BPH has only just learnt of the passing of Mike Hiley who was particularly active as a photo-historian, researcher and educator from the 1970s-1990s at a time in the 1970s-early 1980s when there were few others working in the field. He authored a series of books, notable on Frank Meadow Sutcliffe on based on his own researches.   

Michael Hiley was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1945. His family moved to the Midlands in his teens but he always thought of himself as a Yorkshireman. Following his graduation from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he and his wife Pauline moved to Leicester, where he took his PGCE at Leicester University. For the practical side of the course he went to what was then known as Leicester Polytechnic which later became De Montfort University. After graduating he was asked to stay on and taught what was known as Liberal Studies in the pre-Diploma department. Mike was free to teach what he most enjoyed - the history and appreciation of film and photography.

Roger Taylor recalls: 'When I was in Leicester every week for my MA in Victorian Studies Mike and I regularly met for supper - a big thank you Pauline. Despite researching different areas we kept an eye out for each other. I was working my way through the photographic journals and would xerox everything and anything of interest to either of us and shared these with Mike. We both felt excited to be exploring new territory, which in many ways we were. There were so few of us in the field that there was a generosity of spirit characterised the field.' 

In 1976 Mike was was given leave of absence by Leicester University with a view to drawing up a degree course in the History of Photography and the Royal Photographic Society agreed that he be ‘given access to the Collection in order to pursue his work in return for which he would be prepared to give assistance in the Collection'. He was temporarily employed by the RPS and volunteered a significant amount of his own time. He returned in 1980 spending six weeks in the Collection from May. His knolwedge of the collection brought him on to the RPS's Collection Advisory Committee for a short period in the mid-1970s, stepping down in 1977. 

At the same time he was writing short articles about the photographer, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe whose work he had come to know on those holidays in Yorkshire, when he would visit the Sutcliffe Gallery, then run by Bill Eglon Shaw. The Gordon Fraser Gallery, at that time more famous for greetings cards, wanted to start a series on the History of photography and asked Mike to write the first of the series on Sutcliffe.  Frank Sutcliffe Photographer of Whitby was published in 1974. This began a relationship with the publisher which resulted in several books on Photography including: Victorian Working Women. Portraits from life (1979) based on the collection in the library of Trinity College Cambridge of the photographs collected by and the diaries written by Arthur Munby; Bill Brandt;Nudes 1945-1980 (1980) for which Mike wrote the introduction to this selection following interviews with the photographer which he felt very privileged to do; and Seeing Through Photographs (1983), based on a selection of the vast collection of copyright photographs then held by the Public Record Office at Chancery Lane and Ashridge, now at the National Archives, Kew in the COPY1 series. All his books were critically acclaimed. Mike's work on Sutcliffe also saw a British Council touring exhibition and publication. 

Mike moved to the faculty of Arts at De Montfort Unversity and became a Senior Lecturer there, teaching the History of Photography and latterly virtual reality in web design as he had studied for an MSC at Lancaster University in web design.Together with Glass Page at De Montfort he project managed an award-winning website called Heritage on the Web and in 1999 presented a paper 'Heritage on the Web: Building a Gateway to European Cultural Heritage' at the Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts conference in Berlin. Paul Hill work worked with Mike recalls him 'contributing wonderfully to the MA Photography at DMU.'

Mike died in June 2025 having suffered from Alzheimer's for some years but just in the last year before his death, when he was still able to understand and appreciate it, his first book on Frank Sutcliffe was republished by the History Press. As a reviewer noted of Mike's British Council leaflet 'Hiley entirely understands both the man and his work' and his publications are a fitting memorial to his pioneering scholarship.  

He leaves Pauline, and a brother, Dr Nicholas Hiley. 

With thanks to Pauline, Nicholas, Paul Hill and Roger Taylor. Additronal and RPS research Michael Pritchard.

A collection of photographs by Bill Brandt and a group of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe and others have been transferred to the Tate and Ulster Museum respectively. The transfers have been made under the governement's Cultural Gifts and Acceptance in Lieu schemes. The value of the AIL to the Ulster Museum was £28,409.

The Tate has received a collection of 73 photographs by the photographer Bill Brandt (1904-1983), created from the 1930s to 1979 and donated by John-Paul Kernot. The photographer and photojournalist Bill Brandt was one of many emigrants from Nazi Germany to Britain who made huge contributions to the cultural life of their adopted homeland. Among the most important photographers working in Britain in the 20th century, Brandt is particularly well known for his documentation of societal disparities across Britain, and for his powerful landscape and portrait photographs. In his work, social commentary is tempered by an often dark and poetic beauty. This collection is a careful selection of rare tonal vintage prints (made at or close to the time of the negatives) covering the range of Brandt’s career, but it is especially rich in wartime photographs and landscapes. Significantly, within the collection are some of the actual prints used by Brandt for his publications and these prints carry his annotations. The allocation of the Brandt photographs will transform Tate and the nation’s holdings of this key figure in modern British photography.

The Ulster Museum received five photographs by Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Horst P Horst, Boyd Webb and Robert Mapplethorpe. The photographs are characteristic examples of the work of five internationally recognised late 20th-century photographers, all of whom have significantly influenced the history of photography and its relevance to other arts and popular culture. Horst P. Horst, Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber all made their names as fashion photographers, while in his mature work Boyd Webb, who trained as a sculptor, creates and then photographs complex theatrical constructs. Better known for his portraits, Robert Mapplethorpe is represented in the collection by a beautiful still life. 

See: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/24340/download?attachment

Images: Top: Tree in Autumn with crescent moon, 1942 by Bill Brandt. Photo: © Bill Brandt Archive Ltd

Side, the internationally recognised home of humanist documentary photography and film, which has spent nearly fifty years recording and preserving working-class lives, from its gallery in Newcastle, will establish a curatorial office at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead in February 2026. The move is both a pragmatic response to the pressures facing arts organisations today and a bold step into a new creative direction. It will enable Side to bring its collection to a wider audience, commission and co-create new work, and deepen its commitment to education and community practice across the North East and beyond.

Side was founded in 1977 on Newcastle’s Quayside by the Amber Film & Photography Collective as a space for lens-based documentary rooted in the realities of working people. From shipyard workers to new communities arriving in the region, Side has made the lives of those too often absent from arts spaces visible. Its AmberSide Collection, recognised by UNESCO, is a growing archive of photography and film that continues to respond to the present: migration, precarity, resilience and everyday solidarity.

The decision stems from the realities of today’s cultural landscape. With public funding shrinking and the cost of running independent venues escalating, many arts organisations today are facing closure. Side and Baltic have chosen to cooperate in a mutually beneficial agreement.

As a cultural tenant within Baltic’s building, Side retains its autonomy and individual voice while both parties can collaborate on exhibitions that recognise the importance of photography as an art form and bring continued visibility of working-class culture to a high volume of diverse audiences.

From 2027, Side will work with Baltic in developing presentations across a range of exhibition and programmable spaces within the landmark industrial building, a former flour mill.  Just as importantly, this move frees Side to invest more deeply in what has always set it apart as an arts organisation: education and community work. With new capacity, Side will expand projects with schools, youth groups and neighbourhoods, creating hyper-local displays that place documentary art back into the communities where it is created.

Laura Laffler, Managing Director of Side said:  “Working-class culture is living culture — it doesn’t belong in the past. Our move to Baltic is about making sure the voices and experiences of ordinary people around the globe remain visible, urgent and valued in the present. Rooted in the North East, connected internationally, we will continue to commission, co-create and champion work that speaks to resilience, struggle and collective imagination.”

Sarah Munro, Director of Baltic said: “We’re delighted to welcome Side as a cultural tenant in spring 2026. Photography is crucial to Baltic’s programme. Our audiences have been enthusiastic and visited in high numbers to exhibitions of photography by Chris Killip and Martin Parr to Franki Raffles, Joanne Coates and Phyllis Christopher. We want to represent the communities that live in the locale of the gallery and who visit Baltic frequently. Collaborating on these presentations will be exciting as we approach our twenty-fifth anniversary, and Side look to their 50th year. It is important that Side’s collection, its legacy and their future survive and thrive. In these challenging times it’s vital to find new ways of working together.”  

This new chapter coincides with a moment of reflection and renewal. In 2027, Side will mark 50 years since its establishment, while Baltic will celebrate its 25th year. Together they will create a platform where history and the present meet, where real people’s lives (from the North East and further afield) remain central to our region’s cultural spaces, and where documentary is made, seen and valued.

This announcement comes at the conclusion of the 'Transforming Amber' National Lottery Heritage Fund project, which set out to rethink how Side works and how the AmberSide Collection is shared. Over the past year, this project focused on strengthening the organisational foundations of Side, improving access to the AmberSide Collection (both digital and physical), and finding new ways to make it visible, relevant and active for more people than ever before. This announcement with Baltic marks the first stage of a wider programme shaped through this work from The AmberSide Trust.

Through The AmberSide Trust, the AmberSide Collection is secured and shall remain intact and accessible in the North East of England. Further announcements, including new opportunities for public access to the AmberSide Collection, will be shared across 2026.

 See: https://sidegallery.co.uk/blog/side-at-baltic and https://baltic.art/news-and-media/side-at-baltic/

Image: River Project: Quayside, 1971 © Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen | Courtesy of the AmberSide Collection

The scheme will support a researcher from outside Oxford to come and work on the Carroll collections held in the Bodleian Libraries Special Collections and at Christ Church Library.  The topic of study needs to relate either specifically or more broadly to Lewis Carroll and his interests and might include, for example (but not exclusively), studies in children’s literature, humorous verse and literary illustration, nineteenth-century photography, histories of Oxford, its colleges, University and people, and the cultural impact of mathematics. 

The Lewis Carroll Visiting Fellowship
Opening Date: 13 January 2026
Closing: 13 March 2026 – 17:00
For more information and details of how to apply see: Bodleian Visiting Fellowships in Special Collections | Bodleian Libraries

Pembrokeshire County Council has been awarded a National Archives scoping grant to work on the the Squibbs Photographic Collection. The county's Archives and Local Studies service holds an extensive collection of photographic negatives which captures a broad range of events and activities, including cover images for major news stories from the county. The material’s research potential is severely hampered due to its availability in negative format only. The negatives are at various stages of decay due to vinegar syndrome and this has reached a critical stage in some cases. The scoping grant will lay the foundation for future work to be undertaken.

Claire Orr, Archives Manager, says: “It is incredibly exciting to know that, following the results of this scoping report, we shall be in a position to appreciate the extent of the work needed. We can then target resources more effectively to ensure the preservation, interpretation and accessibility of the collection.”

See: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-revealed/scoping-grant/current-and-past-projects/

IOTA II and the Centre for Design History at the University of Brighton are hosting a talk on the the story of popular photography as displayed at the former Kodak Museum, Harrow, and National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford. The Kodak Museum collection represents over a century of film-based photographic technology and apparatus and for the last thirty-six years, the collection has been utilised to tell the story of popular photography at what is now known as the National Science and Media Museum’s Kodak Gallery. The predominantly pre-digital gallery presents a number of practical and thematic challenges for both museum and its twenty-first century visitors, despite a small number of permanent displays being implemented to address changing digital-based practices. This talk will examine what the changed and unchanged displays mean for visitors today who are increasingly unfamiliar with the type of photography represented.

The talk is based on Jayne Knight's PhD thesis (2024) From company museum to national collection, 1927-2023: telling the story of popular photography through the Kodak Museum Collection which can be downloaded here. 

Jayne Knight is 2025-26 Assistant National Curator of Photography at the National Trust and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Design History in 2025. She completed her PhD in 2024 on the history of popular photography in the Kodak Museum as an AHRC-funded collaborative project between University of Brighton and National Science and Media Museum.

IOTA II – IOTA stands for Image, Object, Text, Analysis, and was the title of a seminar series established by dear former colleagues Louise Purbrick and Jill Seddon. IOTA II aims to resurrect the inclusive nature of the original IOTA, bringing together students, colleagues and all interested parties from beyond the university to consider the visual and material world from a wide range of perspectives. It is a space for work-in-progress to be shared and nurtured, and for our research to be celebrated.

The changing story of popular photography in the National Science and Media Museum’s Kodak Gallery
Jayne Knight
23 January 2026, 1pm-2.30pm
University of Brighton, Advanced Engineering Building, Moulsecoomb Campus, G1.
See: https://www.brighton.ac.uk/accommodation-and-locations/campuses/moulsecoomb/index.aspx

In connection with the Photographers' Gallery's current exhibtion on the history of the photobooth which commemorates the centenary of the modern photobooth are two talks. On 23 January Rafael Hortala Vallvé and Corinne Quin, co-directors of AUTOFOTO are talking about the history and possibilities of the photobooth .On 13 February writer and cultural historian Nakki Goranin, author of American Photobooth, and writer and filmmaker Raynal Pellicer, author of Photobooth: The Art of the Automatic Portrait, for an in-depth discussion. 

The History and Possibilities of the Photobooth
Friday, 23 January 2026 at 1830

A century of the Photobooth
Friday, 13 February 2026 at 1830

Individuals working in two British photography collections have been recognised in the 2026 New Year Honours.

Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum has been awarded an OBE for services to the Arts. Jo has been Head and then Director of the museum since 2012 and has overseen its transformation and recent re-opening. 

Dr Alessandro Nasini, Senior Curator of Photographs at the Royal Collection Trust has been recognised with honorary membership of the Royal Victorian Order. The award recognises distinguished personal service to the monarch and members of the royal family.  Alessandro has been at the Royal Collection Trust for eighteen years and was appointed senior curator in 2022.

Separately Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A Museum, has been knighted. 

BPH has learnt with much sadness of the peaceful death on sunday evening of the museum director, historian and broadcaster Colin Ford, aged 91 years. Colin was the founding Head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, in 1983 and led the museum for its first decade. He was actively involved in photography from 1972 until his death.  

Colin's career started in the world of theatre, following a MA at University College, Oxford. He joined Kidderminster Playhouse as manager/producer bringing 150 productions to the public before he moved on to the Western Theatre Ballet. Two years later he was visiting lecturer in English and drama at California State University. He emerged into the world of visual imagery at the British Film Institute joining in 1965 as Deputy Curator.

Then, as the National Portrait Gallery's first Keeper of Film and Photography from 1972, he was tasked with building up its collection of photography and initating a collection of film. Although the Gallery had photography in its collections Colin's appointment was a deliberate move to actively collect photographs in their own right - the first by any national institution. Within a few months of joining the NPG Colin was caught up in the Royal Academy's ill-thought out decision to sell at auction three volumes containing 250 calotypes by Hill and Adamson presented to a former RA president. The intervention of Roy Strong and Colin along with a groundswell of public opinion led to the sale being abandoned and the albums were eventually secured for the NPG by an anonymous donor for £32,000. The auction did much to raise awareness of the importance of photography and the need to tighten up the export of historical photographs. Colin was still involved with the export of historic photography into the 1990s as the government advisor on the subject. The albums formed (with Roy Strong) one of his many books An Early Victorian Album: The Hill Adamson Collection (1975).

Colin's scholarship on Julia Margaret Cameron began in the mid-1970s and occupied much of his career and he was due to be guest of honour at a symposium being held at Dimbola in June 2026. He secured Cameron's 'Herschel Album' for £52,000 for the NPG and it followed him to the NMPFT, now the National Science and Media Museum, where it is still housed. With Julian Cox he authored a catalogue raisoneé of Cameron's photographs in 2003.  

During the 1970s Colin was involved, often chairing, networks of photography collections and was part of a group advocating for a national museum of photography. When the Science Museum sought to deliver such a museum Colin was appointed in February 1982 as Keeper, later Head, of the nascent National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford. The story of the NMPFT has been widely told, not least by Colin, and there is more to say about its gestation and history on another occasion.

Colin brought with him a passion and enthusiasm for the project, along with a similarly-minded group of colleagues able to deliver on his vision, all the more necessary in the face of concerted opposition to locating a national museum in Bradford. It opened to the public in June 1983.  Under Colin's tenure as Head the museum acquired the Kodak Museum collection in 1985 which it used as the basis for a major new gallery telling the story of popular photography which opened in 1989. The project was led by one of his significant curatorial appointments, Roger Taylor. The museum made a number of important acquisitions including Graham Smith and Chris Killip's Another Country, the Andor Kraszna-Krausz/Focal Press archive, the Zoltan Glass archive, the purchase and gift of photographs by Lewis Carroll, and saw collaborations with many photographers including David Hockney. 

The NMPFT received the Museum of the Year Award in 1988 and had been visited by 3½ million visitors by its fifth birthday. In 1989 the museum's contribution to photography's 150th anniversay was the Makers of Photographic History conference which brought together many of the great names of twentieth century photography. That year Colin noted we 'have turned a very entertaining showplace into a centre for research and understanding.' The museum became the most popular outside of London with 750,000 annual visitors at its peak. Colin noted that his one regret of his time in Bradford was that he had not been able to set up a chair in the history of photography at the University of Bradford. 

In 1993 Colin left the NMPFT to become director of the National Museum of Wales in October. At the time he stated that after ten years it was time to let a second generation of leadership take over. The background for his move is perhaps also best left for another occasion, but Colin continued to remain actively committed to photography. The British Journal of Photography which had regularly challenged the setting up of a museum in Bradford noted that he had 'left behind a formidible legacy' and wished him well. Left unsaid was a frustration, that remained with Colin until his death, that the museum was always subserviant to, and reliant on, the Science Museum, and he had never realised his early ambitions for a national museum of photography.  

Although there is much more to say about his life, his many publications and exhibitions, it is worth highlighting his long-standing interest in, and advocacy for, Hungarian photography. He wrote the catalogue that accompanied the first exhibition in Britain of André Kertész which opened at the Serpentine Gallery in 1979, followed by The Hungarian Connection at the NMPFT in 1987. In 2011 the exhibition Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th century at the Royal Academy drew together many of the key Hungarian photographers from the twentieth century several of whom Colin knew personally. He always cited André Kertész as one of the greatest photographers in the world. 

Outside of the museum world in the 1980s and 1990s Colin was a host and broadcaster on the BBC arts programme Kaleidoscope and regularly appeared on BBC Radios 3 and 4 discusing the wider arts and as an interviewer. He was an opera and music lover and as his brother, Martyn, notes 'his knowledge of music was more than that of any non-professional musician I have ever known. Colin was passionate about grand opera (a passion we did not share!), light opera, musical theatre and symphonic music.' He was a member of the Garrick Club where he curated exhibitions of photography. 

Colin was involved with the formation of the European Society for the History of Photography from its inception in 1977 and the NMPFT hosted the Society's 1985 symposia. He was involved as a trustee of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and in 2005 undertook a review of the Foundation's activities and aims; he was a vice chair of the Julia Maragaret Cameron Trust for twenty-five years, and was chair of the Committee of National Photographic Collections from its outset in 1988. He served on the Advisory Board of History of Photography journal from 1989 to 2009. Away from photography he chaired the Peel Entertainment Group, a global entertainment specialist and talent agency based in Skipton, for sixteen years. 

Colin was awarded a CBE in 1993. He received the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1999 and for a number of years from 2003 he supported the Colin Ford Award for curatorship given by the RPS. The Society's Historical group continues to host a Colin Ford lecture, the next of which is scheduled for 2026. He received the Hungarian Order of merit for his contributions to photography in 2013. 

Colin leaves his wife, Sue Grayson Ford, a son, Tom, and grandchildren, Esmé and Inigo, plus brother Martyn. His archive is to be desposited with the Bodleian Library and his collection of photography books given to the National Museum Cardiff.  

© Michael Pritchard

See: An interview with Colin Ford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDIU437VzV8 Colin was also interviewed as part of the British Library's Oral History of British Photography and other interviews with him exist. 

Images: (top): Colin Ford with his collodion portrait in the style of Cameron at his 90th birthday event at the Weston Library, Oxford, May 2024 / © Michael Pritchard; Colin Ford with the Herschel album, 7 January 1975, unknown photographer, NPG x135971; the National Museum of Photography, as it was originally known before 'Film and Television' were added to the exterior signage, NMPFT;  (l-r) Colin Ford, Graham Smith, Chris Killip and Gustav Ahrens, MD of Agfa Gevaert at the presentation of Another Country, unknown photographer; 

By/For: Photography & Democracy is a collaborative partnership between three photographic historians, Dr. Tom Allbeson, Dr. Colleen O’Reilly, and Helen Trompeteler. We are delighted to announce that our second season of programs will begin in February 2026. Please join leading thinkers Anne Cross & Matthew Fox-Amato, Vindhya Buthpitiya, Leigh Raiford, Jeehey Kim, Zahid R. Chaudhary, and Tiffany Fairey for a year of thought-provoking conversations on photography and democracy. Explore season two and register for all events.

We’d also like to announce that at the end of our inaugural 2024/2025 season, we convened a reflective roundtable conversation with Shawn Michelle Smith, Brenna Wynn Greer, Thy Phu, Darren Newbury, Ileana L. Selejan, and Patricia Hayes. Together, they examined the stakes of photography in our contemporary moment and explored its complex entanglements with power structures and systemic injustice. Read the transcript of the conversation.

See: https://www.byforcollective.com/

This is the first book dedicated to Cornelia Bentley Sage Quinton (1876-1936). The text retraces the visionary career of the first woman director of a major art museum in the United States. From her appointment as director of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo in 1910, Cornelia Sage left her mark on American institutional history, as well as on the history of photography, notably by organizing the International Exhibition of Pictorialist Photography with Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession group. A pioneer, through her original approach and bold choices, she paved the way for women aspiring to key positions in American museums.

The author, Camille Mona Paysant, is an art historian specializing in photography. Her doctoral thesis, defended in 2018, focused on the international relations and diverse practices of artists associated with the Photo-Secession movement. In 2016, she published The Travel Photographs of Baron Adolph de Meyer: The Eye at Rest: A Break with the Tradition of Studio Photography (Éditions Hermann), followed in 2019 by Japan: Adolphe de Meyer (Éditions Louis Vuitton). She also contributes as a specialist to exhibition catalogues, including Picasso: Masterpieces! (Musée national Picasso – Paris, Gallimard, 2018), André Ostier: Portraits of Artists (Musée Matisse, Nice, 2019), and Whistler: The Butterfly Effect (Silvana, 2024).

Cornelia B. Sage Quinton – Une pionnière de l’art américain
Camille Mona Paysant
Editions Naima, 2025
238 pages, PDF, EPUB 
€24 (printed edition) or €4,99 (subscription download)
See: https://www.naimaeditions.com/biblio/cornelia-b-sage-quinton-une-pionniere-de-lart-americain-numerique/?referer=l58du4

The Lycée Champollion, in collaboration with Grenoble Alpes University and the Maison de l’Image in Grenoble, continues its series of international study days on various themes and techniques related to the photography of Michael Kenna (1953-...), a British photographer whose work has been exhibited around the world.

This second study day aims to highlight another major source of inspiration for his work: the representation of trees. Since the late 1970s, Kenna has been photographing trees assiduously: a first exhibition in 2011, organised by the KONG gallery that presents his work in Seoul, showed a selection of his photographs of trees, accompanied by the publication of a catalogue entitled Philosopher's Tree. The choice of the title to present his photographic practice on trees is characteristic of Kenna's approach. This name becomes the symbol of an entire body of work: trees allow the photographer to encounter nature in a way that is physical, sensitive, intellectual, aesthetic, but also metaphysical. 

Kenna explores the structuring power of trees in the landscape. The frequent wintry nature of his settings reveals the exceptional beauty of his subjects, the balance of their forms, and the harmonious, geometric development of their branches and trunks. Thanks to very long exposure times, which can last up to ten hours, his images reveal elements that the human eye usually ignores or cannot perceive. To quote Chantal Colleu-Dumond, who wrote the preface to Arbres in 2022, “as if through a synaesthetic effect, his images of trees are filled with a particular mystery and absolute silence that give them a sense of obviousness and universality” (2022, 4). Chantal Colleu-Dumond goes even further, making our experience with Kenna's tree photography a revelation of our relationship with time: “The time of trees is not that of humans; Michael Kenna emphasises their permanence as much as our finitude” (2022, 4). But Kenna's practice also brings us back to the notion of temporality, duration, and series. Kenna loves to photograph oak trees: he fell in love with a large oak tree in the town of Beaverton, near Portland, Oregon. In June 2021, Kenna began a series of portraits of the Beaverton oak. A year later, he had already assembled a selection of 83 photographs, taking advantage of the lockdown, which allowed him to stage this tree in a space emptied of its inhabitants. Kenna's photographs of this oak tree take us back to the early days of photography, with William Henry Fox Talbot's mid-19th century shots of oak trees, which made trees the ideal subjects at a time when photography required long exposure times that caused blurring for any non-static elements. 

We invite you to see these majestic beings in a new light, to listen to the lessons of these non-humans at a time marked by a necessary return to The Land, the title of Bill Brandt's exhibition that revealed Michael Kenna's vocation as a landscape photographer in 1976. 

The main themes covered:

1) Trees in the work of Michael Kenna

2) Trees in art history: possible links with 18th-century painters and 19th-century photographers

3) Trees on screen

4) Trees in literary creation

5) Trees as subjects of law, agency, or discourse

6) Trees as abstraction and natural minimalist architecture

7) Trees as political and ecological symbols

8) Trees as vertical axes/spiritual bridges between the visible and the invisible

9) Trees and their relationship to time: the concept of long exposure, series, and repetition

10) Trees and memory: local or universal symbols?

Papers may be published.

Call for papers: TREES IN THE ARTS AND LITERATURE. AROUND MICHAEL KENNA’S PHOTOGRAPHY

Date and venue: Friday, November 27 2026 at Lycée Champollion, Grenoble (France)
Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2026

https://www.lycee-champollion.fr/

Proposals should consist of a single file headed by the name of the lecturer; they should include a short biography (maximum one page) and the paper proposal (maximum 3,000 characters including spaces). They may be written in French or English.

Deadline for submission to jearbrekenna@gmail.com : May, 1st 2026.

The project is supported by Grenoble-Alpes University, axe transversal Création culturelle et territoire(s), ILCEA4 scientific laboratory EA 7356. 

 1Institut des langues et cultures d'Europe, Amérique, Afrique, Asie et Australie

Frank Watson examines the relationship between photography and sound. Today: Frank's guest is James Hyman, Director of the Centre for British Photography, talking about his early interest in photography, meeting Henri Cartier Bresson and collecting British photographers’ work. He reflects upon setting up the Centre in Jermyn Street, London and discusses the exhibitions, grants and mentoring that has been part of the intentions for the Centre. 

Hear James talk about his interest in photography, career as a dealer, setting up a charity, the Centre for British Photography in London housed on a zero lease, views of the Arts Council of Great Britain and the politics of funding, a new grants programmes for photographers launching in January 2026, and hopes for future permanent space for the Centre. 

The Sound Of Photography – 28 November 2025 (James Hyman)
Resonance FM
For more information visit http://thesoundofphotography.com/ and listen to James here:  https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/frank-watson-the-sound-of-photography-28th-november-2025/

This conference investigates theories, histories and methodologies relating to photographic images that are, for different reasons, unseen or unseeable. In the past twenty years, theorists and scholars across disciplines have raised the idea of the invisible image in various ways: discussing “operational” images intended for machine-reading rather than human viewing, and “invisual’ images that appear in aggregation and in which the visual qualities of the image are less significant than the metadata they carry; the legal and political processes that have restricted the viewing and distribution of certain types of images; the images that provide the ‘training’ for AI image production; latent photographic images that have been exposed and may never be developed, and the traces of erased, damaged and faded images. Writers concerned with archival photographs of racialized subjects appeal to senses other than the visual: to the rhythms and tactility of pictures. And for a long time now, photographers and artists have found creative ways to visualise absence, and especially, to make present subjects “disappeared” by dictatorships and through war.

The conference will address how we might study and account for images that are inaccessible, whether through censorship, destruction or other interventions. What methods can be used to account for images in their absence? Historically, lecturers used ekphrasis to discuss images that they could not show. What techniques and approaches now might help us to analyse invisible, inaccessible or undiscovered images? Conversely, how might photographic techniques be used to represent or express the invisible? How have photographers attempted to use the medium to visualise the unseen? What can this teach us about the nature of the photographic media or about ocularcentric cultures? What are the institutions and their internal processes that restrict certain types of images? How might we respond when archival research yields nothing but absence? When should researchers refuse to show images and why? How and why might we bring unseen images to light and what are the ethical and theoretical dilemmas surrounding this? How are unseen images produced and stored, for what purposes and by whom?

Other possible topics include:

• Photographic latency

• What photography can ‘sense’ which is invisible to human eyes

• Operational and “invisual” images

• The “invisible” labour behind digital images

• The judicial status of images 

• The ethics and aesthetics of unseen images

• Censorship and political interference in image production, consumption, and circulation

• The use of visual technologies by law enforcement, military, and the surveillance industrial complex 

• Photographs of absence/invisibility/missing referents/spectres

• Institutions and image oversight

• Accessing and assessing absent images

• The affective power of inaccessible images

• Methodological inventions into unseen images

• The manipulation, redaction and destruction of images

The Invisible Image: Photography and the Unseen
A 2 day International Conference hosted by the Centre for Culture and Everyday Life, School of the Arts, University of Liverpool.
18-19 June 2026
Instagram: @ccel_uliverpool
Bsky: cceluliverpool.bsky.social

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Jordan Bear (University of Toronto)
Prof. Estelle Blaschke (University of Basel)

We welcome abstracts for 20 minute presentations that address any of the issues above, or that relate to questions of invisibility and photography in ways we have not anticipated. Please send abstracts of 250 words (max) with an indicative bibliography of up to 5 texts and a short bio of up to 100 words, to CCEL@liverpool.ac.uk by 30 January 2026.

Newcastle's Side Gallery has published an update on its future which includes confirmation that the gallery will not re-open. This has prompted a backlash on social media from those who had supported the gallery's appeal for support, previously noted on BPH (see here), and had expected the gallery space to return.  

Managing Director, Laura Laffler, posted a statement on the gallery's website summarising its journey from 2023 when it closed the galery and looking ahead to a partner and community-base future: 'When Side closed its building in 2023, the response was overwhelming. #SaveSide grew faster than any of us expected. People shared memories, sent messages and stepped in to keep the organisation alive. Your support covered basic costs we could not avoid, ensured the AmberSide Collection continued to be cared for responsibly, and brought us the time we needed to secure grants from Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, The National Archives, Community Foundation and to commence the next phase of our education programme funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Quite simply, Side would not still exist without you. 

That time allowed us to deliver Transforming Amber, our National Lottery Heritage Fund programme. It rebuilt the organisation from  the inside out. We catalogued the AmberSide collection into a new accessible digital content management system, launched a new website, opened up access for schools and communities, shared our work nationally, and supported people to make and show their own work. It was a year of consolidation, allowing Side to move forward with focus and purpose. This project has now come to an end and we move forward into 2026 stronger and more resilient. 

What comes next is grounded in our renewed commitment to our region. The North East has always been our centre of gravity. Its communities, photographers, cultural life and irreplaceable heritage continue to shape who we are. From our home here, we are expanding our cross-region remit that lets us support more people while staying rooted in the place that made us. At the same time we remain committed to linking the North East to the rest of the world through documentary projects and sharing working class solidarity across borders. 

After consultation and expert guidance from across the arts and heritage sector, from December 2025, Side will no longer be a solely gallery based model and will not be reopening our Quayside location. Instead we have become a vibrant and multi-faceted organisation: working with high-profile exhibition partners and local community and heritage centres, building digital access, continuing our established education programme, and supporting incredible creativity in lens-based documentary arts.' 

What seems to have upset supporters who had donated to Side's appeal was the burying of news of the gallery's closure deep in the statement with one claiming 'a dirty trick' and others unimpressed with the decison. Many had expected their support would lead to the public gallery space being part of the future. Laffler notes, in repeated standard responses to individual comments, that 'Amber Film & Photography CIC has never owned the Side Gallery buildings' and the location was sold to a new landlord in 2024. Side was offered a longterm lease but 'the cost of the rent along with other operational costs meant that it was not a sustianable base for our future.'  

The closure of Side Gallery highlights the lack of permanent gallery space for photography in the north east. 

See: https://sidegallery.co.uk/blog/a-year-of-transformation and https://www.instagram.com/

Back in May BPH reported on the auction by Bonhams of the only known portraits of Ada Lovelace, comprising two daguerreotype portraits by Claudet from c1843 and a daguerreotype copy of a painting of Lovelace. The lot was withdrawn from sale and the National Portrait Gallery was able to announce on Ada's birthday, yesterday, that it had acquired the portraits in 'a once in a lifetime opportunity'. The NPG notes that the acquisiiton 'will enable the Gallery to celebrate her pioneering work and inspire future generations'. 

The purchase was supported by Tim Lindholm and Lucy Gaylord Lindholm through the American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery. The NPG will make a further announcement in the new year.

BPH played a small part in helping faciliate the purchase. 

See: https://www.instagram.com/p/DSFlRfRCJEG/?igsh=MTB5dTNlMDliNXo4eQ==

The Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA) has awarded its Jarrell Prize for the period 2022-2024 to Shannon Perry for “Perfect Dry Plates for Canada”: Gelatine Dry-Plate Manufacturing in Canada in the Late Nineteenth Century published in Volume 44, number 1, 2022, the special issue Photography: Science, Technology and Practice, edited by Joan M. Schwartz. It is a available on open access. 

The abstract notes that the article seeks to identify the commercial efforts of Canadian photographers to manufacture and distribute gelatin dry-plates in the 19th century. Using archival material and published advertisements, several companies including the Stanley Dry Plate Company of Montreal are identified and positioned within the photographic manufacturing landscape in Canada. In doing so, the commercial efforts of Canadian manufacturers are contrasted with the parallel developments in dry-plate manufacturing in the United States and England, further situating Canada’s photographic manufacturing history within a broader context.

The full issue with other papers of interest can be seen and downloaded here

Shannon Perry teaches history of photography, and archival theory and practice at Carleton University. She has worked at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, for over a decade as a private and government archivist, specializing in photography. Her research focuses on Kodak, and the photographic industry in Canada more broadly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and was the focus of her PhD thesis The Eastman Kodak Co. and the Canadian Kodak Co. Ltd: Re-structuring the Canadian photographic industry, c.1885-1910 (De Montfort University, 2016), and a forthcoming monograph,When Kodak Came to Town (U of T Press).

The Prize was established in 2015 in honour of CSTHA founding member, Dr. Richard Jarrell, who passed away in 2013. The biennial prize recognizes the best article published in Scientia Canadensis over the previous two years and comes with an award of $500.

BPH was saddened to learn this morning of the unexpected death of Martin Parr. Once described as 'Britain's best known photographer' Martin studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic in the 1970s and came into public consciousness with his seminal publication of colour photography The Last Resort concisting photographs made in New Brighton between 1983 and 1985. He joined Magnum as a full member in 1994, in the face of sustained opposition from traditionalists. Martin produced over 100 photobooks and was working up to his death on new photography and publications. 

Martin sold one of his collections of photobooks to the Tate, some 12,000 titles, in 2017 and the funds were used to set up the Martin Foundation which opened in Bristol the same year, although it had been incorporated in 2014. Its aims were to support British and Irish documentary photographers and their works. The Foundation developed a significant exhibition programme, initiated the Bristol Photo Festival, as well as housing an important collection of photobooks, other photographers' collections, along with Martin's own archive. It is now one of the most significant archives of postwar British photography. 

He is survived by his wife, Susie, daughter Ellen, his sister Vivien

Martin was awarded a CBE for servvices to photography in 2021 and the Royal Photographic Society's Honorary Fellowship in 2005 and Centenary Medal in 2008.   

More to follow... 

See: https://martinparrfoundation.org/about/

and https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/martin-parr-1952-2025/

Photo: Michael Pritchard. Martin Parr at BOP 2023, Bristol. 

Lizzie Caswall Smith is the subject of a new blog post by Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms, as part of a series looking at stories about the history of Kilburn, Willesden, West Hampstead and other parts of London. Rooted in genealogical and local history research the blog adds new information to her story and corrects factual errors.

Read it here: https://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2025/12/lizzie-caswall-smith-famous-photographer.html

Image: Lizzie with harp, by her brother John Caswall Smith (Ancestry, John Smith, Scunthorpe).

Throughout the year, NICAS organizes a bi-weekly Colloquium featuring short lunch lectures where researchers share updates, present new ideas, or discuss the outcomes of their work. The Colloquium aims to keep the field informed about the latest developments, foster the exchange of knowledge, and encourage collaboration.

Conservation scientists have studied daguerreotypes extensively, but surface metrology has only been used experimentally to examine their surfaces so far. Non-contact optical confocal microscopes provide Z-axis data points within a scanned X-Y area, which can be used to calculate heights, depths, widths and roughness, as well as to generate 3D surface maps with sub-micron resolution. In the context of my PhD research on the history and techniques of early printing methods for daguerreotypes, this talk explores the use of confocal microscopy to compare the microtopography of traditional intaglio copper plates with daguerreotypes that were acid-etched to convert them into printing matrices. By combining the topographical maps with data from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), we can deepen our understanding of the materials, functionality and sensitivities of etched daguerreotypes. It is hoped that the applications described here may benefit other cultural heritage studies.

Biography
Martin Jürgens is conservator of photographs at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Before coming to the Netherlands, he worked as a conservator in private practice in Hamburg. His education includes a German diploma in photography and design, an M.S. from Rochester Institute of Technology and an M.A. in Conservation from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. Following his scholarship at the Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute published his book The Digital Print. Identification and Preservation in 2009. He is currently a part-time PhD student at the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK.

Explorative surface metrology of intaglio printing plates and etched daguerreotypes with optical confocal microscopy
Martin Jurgens, haired by Margriet van Eikema Hommes
organised by the Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science
11 December 2025, 1200-1300 (CET); 1100-1200 (GMT/UTC)
Free but register here: https://www.nicas-research.nl/event/nicas-colloquium-online-11-december-2025/