During this time she was also a lecturer and joint course organiser for the Museum module of the MSc in Science Communication, Imperial College, and the Diploma in Science Communication, Birkbeck College.

She has worked at the Boston Museum of Science, USA, and between 2000 – 2004 she left the Science Museum to set up a brand new institution – the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Jo was responsible for the development and delivery of all galleries at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, and also established a framework for the collections management, documentation and restoration programmes, as well as managing the delivery of the Education, Special Exhibition and Lecture Theatre programmes.

Jo completed the Museum Leadership Programme at the University of East Anglia in 2001 and is about to attend the Museum Leadership Course run by the Getty Foundation in USA.

Bonhams Oxford is offering part of the photography collection of Harry Wills who died in 2011 aged 90. Wills was born and raised in Birmingham and was one of the earliest collectors of photographs and photographic equipment in Britain. He was a founder member of The Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group in 1972 and part of the first generation of British collectors and photographic historians. Pete James paid generous tribute to Wills in his obituary published in the April 2012 RPS Journal.

Although the provenance of the material in the material is not given by Bonhams the lots includes much of early British and Birmingham photographic interest as well as some of Wills' own photography (shown right). The photographs include material from W H F Talbot, Samuel Smith, Harold White, an extensive collection of topographic albums, cartes de visite and ambrotypes as well as early and rare photographically illustrated books.

The sale begins at 10.30am on 26 June and is on view from 23-26 June. 

For more information about the lots see: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20138/

The fate of the rest of Wills' extensive photography collection and his equipment  collection has not been disclosed. 

On Tuesday 3 April 2012, the Library of Birmingham launched Reference Works: a major photography commission in which four leading photographers will make visual responses to the current Central Library building and to the build, transition and relocation to the new Library of Birmingham.

Established by Birmingham City Council to reflect and record this momentous event in the city’s cultural history, the project – supported by the Arts Council - represents the largest and most significant photography commission ever undertaken in Birmingham. The resulting works will go on display in the new Library of Birmingham when it opens in 2013.

The four commissioned photographers are Michael Collins, Brian Griffin, Andrew Lacon and Stuart Whipps. Three of the artists will focus on the buildings and their contents, while one, Brian Griffin, will focus on portraits of people linked to the building project. The work of all four photographers will be shown in the first exhibition in the new Library of Birmingham Gallery in September 2013. There will also be a related exhibition of photographs drawn from the Library’s internationally renowned archives charting the history of Birmingham’s libraries and an accompanying book. Some of the work will also be presented on digital displays and interactive screens built into the fabric of the new Library of Birmingham..

The Library of Birmingham is also working in partnership with Birmingham City University to manage and deliver a mentoring programme linked to the large scale commission. Five new and emerging artists will be mentored by the leading photographers and project managers over an 18 month period to enhance their professional practice, knowledge and skills. The young photographers will also make individual bodies of work about the old and new library buildings that will be exhibited in conjunction with the main gallery show.

Brian Gambles, Assistant Director of Culture at Birmingham Library and Archive Services, said: “We’re thrilled to be able to launch this commission which will record a great moment in Birmingham’s history, celebrating the new library building and the people who make it happen. These new photographs, taken by illustrious artists, will serve as a great record for the people of Birmingham for generations to come. We are also pleased to be able to nurture new photographic talent through our collaboration with Birmingham City University, and we look forward to welcoming visitors through the library’s doors to see the photographs of all these artists on show in 2013.”

Pete James, Head of Photographs at Birmingham Library and Archive Services, said: “We’re really excited about Reference Works, which is the largest and most significant photography commission project yet undertaken in Birmingham. The differing approaches employed by the four commissioned photographers will give a richness and diversity to the project, enabling current and future generations to explore this historical moment from a variety of creative perspectives. The new works by Michael Collins, Brian Griffin, Andrew Lacon and Stuart Whipps will be tremendous additions to our collection. We are confident that the work will be significant not only to us, but to other photography institutions and collections at home and abroad, and that touring the show will help cement Birmingham’s place as an international centre for photography.”

Reference Works has been made possible with the help of a £62,000 grant from Arts Council of England and partnership support from Birmingham City University. Further sponsorship for the project has come from Capita Symonds, Carillion, Mecanoo and The Flash Centre, Birmingham.

The commission is led by Birmingham Library and Archives Services’ Photography Department who have a successful record commissioning contemporary photography, curating exhibitions, developing private and public sector partnerships, and managing the institutions massive historical photography archive. In 2006 the archive was awarded Designated Status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in recognition of its national and international importance. The department has an established track record of commissioning and acquiring new creative photography about the city and this project is another example of this vital work.

At a recent auction a Victorian walnut cased table top achromatic stereoscope by Smith Beck and Beck complete with approximately 260 card mounted slides and 10 glass slides, was the subject of a frenzied bidding war between numerous telephone and internet bidders. It was sold to a New Jersey America buyer for £6900 almost seven times the upper estimate at Dee Atkinson & Harrison in Driffield. 

Dr Lynn Pearson is researching the image shown here which has been attributed to W H F Talbot and does not appear to have been previously reproduced. The image shows Collins's Brewery in Water Lane, Richmond, probably 1840s.It is in the David Parry collection, part of the Brewery History Society collection, so it is just the cutting, stuck on a card with a few details about the brewery. Nothing to say where either the photo or the cutting came from. Parry has added a caption saying the photo is by Fox Talbot. 

Is any reader about to confirm the attribution?

As BPH reported in 2009 De Montfort University had been given the remaining portion of the Kodak Research Library which had been based at Kodak Ltd's premises at Harrow. The company's archives are at the British Library. At an informal ceremony this week attended by Sam Weller and Chris Roberts both formerly of Kodak De Montfort University's Kimberlin Library showed off the Kodak library newly installed in its purpose-built Special Collections area. 

The Kodak material is particularly strong in runs of British, European and American photographic journals.As one would expect it also includes some limited material relating to Kodak but the majority of Kodak's own publications are held as part of the Kodak Historical Collection at the British Library,  The DMU material has been catalogued and is available through the online library catalogue. The library's catalogue search facility can be found here. Use 'Kodak Collection' in the keyword field to browse all titles or search for specific titles.  

It is worth giving some context to the material that is now at DMU. Chris Roberts was actively involved in saving the library from being dispersed or destroyed. He notes that the material at DMU is only a small fraction of what had originally been at Kodak in Harrow, as an urgent decision had to be taken regarding what to 'rescue '.  He writes: "I had only a short time to move selected books from the Library to the Archive before the remainder was thrown away! You can imagine my horror in seeing the notice that the Library was to be first offered to members of the Research Laboratory and the remainder disposed of.  It all happened quite quickly. Hope Kingsley helped me to move the books and although I offered whatever we had to the Universities of Westminster and Middlesex they did not have the finance or the room for any more books." Roger Taylor promoted the interest of DMU and this resulted in the agreement between the BL, DMU and Kodak. Sadly this is not an usual story - many company libraries have been destroyed and photo-historians should be grateful that as much was saved as possible. 

The Kodak Collection in the Special Collections areas is open to members of the public usually between Tuesday and Thursday from 9am to 4pm or by appointment. The library archivist is Linda Butt who can be reached on +44 (0)116 250 6392 or email: lbutt@dmu.ac.uk. 

De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) celebrated it's first anniversary on Thursday. Professor Elizabeth Edwards, the Centre's Director, gave her professorial lecture and launched her new book The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885–1918.

Durign the evening Gerard Moran, Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities, announced that Professor Stephen Brown had been awarded a £390,000 AHRC two year research grant to look at  'fuzzy photographs'; Elizabeth Edwards had been awarded an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award with the British Museum and that Kelley Wilder had been appointed a visiting professor at the University of Zürich. 

The Centre has also launched the first issue of its newsletter - a copy can be downloaded here: PHRC Newsletter No 1 April 2012  

More on the PHRC and its activities can be found here.

Photo right: Roger Taylor, Elizabeth Edwards, Kelley Wilder and Stephen Brown cut the first birthday cake of the PHRC.  Below: Visitors, students and staff gathering before Elizabeth Edwards' professorial lecture. © Michael Pritchard. 

Terry King & Hands-On Pictures in Richmond have a number of upcoming workshops: Niepce and Wedgwood on 12 & 13 June focuses on making prints on metal using asphaltum also known as ' bitumen of Judea'.  It will use two different methods, the first will produce a straight photograph in asphaltum, the second will produce an image using asphaltum which will result in a plate having the  same qualities as 'The First Photograph' in the 'Harry Ransom Center' in Austin. The group will experiment  by combining  asphaltum and aquatint to produce an image in ink on paper and will also make prints onto leather in the style of Thomas Wedgwood as described in his 1804 paper to the Royal Institution. The cost of the workshop will be £250.

Cyanotype and Cyanotype Rex Terry King and the team at Hands-On Pictures will be running two two-day workshops, the first on 6 & 7 June and the second on 12 & 13 July, covering the beauty of tone and gradation that can be got from the straight cyanotype process on a number of materials. The group will also pursue toning techniques and Terry King’s cyanotype rex process, a development that allows split toning into subtle blues, greys and ochres.  The philosophy of the workshops is that we should use the simplest methods to achieve the best effects in picture making. The cost will be £250.

Platinum and Palladium. In July Terry King and the team at the Hands-On Pictures studio in Richmond are giving two different Platinum and Palladium workshops, one using digital negatives and the other film negatives from large format cameras. Each workshop is limited to six people. The most beautiful photographic prints have been made using the platinum process. The tactility and subtlety of these prints, made on fine art papers, transcend what is possible with other processes. The first workshop from 10 30 AM to 5 30 PM on 7 & 8 July will cover making large format film negatives exposed and developed to produce the wide density range needed to produce the beautiful contrast and gradation for which the platinum print is renowned. The workshop will include taking photographs on large format cameras. The cost will be £250. The second workshop, will be from 10 30 AM to 5 30 PM on 28 & 29 July. The group will make digital negatives together with Peter Moseley. We will adjust curves to give negatives of the necessary density range to produce platinum prints similar to those produced from film. The negatives will be made from scans or digital files which students may bring them. The cost will be £250.

More information is at: www.hands-on-pictures.com or email: terryaking@me.com

Birmingham's Ikon Gallery is proposing a new museum of photography in the city centre's Curzon Street station building. The proposal document states: 'The Curzon Street railway station building, with its impressive classical entrance facing into the centre of Curzon Square, will become Birmingham’s new Museum of Photography, drawing from the extensive collection of the new Library of Birmingham. As well as temporary exhibitions, it will provide displays of local history especially reflective of the people of Birmingham'. Realisation of the scheme would take place over ten years and would also see the relocation of a national art collection as part of the project.

Source magazine spoke to Peter James in its latest issue (Spring 2012) . James, Head of Photographs at Birmingham Central Library welcomed the proposal. However, according to Source which also spoke to Ikon's deputy director Deborah Kermode, the Ikon proposal would see Birmingham Central Library divested of its photography collections which would move to the new museum. At which point James might be less welcoming of the idea especially as the new Birmingham Library due to open in Summer 2013 will be giving the photography collections better storage conditions and a greater prominence than hitherto.   

Source magazine has more on this - click here.

Update: Helen Stallard of Ikon has contacted BPH to update the report above. Helen advises that the Ikon proposal is not to divest Birmingham Central Library of its photography collection. Ikon looks forward to the opening of the new Library of Birmingham which will provide much improved environmental conditions for photographic storage. She notes that the Libray's photography collection "does not have a dedicated gallery, which is where the partnership between the Library and Ikon primarily will bear fruit. The proposed museum of photography will provide a showcase for the collection, freely accessible to the general public".

Ikon is taking the first steps in a long proces with many issues of management and strategy to be resolved. She says: "It is our conviction that the success of the project overall will arise out of vital partnerships and good will (in abundance) between the various institutions involved".  

BPH looks forward to reporting on progress over the coming years.

A one-day symposium on pivotal role of one family in nineteenth century life. From the history of science to literary criticism, this interdisciplinary event explores the Dillwyn family’s contributions to: Anti-Slavery and transatlantic trade, nineteenth century science and ground-breaking early photography, feminist literature and pioneering industrial fiction, nation-building politics and the relationship between science and culture. 

Speakers include Professor Prys Morgan, Professor Chris Evans and Professor Iwan Morus.

22 June 2012, National Waterfront Museum, Swansea

See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/events/dillwyn-day-science-culture-society-1

The Photographers' Gallery in London re-opens to the public today after a major refurbishment and rebuilding programme. Speaking to BPH at the launch yesterday Brett Rogers, Director, said that the refurbishment has exceeded her expectations.

The building has been extended and the first major exhibition over two floors is Burtynsky's Oil which runs to 1 July. The new space does full justice to the large format colour prints.

An extended print room, bookshop and cafe add to the venue and the latter seems set to to become a great meeting place for photographers. 

See: http://www.photonet.org.uk/

Life Online,at the National Media Museum, Bradford, is designed by NRNDesign  The gallery is designed to explore the social, technological and cultural impact of the Internet. This permanent gallery traces the history of the Internet, looking at how it has changed people's lives and tracking the latest trends online.
 The gallery covers two spaces within the National Media Museum; a permanent exhibition on the ground floor and a changing temporary exhibition space on level 7. 
The permanent exhibition tracks the history of the Internet, from the first experimental messages to the rise of modern social networking. A range of interactives explore the story of the Internet, whilst a timeline of objects showcases the evolution of Internet and computing technology.


Read more:
http://www.dexigner.com/news/25134#ixzz1v9pJB8ek


The Media Space benefit auction held at Christie's last night realised £370,200. After a reception and short speeches from Ian Blatchford, director of the Science Museum and Michael G Wilson OBE the auctioneer, Philippe Garner of Christie's, knocked down sixty lots. The money raised will be used to support the National Media Museum's new space at London's Science Museum which is scheduled to open in March 2013 (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/media-space-the-first-view-of-the-space)

The highest price was achieved by Mark Cohen's True Color, 2008 at £60,000, followed by Luc Delahaye's 132nd Ordinary Meeting of the Conference at £24,000 and Irving Penn's portrait of Cecil Beaton at £20,000. A calotype by W H F Talbot realised £15,000.

The full results can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/8xfdajl

Photo: Michael Pritchard

Auction house Christie’s is working with the Science Museum and the National Media Museum, Bradford, to present a benefit sale of Photographs 1840s to the Present which will be sold on the evening of Wednesday 16 May to raise funds for the new MEDIA SPACE that will open at the Science Museum in London in Spring 2013. The group offered comprises 61 remarkable images which span works by the photographic icons of the 19^th and 20^thcentury, through to leading contemporary names. The auction is expected to realise in excess of £300,000. Christie’s Photographs sale will also take place on the 16 May, in the afternoon, please click here for the separate press release.

The auction is by invitation only but bidding will be accepted via the internet and on commission. The e-catalogue is available here: http://tinyurl.com/cczybjh

Philippe Garner, Christie’s International Head of Photographs: “Christies is proud to be entrusted with this important benefit sale to which so many artists, gallerists, dealers and collectors have donated wonderful works. MEDIA SPACE is an inspiring new suite of galleries and performance spaces for independent thinkers, practitioners, pioneers of technology, writers, agenda setters, and young creative professionals on the design spectrum. It is an investment not only in the capital’s rich cultural offerings but also a further safeguard of photographic history – this will be a remarkable venue for exhibitions which draw on national collections, as well as providing a focused centre for the study of creative media.”

Ian Blatchford, the Science Museum Director: MEDIA SPACE will be a landmark over the next decade, combining the world-class collections of the National Media Museum with the exceptional and iconic space of the Science Museum.”

The most valuable individual work of the auction is print 5, from the sold-out edition of 5, of132^nd Ordinary Meeting of the Conference by Luc Delahaye, the recipient of many prestigious awards who has exhibited widely, most recently at Tate Modern in 2011 (estimate: £20,000-30,000, illustrated left). Having worked for many years for the photographic collective Magnum, Delahaye’s large-format photographs explore new ways of representing socio-political events, incidents and situations, specifically from Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.  

Dating to circa 1846, the earliest work is Bust of Paatroclus by William Henry Fox Talbot the photographic pioneer who invented the calotype negative-positive print process, through which the present work is created (estimate: £10,000-15,000). A further rare 19^thcentury work is General Sir James Simpson, circa 1855, by Roger Fenton (estimate: £1,500-2,000).

Leading the 20^th century works is a celebrated image by Irving Penn of his fellow artistCecil Beaton, which conveys Penn’s respect for the photographer whom he considered ‘an acute reporter of his time and milieu’ (estimate: £15,000-20,000). Another important work, in excellent condition, is Ten Photographs: 1923-1932, a portfolio by Rudolf Koppitz; (estimate: £8,000-12,000).

20^TH CENTURY
Further 20^th century highlights include, from left to right: Portugal, 1976, by Josef Koudelka (estimate: £10,000-15,000); Untitled (Ship it on the Frisco), from ‘Los Alamos’, 1965-1974 and Untitled, from ‘Southern Suite’, 1981, both by William Eggleston (each with an estimate of £8,000-12,000); Le corps robot descending stairs, Monte Carlo, 1995, by Helmut Newton (estimate: £6,000-8,000) and Henri Matisse, Vence, France, 1944, by Henri Cartier-Bresson (estimate: £6,000-8,000).     

CONTEMPORARY
The rich array of contemporary works span, from left to right: Anna, Red Fragment, 2012by Richard Learoyd (estimate: £15,000-20,000); Battersea Power Station, 1997, by Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low (estimate: £10,000-15,000) and The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, Mini Israel, Latrun, Israel 2007 by Taryn Simon (estimate: £7,000-9,000) toTeenage boy in Vondelpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 2, 2006 by Rineke Dijkstra (estimate: £15,000-20,000).

View Old Master painting through a new lens with London's National Gallery's first major exhibition of photography co-curated by Christopher Riopelle, National Gallery Curator for Post-1800 Painting, and Hope Kingsley from the Wilson Centre for Photography. Opening on 31 October 2012 the exhibition explores work by early photographers from the mid-19th century and the most exciting contemporary artists working with photography, alongside historical painting. It takes a provocative look at how photographers use fine art traditions, including Old Master painting, to explore and justify the possibilities of their art.


Work by leading photographers, such as Martin Parr, Craigie Horsfield, Sam Taylor-Wood, Richard Billingham, Julia Margaret Cameron and Gustave Le Gray will be on display beside key works from the National Gallery collection.

Paintings and early and contemporary photographs are presented together according to traditional genres such as portraiture, still life, nudes and landscape, highlighting the universality of the themes and influences across all the works, both past and present.

Drawing attention to one particular and rich strand of photography’s history – that of the influence and inspiration of historical painting – the exhibition features major early works by the greatest British and French photographers alongside work by an international array of contemporary artists. It includes new photography and video specially commissioned for the exhibition and on public display for the first time, plus works rarely seen in the UK.

Exceptionally, three ‘interventions’ of contemporary photographs by Richard Billingham, Craigie Horsfield and Richard Learoyd will be displayed within the Gallery’s collection, juxtaposed with great 19th-century paintings by 
Constable, Degas and 
Ingres .

The show includes almost 90 photographs alongside selected paintings from the National Gallery’s collection. Key photographs will come from the collection of the Wilson Centre for Photography, with loans from Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Media Museum in Bradford, Fundació La Caixa in Spain, and direct from the photographers themselves.

There is an interview view Colin Wiggins here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/may/13/photography-painting-national-gallery-exhibition and more at the National Gallery's website here: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/seduced-by-art-photography-past-and-present

Image: Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews (c1750), which will be juxtaposed with work by Martin Parr from 1991. Photograph: © National Gallery, London

Photographs are probably the most ubiquitous and far-reaching records of the colonial past. They trace the experiences of a vast range of people touched by European colonial expansion and domination, both colonised and colonisers.How is this record understood in public histories? What is its role in the way contemporary European cultures configure their pasts for the benefit of their futures?

This new website explores the different ways in which photographs of the colonial past have been used by museums, as spaces of public history, to communicate and interpret the colonial past in a postcolonial and multicultural Europe. Intended for curators, heritage managers, teachers an students, this resources has been built in response to the concerns of curators, debates about difficult histories in museums, the role of photographs in the museum space, and especially, key questions about the representation of the colonial past in museums as vectors of public history. The resource offers a unique comparative character that is the result of a collaborative research project, funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area), in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Norway, all of which have very different colonial histories and postcolonial engagements.

See: http://photoclec.dmu.ac.uk 

A century-old collection of photographs of India has been discovered in the RCAHMS archive. The rare and fragile glass plate negatives, which date back to around 1912, show life on the subcontinent at the high point of the British Raj.

The 178 negatives were found in a shoebox for a pair of grey, size 9,Peter Lord slip-on shoes, and were stored in their original five-by-eight-inch plate boxes, wrapped in copies of The Statesman newspaper dating from 1914. Founded in 1875, The Statesman is one of India’s largest circulation English language newspapers, and is still published today.

Highlights from the imagery include celebrations for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Calcutta in 1912 – the only visit by a British monarch to India as Emperor of the subcontinent – with the city’s buildings lit up at night in tribute; ships arriving at the Chandpal Ghat, the main landing place for visitors to Calcutta along the Hooghly river; pilgrims gathered for a religious festival on the Maidan, the large urban park at the centre of Calcutta; and merchants selling their wares outside the eleventh century Jagganath Hindu temple in Orissa.

RCAHMS architectural historian Clare Sorensen said, "We don't know for sure how the negatives came to be in our collection. We receive archive material from countless different sources, from architectural practices to generous donations from the public, and sometimes take large amounts of material in at once, and often documentation for historical deposits does not exist.

"Over time all this new material will be inspected and catalogued as part of our collection and then made available to the public. It's fantastic that a small shoe-box contained such a treasure-trove of photographic imagery, but in some ways it's not unsual. Our experience as an archive has shown us that some of the most interesting discoveries can be made in the most unlikely of places."

Research by RCAHMS is ongoing into the identity of the photographer and the origins of the collection. Anyone with further information should contact clare.sorensen@rcahms.gov.uk. As the negatives were still wrapped in newspapers from 1914, it is possible that they were transported back to Britain from India at this time, and have remained unopened until now.

All 178 negatives have now been digitised, and a selection of the best images are in an online gallery.

Senior Photography Conservator, International Media Museum, Qatar Museums Authority, Doha, Qatar. The IMM possesses one of the most outstanding and valuable photographic collections in the region and one that ranks with major collections through the world. The photographs are of exceptional quality and span from the 19th century to present. The collection includes photographs from early daguerreotypes through albums and photography - illustrated books to contemporary colour photographs and photographic advertising poster. Also IMM possesses a collection of films and photographic and film technology as well as a significant rare book collection.

The IMM is seeking a suitably qualified and experienced candidate to work full-time in collaboration with the Head Photography Conservator on the long term preservation and restoration planning of the collections.

Job Responsibilities

In conjunction with the head conservator, identifies problems and suggests appropriate approach based on established treatment standards. Proposes and carries out treatments and repairs to photography materials with minimal supervision and in accordance with accepted standards for conservation practice. Designs and makes complex, custom-fit enclosures for fragile materials bearing in mind the unique needs of those formats and their chemical interactions with the materials available for construction. Selects and uses appropriate specialized tools and equipment for the treatment task; this includes but is not limited to matt cutter machine, ultrasonic welder, suction table; may also perform maintenance on this equipment.

Examines materials through a set of visual techniques and as appropriate, using specialized equipment such as stereoscopes and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Assists in the preparation of photography materials for exhibition. Assists with disaster recovery operations, following standard recovery procedures.

Required Education and Experience:

Bachelor Degree in Photograph or Paper Conservation from a recognized art conservation training program or equivalent and 5 years of related work experience in the examination and treatment of photographic works.

Required Skills and Abilities

Well developed practical skills are essential and the ability to carry out complex treatments with limited supervision. A broad knowledge of materials and methods used in the photographic technology is essential, as well as communication and organization skills. Computer skills including experience in word processing and databases is essential.

Enquiries related to this positionshould be directed to: Maria Matta, Head Photography Conservator, International Media Museum (IMM), Qatar Museums Authority, Doha, Qatar. Tel: +974 44525881 or email: mmatta@qma.org.qa

Please note that the required languages used in Doha are in English or Arabic.

Bob Lansdale and Louise Freyburger are trying to research this image. They writes...We know the name of Regiment – the 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot, stationed in London, Ontario, CANADA at the time of the Fenian Raids (1866-1870). The tintype was found in a letter in a staircase when they demolished an old barracks. It made the newspapers when found in 1947. The mystery is why it was never mailed.  The letter was from “No 354 John Banks C Company 53rd Regt” addressed to his "sister" “Mrs [Charles] Rayner/Pantile House/Barling near Rochford/Essex/England,” dated August 24, 1867. 

We wonder if there are duplicates of this image which can offer further information. Can anyone add to our information about the Regiment and the people?  If so, I would be delighted to hear from you regarding my research of this lost tintype that the soldier's sister never got to see.  Its for an article in Photographica Canadiana, the journal of the Photograhic Historical Society of Canada (PHSC).

With just under one month to go before the London Festival of Photography opens the programme is now available. In addition a wonderful range of exhibitions there are two events of particular note. On 21 June John Falconer, Lead Curator at the British Library will be talking on Henry Fox Talbot (see: http://www.lfph.org/diary/henry-fox-talbot-intimate-talk-by-john-falconer) and on 24 June 'Professor' Mervyn Heard will be demonstrating the magic lantern (see: http://www.lfph.org/diary/the-secret-life-of-the-magic-lantern-the-exotic-the-erotic-and-the-bizarre) As both events are likely to be popular BPH readers are advised to book early. 

Full details of the Festival can be found here: http://www.lfph.org