This studentship is offered in conjunction with UCA’s Fast Forward project, led by Professor Anna Fox. Proposals are invited for an archive-based research project investigating transformations in representation of race, gender, and sexuality in work by generations of British photographers active from the 1980s to the 2000s. The PhD project will examine socio-political dimensions of the relationship of these practices to society and education, giving the successful candidate the opportunity to engage with less well-known archives of work by, e.g., Emily Anderson, Roshini Kempadoo, Tessa Boffin, Joy Gregory and Eileen Perrier.

For full details of the scope and context of the studentship, please visit: https://www.uca.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/

Dr Geoff Belknap, Keeper of the Department of Science and Technology at National Museums Scotland, will offer some ‘behind the scenes’ evidence of the challenges and considerations that have to be borne in mind when caring for a national collection. He has unparalleled experience of working with photography, having formerly been the Curator in charge of the photographic collection at the National Science and Media Museum at Bradford. He has published in journals and edited volumes in the history of science, photography and visual culture and his first monograph, From a Photograph, was published in 2016 with Bloomsbury Press on the history of photography in the later 19th century periodical press. He has appeared in print, TV and radio media, including the recent BBC 4 series The Art of Innovation.

This is a special lecture organised as a joint event between the Derbyshire Archaeological Society and the W W Winter Heritage Trust. This is an online-only talk via Zoom - click here to book via Eventbrite (donation). 

See: https://www.derbyshireas.org.uk/event/challenges-of-a-photographic-curator/

UPDATE: the recording can be seen here: https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/YlZ3Kqrqnm580IxMHd-F4sJeE0-QHnYqAcrF62vwd51O2D_ZONzboE69mhNAvSbo.kzbqtMwBNN1001rs

The Photography and the Archive Research Centre, based at London College of Communication part of University of the Arts, is to close after nearly 20 years. PARC was founded in 2003 by Professor Val Williams and Julian Rodriguez, then Dean of Media at LCC. After 15 years as Director – which saw partnerships with the National Media Museum, Tate, Photoworks, Magnum Photos and others Val Williams stepped down. Since 2018 her archive now resides at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol.

In 2018, Directorship of PARC was taken over by Brigitte Lardinois who specialises in photographic archives and has strong links to the world of photojournalism through a decade working as Cultural Director of Magnum Photos. In her tenure as director of PARC she has built strong links with the UAL’s Archives and Special Collections Centre and focused PARC outputs on social engaged research and practice.

The Centre's stated aim was to facilitate practise-based and scholarly research that develops an understanding of lens-based works. PARC endeavours to widen participation with archive collections. PARC seeks to expand upon dialogues surrounding decolonialism, climate change, conflict and trauma within the institution and beyond. Its outputs include a wide range of events – exhibitions, publications, workshops, study days and conferences – with a special interest in archival collections, notably the documentation of war and conflict and the transfer of analogue archives to digital forms.

It has gathered a number of significant collections over the years and these will now migrate to the university's library and special collections. Lardinois will remain on the academic staff. 

See: https://www.arts.ac.uk/research/research-centres/parc
and: https://researchers.arts.ac.uk/558-brigitte-lardinois

Violet Banks (1896-1985) was born near Kinghorn, Fife and trained at Edinburgh College of Art, going on to become a schoolteacher at St Oran's, Edinburgh. In the late 1920s / early 1930s, Banks took photographs of her tours of the Hebrides.

Brownrigg will speak about Bank's photograph albums, held at Historic Environment Scotland and, further on the trail of Banks, speak about the postcards Banks made, as well as her wider photographs of Edinburgh and Scotland. Banks is featured in the current exhibition Brownrigg (Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art) has curated at City Art Centre, entitled 'Glean: Early 20th century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland'. 

Photography of Violet Banks
Thursday 9 February 2023 at 1400
Free, Booking is essential, email archives@hes.scot to book a place
See: https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/whats-on/event/?eventId=9b43cc8a-b573-462d-ac39-af7100db16a6

Wallis and Wallis is offering an interesting album of photographs by A R Dresserr and estimated at £200-300. The description reads: A fascinating and historically interesting photographic record of the visit of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to Earl's Court in 1892, by A.R. Dresser, a well known photographer at the time, with introduction by Dresser stating that the photographs were mostly taken with a Crouch "Dresser" hand camera at F.8, and printed on Bromide paper, mostly from Eastman Film Negatives.

The 81 monochrome photographs are mounted on alternate pages, the opposite pages containing personal details of the members of the cast, and historical background of the various acts. Among those acts and members listed in detail are the Deadwood Stage coach, Annie Oakley, Chief of the Cossacks Prince Iran Makharadze, "Buffalo Bill" Cody, general manager Major Burke, Mexican Vaqueros, Sioux "Indians" and squaws, the Miss Farrells, and many others. Also detailed on most pages are the developing and printing processes and chemicals used. Hardback covers, the front cover gold embossed "Photographs - A.R. Dresser", the spine "Volume II". 

Details here

The National Stereoscopic Association is pleased to announce its fourth annual 'Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography' at the 49th 3D-Con in Buffalo, New York. Presentations 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 send an abstract of 500-600 words and a biography of 250-300 words and contact information by May 8, 2023. Notification of acceptance by May 29, 2023.  Digital images will be expected by July 5, 2023.

Call for Papers
Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography IV
August 4, 2023
The National Stereoscopic Association’s 3D-Con
The Hyatt Regency Buffalo Hotel, Buffalo, New York
July 31-August 7, 2023
See: https://3d-con.com/history.php

Photographica, published under the auspices of the Société française de photographie, has put out a call for papers for its next issue which cover areas from a long history of prices of production and consumption of photographs. fluctuating values and photography market and heritage value. An extensive call is at the link below. 

On the value(s) of photographs: production, mechanisms, sources
Call for papers, Photographica Issue 8/2024
Deadline to submit articles: May 22, 2023

Details: https://devisu.inha.fr/photographica/1075

This exhibition between the National Portrait Gallery and Redbridge Museum showcases new portraits by photographer Eddie Otchere alongside photography and zines produced by local young people exploring the working life at the Ilford Limited photographic factory.

Delving into the Ilford Limited archive held at Redbridge Heritage Centre, it explores stories of past workers alongside memories from former workers of their time at Ilford Limited during the 1960s and 1970s before the company moved out of Ilford in 1976. These stories reveal the reality of starting a career straight out of school, working in pitch black laboratories, and the experiences of women who took leading roles in brand new professions such as Computer Science and Radiography.

At the heart of Ilford Limited is analogue photography and this display shows the beauty of Ilford film as a tool to experiment, make portraits and capture people’s stories.

Ilford Limited: Analogue Stories
until 12 March 2023
Redbridge Central Library, Clements Road, Ilford, IG1 1EA
Mon-Fri: 10am to 8pm Sat: 10am to 5pm Sun: Closed
Free
https://visionrcl.org.uk/exhibitions/ilford-limited-analogue-stories/

Calvert R. Jones: Photographs and Drawings is on view at Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs until 31 March, 2023. Reverend Calvert Richard Jones (1802-1877), the Welsh marine artist, is recognized as one of the most talented and sophisticated of the early photographers. The recent emergence of previously unknown calotypes, daguerreotypes and drawings from his family archive reveals a diverse and colourful artistic career. Most of these works are being exhibited for the first time. The newly discovered daguerreotypes are a true revelation. Only a single daguerreotype was recorded until last year when a small number of Jones’s family portrait daguerreotypes appeared.

Calvert Jones derived truth from nature and found in photography an accurate means of producing studies for artists. William Henry Fox Talbot’s most successful pupil, Jones explored the fusion of Talbot’s negative/positive calotype process with his skills as a draftsman and marine painter, particularly during his Mediterranean travels with Christopher Rice Mansel 'Kit' Talbot, Fox Talbot’s younger cousin. As a competent draftsman schooled in the rules of perspective and form, Calvert Jones brought a vitality and an unusually high degree of artistic sensitivity to the new medium of photography.

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, established in New York in 1984, is a dealer in 19th and early 20th century photographs.  The gallery is located at 962 Park Avenue at 82nd Street in New York City. Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, noon-6pm and by appointment.

For more information, contact (212) 794-2064 or info@sunpictures.com or visit www.sunpictures.com.

The National Portrait Gallery has announced its opening programme with photography to the fore. The first exhibition will explore the life and career of twentieth century photographer, Madame Yevonde, who pioneered the use of colour photography in the 1930s. The show will survey the portraits and still-life works that the artist produced throughout her sixty year career, positioning Yevonde as a trailblazer in the history of British portrait photography. Since 2021 the NPG has owned much of Yevonde's archives and negatives and the exhibition will show vintage work alongside never-before-seen colour prints made from her negatives. A new book will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition is part of a three-year programme surveilling women in portraiture. 

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm will share, for the first time, an extraordinary archive of rediscovered and never-before-seen photographs taken by Paul McCartney. Shot during the period in which John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were propelled from being the most popular band in Britain to an international cultural phenomenon, the exhibition provides a uniquely personal perspective on what it was like to be a ‘Beatle’ at the start of ‘Beatlemania’. Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

In 2024 the gallery will show 150 vintage prints from Julia Margaret Cameron alongside that of contemporary artist Francesca Woodman. 

Nicholas Cullinan. Director of the NPG was asked by BPH how photography would be presented in the new NPG galleries and said that photography would be woven in to the displays throughout the gallery and would also have a gallery dedicated to photography as a medium. 

The NPG re-opens on 22 June 2023. 

Yevonde. Life and Colour
22 June – 15 October 2023

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm
28 June – 1 October 2023

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron. Portraits to Dream In
21 March – 30 June 2024

https://www.npg.org.uk/

The intellectual property expert Naomi Korn and the National Science and Media Museum form part of a case study into the use of orphaned works, and how adopting a risk aware approach to the use of 'orphaned' images in the Daily Herald archive instead of the risk averse approach typically adopted. This opened up the opportunity to digitise some of the Daily Herald images. The piece appeared in Archive and Records Association's arc magazine.

It is available free as a PDF here: https://naomikorn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ARC-Jan-Feb-23-inc-Risk.pdf

The Photographic Collections Network has several upcoming events. Booking is free. 

Creative Commons Licenses and Collections
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 - 2-4pm GMT free / donation, online
Want to know more about how to navigate the different CC licenses, and find out if they work for your archive or collection? In this two-hour training session, Creative Commons will provide a brief overview of what CC licensing and public domain tools are, as well as their context in copyright, and movements for open knowledge and culture. This will help you understand if CC is right for you and help you understand how to choose and use CC licenses and tools,via interactive exercises for workshop participants. 
https://fulcrm.link/2/16613/2897/r691148mrl44u7676m32845f977477r8

What Photographs Do
HOLDING DATE TBC Fri 3 March, 1:30-2:30, free/donation, online
What are photographs 'doing' in museums? Why are some photographs valued and others not? Why are some photographic practices visible and not others? What value systems and hierarchies do they reflect?

This talk by Elizabeth Edwards and Ella Ravilious explores how museums are defined through their photographic practices. It focuses not on formal collections of photographs as accessioned objects, be they 'fine art' or 'archival', but on what might be termed 'non-collections': the huge number of photographs that are integral to the workings of museums yet 'invisible', existing outside the structures of 'the collection'. These photographs, however, raise complex and ambiguous questions about the ways in which such accumulations of photographs create the values, hierarchies, histories, and knowledge-systems, through multiple, folded, and overlapping layers that might be described as the museum's ecosystem.
https://fulcrm.link/2/16614/2897/433mm4m7rr756fmr50u1mlr34778360c

Booking is free for all these events, with the option of a donation to support PCN's work. You will receive a confirmation email when you book, and the event link will be sent to you on the day of the event.

The Peter Marlow Foundation encourages, examines and celebrates the photography of humanity, its impact and legacy. From 2023 it will do this from a gallery based in Dungeness, Kent, housing an extensive archive and library, and offering workshops, exhibitions, residencies and talks to schools, the public and professionals.

The Foundation aims to have an active gallery, workshop and residency space that will be well used by photographers, visitors to Dungeness and schools. The gallery will be a destination for those interested in photography and a unique cultural space for visitors to Dungeness. Its director is Jess Phillips. 

Peter Marlow (1952-2016) was an eminent photographer, a member and two-time President of the international photography cooperative, Magnum Photos. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 2006 and his work is held in 12 public collections worldwide. Born in Kenilworth, outside Coventry, Peter studied psychology at Manchester University, graduating in 1974. His photography career began in 1975 while working on an Italian cruise liner in the Caribbean. Peter’s work as a photographer spanned 41 years, capturing major world events for prestigious magazines and newspapers and his personal long form projects.

Details: https://petermarlowfoundation.org/

and Charity Commission entry: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/5142452/charity-overview

The Archives and Library Fellowship is offered annually to allow an individual to undertake a research project focused on the Paul Mellon Centre’s Archives and Library.

This is an exceptional opportunity to undertake sustained, original research focussed on the Centre’s collections. These include an extensive Photographic Archive, over 15,000 auction catalogues, and nationally important holdings of art historians’ papers, are an outstanding resource for the study of art and architectural history, historiography and theory, photography, publishing, exhibitions histories, and through specific holdings of personal archives, intellectual networks, queer history and the social history of knowledge production. The successful applicant will be expected to pursue a research project using the Archives & Library collections over a period of 12 months and will have the opportunity to disseminate their findings through the Centre’s programme of talks, publications, events and displays.

The Fellowship is an award of £10,000 for a period of 12 months. During this time the Fellow will be required to carry out detailed research engaging critically with the Archives & Library collections at the Centre, which is based in Bedford Square, London. For international applicants and those who would need to travel to London there is an additional bursary available to support travel and accommodation.

Details: https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/fellowships-and-grants/archives-and-library-fellowship

Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms have published research recounting the story of a photographer, Frederick Beckert, living in Kilburn, London, in the 1920s and 1930s, and was an expert forger of bank notes - and the detective work that brought him to account. 

See: https://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2023/01/making-money-in-kilburn.html

This short talk presents research on a rare early photograph album from mid-1860s Natal, South Africa, which contains around 50 portraits of African subjects, with inscriptions by its owner, representing the first few years of studio output in Natal in the new affordable format of cartes-de-visite. The talk will explore the album's contents and present some of the tantalising research findings that have emerged so far.

Monday 30 January, 14.30 
With Dr Christopher Morton
Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
Details: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/event/research-on-an-early-photograph-album-from-natal-south-africa

The British Library’s Talbot Collection comprises a major archive of correspondence, notebooks, photographs and other material relating to the life and work of the British inventor of photography William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877). Formerly held at Talbot’s family home at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, the collection was presented to the British Library in 2006 by Petronella and Janet Burnett-Brown. These materials illustrate the breadth of Talbot’s cultural and scientific interests and achievements, in fields as diverse as mathematics, botany, astronomy and the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform. The photographic component of the collection comprises approximately 1,500 paper negatives and prints by Talbot and his circle made between 1839 and the mid-1840s. In addition to Talbot’s own photographs, the collection includes important work from the 1840s by contemporaries such as Rev Calvert Richard Jones (1804-1877) and Rev George Wilson Bridges (1788-1863). There is also a small collection of daguerreotypes which includes portraits of Talbot, his children, as well as his assistant Nicolaas Henneman (1813-1898). This material is complemented by albums of drawings and prints by members of Talbot’s family.

The aim of this placement is to undertake research on the photographic equipment used by Talbot in the development of his early photographic processes. This placement will build upon existing research and examine the objects in relation to Talbot’s research notes, correspondence and notebooks that are also held at the Library. https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/talbot-collection

Open to current doctoral students. Full eligibility criteria, funding information and details of how to apply are available on the British Library website: https://www.bl.uk/news/2023/january/phd-placement-opportunities   and  https://www.bl.uk/research-collaboration/doctoral-research/british-library-phd-placement-scheme

Metals and minerals are of the earth - extracted, purified, dried, cut, mould, extruded, dissolved and filtered. Photographic images are of the earth, they are metals and minerals, polished, coated, sensitised, exposed, developed, washed, fixed, displayed. We rely on the sensitivity of these metals to depict the world around us, the earth that they come from.

Silver has taken a leading role in this history - it is a history of colonisation, extraction, and depiction. From Louis Daguerre’s Daguerreotypes to Henry Fox Talbot’s calotypes in the early 1800s, to today’s digital Chromogenic prints - silver is seen as unbeatable when it comes to making a quality, archivable photographic image. However, silver is not the only metal used for image making.

The London Alternative Photography Collective present Beyond Silver, an exhibition that explores the relationships between analogue photography and metallurgy. The exhibition will consider the use of silver in photography, as well as shining a light on many of the other metals that are used within photographic image production, in both historical and contemporary practice. In addition to silver, the exhibition will include works which utilise  lesser known metals in photography including iron, copper, tin, aluminium, platinum (above) and palladium.

Exhibiting artists: Ignacio Acosta, Victoria Ahrens, William Arnold, Alex Boyd, Alice Cazenave, Caitriona Dunnett, Hannah Fletcher, Jo Gane, Kate Goodrich, Martha Gray, Charlotte Greenwood, Constanza Isaza, Ellisa Jane Diver, Soham Joshi, Melanie King, Liane Lang, Sara Mulvey, Andrés Pardo, Oliver Raymond-Barker, Megan Ringrose, Kris Skyla, Sayako Sugawara, Diego Valente, Eileen White

Public Programme:

Wednesday 18th 6 - 8pm = Private view
Thursday 19th 10am - 12pm = Electromagnetic field Cyanotype workshop with Martha Grey
Thursday 19th 12.30 - 1.30pm = Artist and curator lead exhibition tour

Beyond Silver
19 January-3 February 2023
The Hive 43-47 Vittoria Street, 43-47 Vittoria Street, Birmingham, B1 3PE
Details: https://www.rmlt.org.uk/Event/beyond-silver

The Museum of Gloucester is celebrating the two hundred and twenty-first anniversary of the birth of polymath Charles Wheatstone in Barnwood, near Gloucester. Although his name is still remembered all over the world, Wheatstone never got the credit he really deserves. This prolific inventor, musical instrument maker and professor of experimental philosophy was a shy person and, unlike some of his contemporaries and their modern equivalents, never blew his own trumpet.

Whilst some inventions which he helped promote have been wrongly attributed to him, others have been credited to somebody else and history has not been kind in honouring him. There are no monuments to him, no statues to remember his achievements by, and even his grave in Bethnal Green is so undistinctive that it is difficult to find.

Photo historian Denis Pellerin, from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, will take you on a three dimensional journey to discover the inventor of Stereoscopy (which we now call 3D) and show how this invention, which, strangely enough, Wheatstone never considered as his most important, changed the way the Victorians perceived the world around them. Stereoscopy gave birth to a craze which may not have lasted very long but produced millions of amazing images and has been through several revivals since it first started back in the 1850s.

Nearly two hundred years after its discovery, Stereoscopy is not only the magic carpet it was for Wheatstone’s contemporaries, taking them to far away places without leaving their fireside; it has also become a wonderful time machine, showing us the Victorians, famous or anonymous, as they really were, in a way no traditional photographs can.

Details and booking: https://www.museumofgloucester.co.uk/events/celebrating-charles-wheatstone-in-glorious-3d

The Albert Kahn departmental museum in France has released nearly 25,000 colour photos of early 20th-century life into the public domain and over 34,000 others that are free to use as part of a project to assure visual history is not forgotten. Called Archives of the Planet, the project was started in 1908 by French banker Albert Kahn who wanted to photograph humanity around the world. Kahn hired 12 professional photographers who visited 50 countries until the project concluded...

Read the story here: https://petapixel.com/2023/01/11/nearly-70000-color-photos-of-early-20th-century-are-now-free-to-use/

Visit the museum collection here: https://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr/