The Martin Parr Foundation is holding a seminar day to launch a new major publication from Gerry Badger,  Another Country, British Documentary Photography since 1945  (thames & Hudson) which showcases the social and cultural history of Britain since the Second World War. Organised chronologically, each chapter spans a period of social and cultural history, focusing on the major photographers, figures, institutions, publications and galleries that shaped the photographic climate of that time.

The seminar day will consist of a series of talks from photographers who are represented in the book, followed by a panel discussion. The day includes: 

• Introduction, with Martin Parr and Gerry Badger
• John Bulmer
• Hannah Starkey
• Sunil Gupta
• Elaine Constantine
• Panel discussion with Olivia Arthur (photographer and president at Magnum Photos), Gerry Badger (writer), Sunil Gupta (photographer), David Hurn (photographer), Alona Pardo (curator, Barbican) and Martin Parr (photographer).

For details and to book click here: https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/events/another-country/

Image:  Manchester by John Bulmer / Popperfoto. Featured in The North, published by Bluecoat Press.

The latest number of the Science Museum Group Journal (Spring 2022) includes a paper by Efram Sera-Shriar titled Photographic plates and spirit fakes: remembering Harry Price’s investigation of William Hope’s spirit photography at its centenary. 

Access is free here: http://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/browse/issue-17/photographic-plates-and-spirit-fakes

After 15 years of campaigning The Cinema Museum’s future looks bright. At last we have a chance to secure a permanent home for the Museum and save a well-loved, unique heritage building (The Lambeth Workhouse, once home of Charlie Chaplin). We are thrilled; we can’t wait to buy it, mend it and share it with those who love cinema, film, creativity, architecture, stories, memories and all the good that comes from positive social change, pro-environmental behaviour and caring communities.

BACKGROUND
Since 2007 The Cinema Museum has campaigned to secure a permanent home at The Master’s House, London SE11, Lambeth, just over the Southwark border. With no rights to renew, changing landlords, short annual leases that restricted access to grants and ongoing threats that our home was to be sold to the highest bidder – it was a long, hard, stressful slog. But its over…well, almost!

THE FUTURE
We just signed a 4-year lease with our landlords, Anthology (part of the Lifestory Group) – with an option to purchase the Master’s House buildings for £1 million at any time over the next four years. That might not seem much to raise in 4 years, but the buildings need MANY millions spending on them – so we have 4 years to raise a LOT of money – but we are reenergised, reinvigorated and with your help, we will do it. So - to the essence of this statement – our deep, respectful thanks.

We are grateful to Anthology (part of Lifestory Group) for giving us the legal certainty we need to save both The Cinema Museum and The Master’s House buildings. We are grateful to the Mayor of London and the GLA who were supportive of the Museum throughout. We are grateful to both officers and politicians at Lambeth Council, who provided over a decade of kind help and support in getting the Museum to this stage. We are grateful to officers and politicians at Southwark Council who also took us under their wing. We are grateful to Art Fund for emergency funding during Covid. Thank you to all our local partners in Lambeth and Southwark for everything you do for us. And - Museum Development London (funded by Arts Council England and Art Fund) who have expertly advised and supported us for over a decade, THANK YOU!

BUT they are organisations, not people, so thank you all, so much, every one of you who has stood up for us, signed our 62,000+petition and donated to our £100k+ crowdfunders. Thank you to our visitors, neighbours, friends and most importantly - our amazing, giant-hearted and hard-working volunteers - past and present. Thank you all for your pro bono advice; your work; your time; your money. Thank you for your generosity, kindness, encouragement, trust and belief. Thank You EVERYONE - this success has got your name written all over it - we will never forget.

Want to help us make this happen? You can make a donation at https://tinyurl.com/5wttnepe
We’d love to hear from you info@cinemamuseum.org.uk

Visit the museum website: http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/

The National Stereoscopic Association is happy to announce plans for a live convention and is seeking scholarly papers on the history of stereography for our third annual 'Sessions'.

Presentations are welcome on any aspect of stereo-media from the inception of stereoscopic photography to contemporary virtual and augmented reality. Topics include but are not limited to: historical and archival research; studies on collecting and the culture of stereography; marketing and incorporation; intersectionality; immersive media, interactivity and performance; stereoscopic perception; 3D cinema and virtual reality; instrumentality and simulation. Papers on topics from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century are invited.

Presenters may choose to present live or via a pre-recording. Please use the link to upload an abstract of 500 words, a biography of 250 words, and contact information:

Call for Papers

The National Stereoscopic Association’s: Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography III
at the 48^th Annual 3D-Con, The Hotel Murano, Tacoma, Washington, August 5, 2022.  https://3d-con.com/?id=nsa_3d_con_menu

Deadline for submissions: May 15, 2022.

Please be aware that conditions may change with COVID-19. Applicants for the “Sessions” and attendees are encouraged to check the website for the convention for updates: https://3d-con.com/?id=nsa_3d_con_menu

Flints Auctions are to offer a 'pre-production' Compass camera 1936/37, with the serial number 1015. The camera, also known as the Compass I, was withdrawn after its initial public offering and buyers offered the redesigned Compass II camera.   The Compass camera was the brainchild of the maverick designer and politician Noel Pemberton-Billing and manufactured by Le Coultre et Cie. According to the auctioneers this is the first time a Compass I has been offered at auction and it is estimated at £12,000-18,000. The sale takes place on 23 April 2022. 

The Compass I differed from the Compass II in the following respects:  

• This camera is 3mm shorter and 3mm less thick than the version II
• The lens has no name or data
• The lens cap is separate and not attached The 'Le Coultre' name does not appear on the outside of the camera
• No lens cap depth of field calculator
• More flush spirit level
• There is no hinged magnifier
• The swivel mount is for a small screw
• No option for cable release
• The wheel on the front is engraved 'Shutter Winder'
• Inside the back is engraved 'World Patents Pending' Back engraved 'Compass Cameras, London. Pemberton Billing, Patents/ Manufactured for the Licencees' - No mention of LeCoultre

The differences and best description of the Compass camera was given by Dave Todd in a series of articles in Photographica World. 

See the full description here: https://www.flintsauctions.com/auction/lot/lot-99---a-pre-production-lecoultre--cie-compass-camera/?lot=14329&so=0&st=Compass&sto=0&au=38&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=50&pn=1&g=-1

The Optilogue is a blog that explores historical visual media, especially those with an ‘optical’ element – including magic lanterns, early cinema, dimensional picture books, stereoscopic images, zoetropes, early flip books, anamorphics, peepshows and transparent dioramas. Art, Science, Technology and Sociology. Included are historiographic musings, original research, investigations into visual perception, intermedial studies, and scrutiny of received wisdom in these fields. It is written by Stephen Herbert who describes it as an 'independent and free source of new research in the fields of historic optical media: for academics, collectors, media archaeologists, private researchers, and anyone else interested in these engaging subjects'.   

Sign up for updates and to see more here: https://theoptilogue.wordpress.com/about-this-blog/

The 13th edition of PhotoIreland Festival proposes a conversation ‘On the History and Practice of Photography in Ireland’ through a programme of exhibitions and events running from 7July to 28 August. In this context, a series of Think Tanks are being hosted to tease out the complexities of the History as much as of the discipline. 

Proposals are invited for a day workshop on photographic histories of Ireland in the twentieth century. The workshop proposes to explore histories of photographic practices, technologies, exhibitions and archives from 1910 to 1990. There is no prescribed theme and the scope of proposals are open to any aspect of photographic culture, and proposals for focused case studies of specific photographers and/or images are welcomed along with broader thematic papers that may critically asses methods and methodologies of the historiography of photography in Ireland across the period of partition and its aftermath or take a comparative approach to the photography and its histories.

Proposed papers do not have to follow any formal approach or methodology and can be focused on the historical or sociological aspects of photography and its uses, photographic forms and aesthetics, institutional uses of the photographic image and their archivisation. Proposals are welcomed that address the cultural politics of the photographic image in state formation from the period of partition alongside papers that explore hidden or unexplored histories of photography throughout the twentieth century. Proposals may not focus solely on Irish photographers and proposals that explore international photographers working in Ireland or Irish photographers working in any geographical location are encouraged.

This workshop is convened by Justin Carville in collaboration with PhotoIreland and proposals of 300 words with a short bio should be submitted via email attachment to photoireland.call.2022@gmail.com no later than 20 May 2022.

Full details and possible themes are here: https://edu.photoireland.org/research/think-tank-on-histories-i/

Three-colour photography is the basis for most colour photographic technologies nowadays, so why does its multifaceted history, especially at the turn of the last century, remain ignored by historians?

This online symposium complimenting PhotoResearcher No.37 delves into key technological, cultural and political questions pertaining to this medium in its various historical manifestations. Speakers will address issues of the scientific use of three-colour photography, its iconic protagonists, and its most representative imperial and colonial expeditions. They explore the multitude of photographic processes the term “three-colour photography” encompasses, ranging from Color Paget, Sanger-Shepherd, Miethe's System, Bleach-Out methods etc. along with the material and epistemological conditions which engendered them.

This Symposium seeks to remedy the historical and theoretical vacuum around three-colour photography, opening exciting avenues for subsequent research and enabling more sensitivity towards the presence of colour photography in museum archives.

This conference is free of charge for attendees and all presenters have been offered an honorarium. This is made possible thanks to the financial generosity of the Photographic Historical Society of Canada.

An international Symposium of the European Society for the History of Photography (ESHPh), in cooperation with the Photographic Historical Society of Canada (PHSC), and Dr. Hanin Hannouch (Weltmuseum Wien) accompanying the publication of PhotoResearcher No. 37: "Three-Colour Photography around 1900" (guest-edited by Hanin Hannouch).

Technologies, Expeditions, Empires: Three-Color Photography around 1900
Online, Friday 29th April 2022, 1300 (EST) | 1800 (BST) | 1900 (CET)

Details and register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/technologies-expeditions-empires-three-colour-photography-around-1900-registration-256104404167?aff=erelexpmlt

Charles Miller Ltd is offering two lots linked to Herbert Ponting. First up is lot 247 a Beck No. 3 Universal Telephoto lens no. 102233 in a leather case which is embossed H.G. PONTING, F.R.G.S. The second lot, 248 is a photograph [Chris] A sledge dog listening to the gramophone with an official edition label numbered 109/400.  The Gramophone Co. gave Scott a Monarch Senior machine, the top model of the day, along with several hundred mainly single-sided shellac records. In this image, Ponting revisits the famous Dog and Gramophone trademark which had been adopted in 1909 by the Gramophone Co. which was then renamed His Master's Voice.

Both are offered in a specialist Maritime and Scientific Instrument auction on 26 April 2022. 

See:https://www.charlesmillerltd.com/auction/search/?st=ponting&sto=0&au=57&w=False&pn=1

An important collection of early colour photography has been donated to the V&A Museum where it will join significant bodies of similar material, notably within the RPS Collection, held at the museum. The V&A has recently announced a PhD studentship in partnership with the University of Liverpool to examine early colour and contexts in Britain from the 1890s to 1935.

The collection was formed by Colin Axon and covers the period c1895 to 1940. It consists of some 1000 items and includes colour work from such luminaries as the Lumière brothers, Otto Pfenninger, Helen Messinger Murdoch, Olive Edis, Arthur Grenier, Hugh C. Knowles, Vero Charles Driffield, Arthur E. Morton,  Arthur Clive Banfield and others. Many of these add to bodies of work already held within the RPS Collection, making the V&A one of the most important centres for the study of early colour photography. 

The collection has examples of many colour processes including Dufay Dioptichrome, Dufay, Lippmann, Paget, Baker Duplex, Thames, Ducos du Hauron Mélanochromoscope and Sanger Shepherd.

Of special note is the photographic archive Dr Kurt von Holleben, the head of Agfa's colour screen development for the Agfa-Farbenplatte, Agfacolor and Agfacolor Ultra processes. This consists of some six hundred 9 x12cm Agfa glass plates from 1924 to 1938 covering the whole of Germany and his travels in Europe and Scandinavia.

Speaking to BPH, Colin Axon explained that "I started out collecting daguerreotypes but switched to early colour about 15 to 20 years ago. Before I started I read Brian Coe’s book Colour Photography: The First Hundred Years, 1840-1940 from cover to cover. I used it as the guide for my collection and I tried to find as many of the different colour processes as I could. I believe that the items I found will sit well alongside the V&A’s other holdings."

The catalyst for the donation was to find a home for the collection where it would be properly stored, in the right conditions, and made available. His initial contact was with the former V&A curator Catlin Langford who was working on a book of autochromes in the V&A collection.  The collection finally arrived at the museum in February. 

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Holleben and https://www.photocollections.org.uk/collections/colin-axon-collection-early-colour-photography

Catlin Langford, Color Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome (Thames and Hudson, due December 2022) 

With thanks to Colin Axon and Ron Callender. 

Images; 

Top: Otto Pfenninger, Children in the water', Brighton, 6 August 1906. Davidson & Jumeaux Colour Process, lantern slide. 

Left: Autochrome, 13x18cm. Sold as 'one of the little daughters of the Lumière brothers'. Both images courtesy of Colin Axon. 

As first reported on BPH on 21 February the V&A has now announced that Fiona Rogers has joined it as the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography. Fiona joins the V&A from Webber, a photographic agency and gallery with offices in London, New York, and Los Angeles, where she was Director of Photography & Operations.

In her new role, Fiona will lead activities for The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, a major new curatorial programme to support women in photography. The Project, funded by Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and the Parasol Foundation Trust, encompasses the new curatorial post, endowed for 25 years, alongside acquisitions, research, education and public displays.  It aims to foreground and sustain women’s practice in contemporary photography and highlight the role women have played throughout the history of the medium.  Fiona will also develop a significant online presence for the Project, including a dedicated Instagram account to highlight works by women artists, which launched this week.

 Fiona Rogers is the founder of Firecracker, a digital platform established in 2011 and network that champions women photographers. In 2012 Firecracker launched a Photographic Grant and has since awarded £20,000 in funding to international artists.  In 2017, Fiona published Firecrackers: Female Photographers Now (Thames & Hudson) with co-author Max Houghton.

Fiona has curated exhibitions with a range of artists including Theo Simpson, Marvel Harris, and Zora J Murff and has contributed to books and magazines including Photoworks and the British Journal of Photography. She holds a BA from the Surrey Institute of Art & Design and is an Associate Lecturer in Photography at the London College of Communication. She is a member of the RPS Awards Committee and a Trustee of the Martin Parr Foundation and the Peter Marlow Foundation. Prior to joining the V&A and Webber, Fiona worked for Magnum Photos in a variety of roles, rising to Chief Operations Officer where she was responsible for running the agency and designing and implementing strategies in collaboration with the CEO.  

 The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project furthers the V&A’s mission to nurture contemporary artists and share the museum’s collections, knowledge, and expertise in photography. Through commissioning women to create new work, acquiring photography by women artists, devising women-led displays, and organising talks, educational programmes and events, the Project’s ambition is to support contemporary women artists, develop programming, and investigate the roles of women photographers within the V&A collection. International in scope, there will be a particular emphasis on digital art, and the digital distribution of resources and information via social media.

 he Project is made possible through a major gift from Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and the Parasol Foundation Trust, a philanthropic trust established in 2004 that supports educational, health, culture and heritage initiatives. In addition to the Trust’s support of the Project, Gallery 97 at the V&A will be named The Parasol Foundation Gallery. This gallery, a space for displaying contemporary photography, is part of the V&A Photography Centre Phase Two development.

 Fiona Rogers, The Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography at the V&A, said: “It’s an honour to join the V&A at such an important and exciting phase in its evolution and continued engagement with photography.  I’m grateful to the Parasol Foundation Trust for their support for the project and look forward to contributing and leading a dynamic program of activities that will support international contemporary practitioners, further the V&A’s commitment to women artists and share the work with a wide and diverse audience.”

 Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol said: “Fiona's appointment as the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography curator is a significant step for the project. Together we're aiming to celebrate the achievements of women, open up new opportunities for female photographers and connect and inspire new audiences around the world through our emphasis on digital activities and art.” 

 The V&A was the first museum in the world to collect photographs, beginning with its founding in 1852, and continues to collect and commission new work today. Phase One of the V&A Photography Centre opened to critical acclaim in 2018, sharing the breadth of the V&A’s world-leading photography collection, and Phase Two – with four new gallery spaces – will open in 2023.

The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project Instagram is here: @vamparasolwomenphoto

Image: © Joana Choumali

This Symposium brings together an international group of artists, writers and thinkers and is part of Four Corners exhibition, Photographing Protest: Resistance Through a Feminist Lens.

Talks include:

• Professor Anna Rocca in conversation with Senior Lecturer Dora Carpenter-Latiri about her exhibition on Tunisian women, Tunisian Women of the Book
• Julia Winckler, photographer and academic, on the work of Marilyn Stafford, whose street photographs of children in post-war Paris constitute precious fragments of an underrepresented working-class neighbourhood before being demolished in 1961
• PhD student Gabriella McGrogan on resistance to the war on drugs in the Phillipines
• Historian of photography, researcher and writer, Taous Dahmani on the visual culture of the 1976 Grunwick dispute in the UK
• Tessa Lewin, creative practitioner and researcher, in conversation with South African photographer Dean Hutton
• Associate Professor of Art History, Heather Diack on the work of Civil Rights photographer Doris Derby
• Feminist research artist, Rosario Montero on documentary photography in Chile
• Tara Pixley speaking about her, film Rebel Vision, on the work of Black female and non binary photographers associated with Authority Collective

This event is produced in collaboration with Kylie Thomas of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, editor of a special issue of MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture journal published in Spring 2022.

Feminism, Photography & Resistance Symposium
Thursday 28 April 2022, 3 - 7.30pm GMT, Online
See more and register here: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/feminism-photography-and-resistance-symposium

Image: © ROSARIO MONTERO PRIETO, Protester with a sign that reads: 'we are not ok', October 2019. 

James Hyman has announced the opening of its two new galleries at 48 and 50 Maddox Street in Mayfair, London.  At 48 Maddox Street, it is staging the exhibition Telling Stories. Picture Post and its Legacy. The exhibition presents some of the key photographers of Picture Post magazine as well as a curated selection of some later British photographers who built on this storytelling or documentary tradition.

The exhibition features work by Shirley Baker, Bill Brandt, Anna Fox, Ken Grant, Brian Griffin, Bert Hardy, Nigel Henderson, Paul Hill, Thurston Hopkins, David Hurn, Kurt Hutton, Colin Jones, Dafydd Jones, Chris Killip, Karen Knorr, Marketa Luskacova, Roger Mayne, Daniel Meadows, Jim Mortram, Martin Parr, Charlie Phillips, Tony Ray-Jones, Paul Reas, Grace Robertson, Jo Spence, Wolfgang Suschitzky, Homer Sykes, Jon Tonks.

See: https://www.jameshymangallery.com/

I have a long-standing research interest in the material lives and cultural meaning of glass artifacts in the history of science and the history of photography, from vacuum tubes and chemical glassware to lenses and glass plate negatives. Glass is one of the dominant materials of experimental science.  Its optical and physical properties mediate scientists’ interaction with the natural world. Embodied, artisanal practices around glass-making shape the hardware of experimental science, particularly in chemistry and physics, where test tubes, vacuum tubes, and other laboratory glassware have become iconic symbols of the scientific endeavor. As a photographic material, glass has had a powerful role in both forging and endangering the rhetorical “transparency” of the photographic medium–especially the fragile but powerful glass plate, the primary material for photographic negatives from around 1850 to 1925 (and in the practice of astronomy, until the 1990s). My presentation will range across these various ways that glass artifacts and glass surfaces have been implicated in debates over how we know what we know about the natural world.

GEEX talk
Dr Chitra Ramalingam
4 April 2022, 6:15pm CDT | 0015 5 April (BST) 
Public access: 4 Apri- 2 May 2022
Details: https://geex.glass/programming/geextalks/dr-chitra-ramalingam/

The next Counter Image International Conference taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 13--15 July. The event will focus on ways of decolonizing visuality but a range of topics on photographic culture relating to colonial and postcolonial contexts are possible. The conference will be in persona and will also accepts online participants.

This edition of Counter Image International Conference (CIIC22) proceeds the work of unveiling the ways in which images operate within the power and knowledge structures and systems of truth which tend to constitute hegemonic historical narratives and marginalize or erase those that are conflicting or minoritarian. This originates not only “centres” and “margins” but also tends to silence voices and invisible people, making certain ideias unpronounced. Being a historical process, it demands continuous criticism in line with the many scholars and artists working in Visual Culture, Gender Studies and Cultural Studies traditions in the various disciplines. Establishing counter narratives, counter archives and counter images is then a challenge to hegemonic social, cultural and political systems and a contribution to a much needed dialogue around themes that are difficult and complex, in view of a pluralist, diverse and balanced society.

In a world still deeply marked by colonial images and worldviews, in which the production and mass distribution of visual technologies has contributed to the naturalization of oppressive systems, making the underlying visual codes almost unnoticed, this edition wishes to debate colonial visual heritage and how it impacts the world today.

Photography historian and visual anthropologist, Professor Elizabeth Edwards, will present a keynote. 

at the next Counter Image International Conference taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 13th to 15th July. The event will focus on ways of decolonizing visuality but a range of topics on photographic culture relating to colonial and postcolonial contexts are possible. The conference also accepts online participants.

Deadline for proposals 20 April 2022. See: https://counter-image.netlify.app/#call-link

See more : https://counter-image.netlify.app/

As the British Institute of Radiology marks 125 years join BIR Honorary Historian Dr Adrian Thomas to explore the early days of the society, and how it has developed to match the needs of a changing world. Be transported back to 1897 when seeing inside the body was becoming a possibility for the very first time and the potential of the 'new photography' was slowly being recognised as a diagnostic tool.

Imagine the excitement and anticipation of what the future could hold for the medical profession as these brave pioneers took part in their first meeting. Find out about the characters and personalities involved and discover how the BIR influenced the development of this brand new specialty, through its journal and Annual Congress.

Learn how scientists and doctors worked together, involved radiographers and physiotherapists and how those early values of multi-disciplinary working still continue today.

BIR at 125 Years: A Celebration
1 April 2022 at 1300-1400 (GMT)
Register here

Photography, both in the form of contemporary practice and that of historical material, now occupies a significant place in the citadels of Western art culture. It has an institutional network of its own, embedded within the broader art world, with its own specialists including academics, critics, curators, collectors, dealers and conservators. All of this cultural activity consolidates an artistic practice and critical discourse of photography that distinguishes what is increasingly termed 'art photography' from its commercial, scientific and amateur guises. But this long-awaited recognition of photography as high art brings new challenges. How will photography's newly privileged place in the art world affect how the history of creative photography is written?

Modernist claims for the medium as having an aesthetic often turned on precedents from painting. Postmodernism challenged a cultural hierarchy organized around painting. Nineteenth-century photographs move between the symbolic spaces of the gallery wall and the archive: de-contextualised for art and re-contextualised for history. But what of the contemporary writings, images, and practices that negotiated an aesthetic status for 'the photographic'?

Photography and the Arts revisits practices both celebrated and elided by the modernist and postmodernist grand narratives of art and photographic history in order to open up new critical spaces. Written by leading scholars in the fields of photography, art and literature, the essays examine the metaphorical as well as the material exchanges between photography and the fine, graphic, reproductive and sculptural arts.

Photography and the Arts Essays on 19th Century Practices and Debates
Juliet Hacking and Joanne Lukitsh
Bloomsbury, 2021
now in paperback at £21.49
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/photography-and-the-arts-9781350048553/

Applications are invited for an AHRC funded CDP studentship offered by the University of Liverpool and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), to start in October 2022.

The studentship will be based in the V&A in London (in the Photography Section) and also in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool, and attached to the Centre for Culture and Everyday Life at the University. The successful applicant will work on a collaborative PhD led by Prof. Michelle Henning with co-supervision from Dr. Duncan Forbes at the V&A. Second supervisors are Professor Peter Buse (UoL) and Martin Barnes (V&A).

Applicants are asked to propose a project investigating the colour photography collections at the V&A, focussing on the period 1890 to 1935, a crucial period in the development of early colour photography in Britain. Focusing on the collections of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) in particular, it will address innovation in the technology and aesthetics of colour photography in the context of changing cultural understandings and experiences of colour in the wider environment and culture of the period. We would encourage you to consider questions about the nature of the photographic industry in Britain, and wider social and economic developments. You are invited to narrow the focus to particular contexts, specific research questions, and possibly a shorter historical period within the timeframe. You should also specify your research methods, which should involve empirical research within the archive as well as developing a conceptual framework. It is intended that the student’s research has a direct impact on display and interpretation strategies at the V&A, and there will be opportunities to engage with the public, especially in relation to displays in the Photography Centre.

The V&A is arguably the richest archival resource in the UK for early colour photography. Source materials include the Colin Axon colour photography collection (acquired in 2022), the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) archive, a vast selection of photographic journals and books from the RPS library, and an array of early colour processes themselves. There is extensive source material relating to the 1931 exhibition ‘Colour Photography in the Service of Man’, the RPS Colour Group, as well as correspondence relating to key figures such as Friedrich Paneth, Alfred Stieglitz, and Alvin Langdon Coburn.The collections include a wide range of colour processes (such as Autochrome, Lippman, Vivex, Dufaycolor, Agfacolor and Kodachrome). Important colour photographers (not already mentioned) held in the RPS collection include Madame Yevonde, Agnes Warburg, Helen Messinger Murdoch, Otto Pfenninger, and D. A. Spencer.

Furthermore, there is a broader context for the study of colour at the V&A, with objects and expertise held in the textiles, prints, and conservation sections. Cross-referencing with collections outside the V&A (in the Science Museum Group, city and national archives and in smaller or private collections) is also possible.

The team supervising this project provides a unique combination of expertise in photography, including knowledge of photographic history and photographic curatorship, specialisms in periodicals, and broader cultural histories. With their support, the student will develop their own research questions and trajectory. They will identify their own case studies and work with supervisors at the V&A to find ways to maximise the public impact of their research, perhaps contributing to cataloguing, displays, interpretation or online content. The student will also bring a prior interest and engagement with photography history and theory. We particularly welcome applications from Black and POC candidates.

See more and apply here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/communication-and-media/news/stories/title,1311134,en.html

The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance. The V&A’s Collections Division comprises six curatorial, research, and conservation and collections care & access teams. The curatorial departments are arranged as Decorative Art and Sculpture; Performance, Furniture, Textiles & Fashion; Art, Architecture, Photography & Design; and Asia. The staff in these teams are at the heart of the founding purpose of the museum: to care for, research and develop the collections, to exhibit them to the public, to make them available for study and research, and to broaden access to the collections.

This is one of nine Assistant Curator posts that sit in the Art, Architecture, Photography and Design Department. As such, the main purpose of the job is to provide curatorial support in the development, care of, documentation and research, presentation and interpretation of a part of V&A’s Collection, in this case the Photography Section. Assistant Curators spend a significant portion of their time working on object-related activity that pertains to the care and display of collections, maintaining documentation and developing interpretation to allow for their presentation to wide audiences.

As a member of the Department, the postholder will also play a role in the wider work of the V&A, contributing to policy, projects and public programmes and supporting fundraising and income generation. Assistant Curators also play a role in their relevant department and will be part of the community supporting the museum’s scholarship in the Photography Section. In short, this is a wide-ranging role in which the postholder will be able to develop their skills in all aspects of museum curation. 

See details and apply here.

Today, Historic England launches its new Aerial Photography Explorer - which for the first time allows users to search and explore an online map showing aerial photographs of England over the past 100 years. Aerial imagery provides a fascinating insight into the development and expansion of the nation’s urban centres and changes to the rural landscape. It can also reveal striking discoveries - such as ‘cropmarks’ showing hidden, archaeology beneath the surface. New imagery available online includes: 

• The remains of ancient archaeology such as a Neolithic long barrow near Broughton, Hampshire, as well as remains of Iron Age forts such as Pilsdon Pen in Dorset and medieval villages such as Old Sulby in Northamptonshire.
• Second World War anti-invasion measures such as anti-aircraft obstructions (ditches and earthworks) at Hampton Court Palace in 1941, and images from the same year of RAF Kenley showing camouflaged runways.
• War-time adaptations to sites, for example, images of Greenwich Park in 1946 show it covered in a patchwork of allotments to grow food and aid the war effort. A modern photograph from August 2006 shows the outlines of the allotments appearing through the grass in hot weather.
• Bomb damage such as images of central Liverpool and the Albert Dock from 1941, 1946 and 1948 with flattened areas and buildings with roofs blown off. By contrast, aerial images from 2017 show the development of the area since.
• 20^th century industrial sites such as the construction of Tilbury power station in 1955, and its demolition in 2017.
• Famous buildings such as views of St James’ Park football stadium, Newcastle from the 1920s and St Paul’s Cathedral after the war.

Over 400,000 images from 1919 to the present day have been added to the tool, covering nearly 30% (c.15,000 square miles) of England, allowing people immediate digital access to Historic England’s nationally important collection of aerial photographs.

Around 300,000 of these are the work of Historic England’s Aerial Investigation and Mapping team. Established in 1967, the team takes photographs of England from the air to discover new archaeological sites, create archaeological maps and monitor the condition of historic sites across the country.

The remaining 100,000 images come from the Historic England Archive aerial photography collection, which numbers over two million images in total, and includes important historic photography, including interwar and post-war images from Aerofilms Ltd and The Royal Air Force.

By opening up these images to the public through this accessible online tool, Historic England hopes that people will use it to research their local areas, offering an insight into a century of changes and development. This will allow them potentially to make their own discoveries about their local areas. It will also provide industry professionals and local authorities with a useful resource to help planning, heritage projects and archaeological investigation.

Over the coming years, Historic England aims to expand the platform, as more of the six million aerial images in Historic England Archive are digitised.

The Aerial Photography Explorer joins Historic England’s recently launched Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer to offer an unparalleled insight into England’s archaeology and the nation’s development.

The new tool can be found here: Aerial Photograph Explorer tool

Images: 

 East Hecla steelworks and Meadowhall in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

Multivallate Hillfort, West Hills -