Roger Taylor, photo-historian, has been recognised in the 2020 Queen's birthday honours list with a MVO  - Member of the Royal Victorian Order - for 'services to the Royal Collection'. Taylor's association with the collection started in the late 1970s with a project for World Microfilms, it developed in to a landmark exhibition with Frances Dimond, Crown and Camera which was shown at the Queens's Gallery in 1987.

Taylor was a curator at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television from 1985-1996. His projects since then - in print, in public and online - have all been significant and continue to inform photographic scholarship.

See: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3645593

and for a full biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Taylor_(photographic_historian)    

The long history of the renowned Alinari photographic firm, founded in 1852 in Florence, reached a turning point in December 2019 as the regional government Regione Toscana acquired the company's millions of photographic objects, documents, specialized publications and historical technical equipment; the acquisition of the digital assets will soon complete the process. The Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia (Alinari Foundation for Photography) was established on July 16, 2020.

The shift from private to public ownership represents not only a management challenge, but also a unique opportunity to root the activities of the newly created Fondazione into the fabric of the vibrant international scientific community at the highest intellectual level. So as to facilitate this transition, the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz in partnership with Regione Toscana and Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia will host a study day with prominent international scholars in dialogue with artist Armin Linke. The goal of the event is to identify new directions and outline new research scenarios that will connect the past, present and future of the Alinari project.

The long history of the renowned Alinari photographic firm, founded in 1852 in Florence, reached a turning point in December 2019 as the regional government Regione Toscana acquired the company's millions of photographic objects, documents, specialized publications and historical technical equipment; the acquisition of the digital assets will soon complete the process. The Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia (Alinari Foundation for Photography) was established on July 16, 2020. The shift from private to public ownership represents not only a management challenge, but also a unique opportunity to root the activities of the newly created Fondazione into the fabric of the vibrant international scientific community at the highest intellectual level. So as to facilitate this transition, the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz in partnership with Regione Toscana and Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia will host a study day with prominent international scholars in dialogue with artist Armin Linke. The goal of the event is to identify new directions and outline new research scenarios that will connect the past, present and future of the Alinari project.

Speakers include:

• Estelle Blaschke (Universität Basel): Rarity vs. Ubiquity. Some Thoughts on the Institutionalisation of Photography
• Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University, Leicester / V&A Research Institute, London): Street Views: An Everyday Dissemination of Photographs
• Paul Frosh (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): When is an Archive Also a Bank? Industry, Value and Economy in a Photographic Institution
• Armin Linke (Berlin / ISIA Urbino): Artistic Practices in Photographic Archives: Some Examples
• Joan M. Schwartz (Queen's University, Kingston): Access Aims and Descriptive Affordances
• Tiziana Serena (Università di Firenze): Making Choices. History is Not a Ready-Made: Institutionalisation as Re-Writing
• Kelley Wilder (De Montfort University, Leicester): Photographs as Bureaucracy in the Business of Photography

See more and register here: https://www.khi.fi.it/en/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/2020/10/on-alinari.php

A new Community Interest Company Developed in Birmingham has now formed, co-directed by Jo Gane, Philip Singleton and Anna Sparham. Its aim is to build upon the work produced in 2017, led by the late Pete James.

In line with Pete’s wishes and intentions, Developed in Birmingham CIC will continue to explore and expose the city’s rich photographic history, realising contemporary responses and delivering public engagement activities. A legendary curator and force for good in photography, Pete James had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of photography in the city. He originally co-founded Developed in Birmingham with Jo Gane in 2017 as a platform for engagement with the city’s early photographic history. Jo, Philip and Anna collectively aim to continue to share and develop knowledge with the same spirit of openness Pete offered the photographic community and beyond.

For more information on their current plans see the website www.developedinbham.com and follow on social media.

Hansons auctioneers in Staffordshire is offering a lot from a descendent of the important photographer Arthur Lamont Henderson relating his his royalty photographers. Estimated at £15,000-25,000 the lots consists of royal portraits and other examples of his photographic work. The auction takes place on 13 October 2020. 

See: https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/hansons/catalogue-id-hanson10275/lot-579c3433-abc2-43d9-acc0-ac4801015bed

The lot description is below: 

Alexander Lamont Henderson (British, 1838-1907), experimental photographer and member of the Royal Photographic Society. In 1884, Queen Victoria awarded Henderson with a Royal Warrant, which allowed him to depict moments from the everyday life of the royal family. Victoria commissioned a number of enamels to be made from earlier plates, which included Prince Albert and John Brown (some of Henderson's enamels can be found in the Royal Collection Trust). It is believed that a number of miniatures were donated for display in Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor. Henderson's commercial work was donated to the library of the London Guildhall Museum in 1907 but destroyed in the Blitz during WW2. A selection of his royal work was donated to the V&A museum, and a considerable number of his slides were rescued by Mr. F. C. Guilmant of Southampton and provided the basis of an exhibition of his work at Brighton Polytechnic in 1987. His work is naturally scarce, highlighting the importance of this archive

Photographic archive, comprising: 69 oval enamel miniature photographic portraits, 1870s, including Queen Victoria; Prince Albert; John Brown (Scottish personal attendant of Queen Victoria); Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII); Alexandra of Denmark; Prince Leopold; Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia; Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, and various non-royal portraits, in varying sizes from 14mm by 10mm (smallest) to 8cm by 6.5cm (largest), many inscribed with titles in ink on reverse, some of the more important royal portraits in gilt metal frames or mounts, to include an oval enamel photograph of the moon with title, 'The Moon, from an original negative taken by Messrs. Grubb's great Melbourne Telescope', 10cm by 13cm; a gilt framed set of 11 enamel photographic portraits depicting the Henderson family (including three of Alexander Lamont Henderson); several non-enamel photographic miniature portraits, including two in lockets and one in mirror; 23 square lantern slides depicting scenes in Grasse, French Riviera, including an interior view of Queen Victoria's drawing room in the Grand Hotel, housed in card case; 31 square lantern slides depicting topographical views and people in Nice, French Riviera, including one of Tilling's Private Omnibus (with passengers), housed in card case; 22 wide angle glass slides depicting scenes in Grasse, including architecture and people, housed in wooden case; 25 wide angle glass slides depicting landscapes and harbour scenes, housed in wooden case; 43 square lantern slides depicting miscellaneous family portraits, housed in card case; five loose glass slides (four square, one wide angle), including a view of Queen Victoria's sitting room in Grand Hotel, Grasse; a mahogany stereo viewer, and an early-19th century watercolour miniature of a lady (framed with lock of hair verso)

Provenance: By descent. Vendor's great-great grandfather was Alexander Lamont Henderson

Join TORCH | The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities Humanities Division for an online in-conversation with Prof Geoffrey Batchen and Dr Lena Fritsch, discussing the work of pioneering British photographer and botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871). Her innovative use of new photographic technologies linked art and science, and exemplified the potential of photography in books. Geoffrey Batchen is Professor of Art History at the University of Oxford and Dr Lena Fritsch is the Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

This talk accompanies the 2020 Photo Oxford festival, Women & Photography: Ways of Seeing and Being Seen.

This online talk, part of the Photo Oxford programme, is delivered by one of the leading researchers on early women photographers, Rose Teanby. It focuses on British women photography pioneers from its earliest days. Many early women photographers have been hidden from history or rarely highlighted despite their unique contribution to our photographic heritage. Examples of women choosing to adopt amateur or professional photography, who have left a legacy of extraordinary photographic images, will be discussed.

The talk will be followed by a Q+A with Rose Teanby. 

Online, free, register here: https://rps.org/womenpioneers

The National Trust has released an Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery which surveys its properties and highlights links between the property, past owners and slavery and colonialism.  Lacock Abbey, one of photography's most important historical sites, is included. 

The report notes: 

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire
John Rock Grosett MP (c.1784–1866) was a plantation owner who leased Lacock Abbey during the 1820s. He was the son of Schaw Grosett (1741–1820), a merchant of Clifton, Bristol, and Mary Rock (1755–1807). John Rock Grosett married his cousin, Mary Spencer Shirley (1784–1820), and through his father, mother and wife received a combined inheritance of at least three Jamaican estates: Chepstow Pen and Spring Gardens Estate in St George, and Petersfield in St Thomas-inthe East. In 1822, he joined the Standing Committee of The London Society of West India Planters and Merchants and supported planters’ interests in Parliament. By 1831, Grosett had left Lacock to live in Jamaica, elected to the Assembly that year. In 1834, he and his lawyer received compensation totalling £16,143 1s. 9d. for 916 enslaved people. 

H J P Arnold notes in his biography of William Henry Fox Talbot (p. 45-46)  that Grosset surrendered the lease to Lacock Abbey in 1827 and it was made ready for a partial reoccupation by Talbot and the Fieldings, including Talbot's mother, Lady Elizabeth, and his sisters. Lacock itself is unlikely to have benefited directly from Grosset's occupation and there is no suggestion that Henry Talbot or his immediate family profited from slavery or colonialism, other than from Grosset's rental income.     

The full report can be read here: https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf

Platinotype: Making Photographs in Platinum and Palladium with the Contemporary Printing-out Process describes the mechanisms and chemistry of platinum/palladium printing in safe and practical ways. Clearly presented formulae allow the printer to work with platinum, palladium, or varying combinations of both. The printed-out image appears fully during exposure, and only requires simple and safe steps for clearing to a stable, archival state.

Pradip Malde and Mike Ware explain what makes the image, how all necessary components are prepared and used, and the kind of paper and negative needed to make prints. More than just a technical manual, the book underscores the authors' belief that printing is a creative, scientific, and philosophic way of working. The book presents an outstanding collection of prints by over forty artists, all made with this printing-out process. The artists' notes and comments offer insights into their methods and thinking, and a large number of full-page reproductions serve as a valuable reference to the aspiring printer.

Platinotype: Making Photographs in Platinum and Palladium with the Contemporary Printing-out Process 
Pradip Malde and Mike Ware
Rputledge / Focal Press
ISBN 9780367415952
£42.99 (soft), £120 (hard), 304 Pages 177 Color Illustrations,
December 21, 2020 Forthcoming by Routledge

See more here.

The Hasselblad camera used by Iain Macmillan (1938-2006) to photograph The Beatles' 1969 Abbey Road album cover is being offered for auction by Bonhams on 13 October 2020. The Hasseblad 500C camera comes with its Zeiss Planar 80mm /2.8 lens and the viewfinder screen is still marked up with lines outlining the Abbey Road crossing.

Accompanying the lot is a  Zeiss Distagon 50mm f/4 lens; a tripod; a number of accessories including filters; lightmetres; and a black Nikkormat camera with four interchangeable lenses; all housed in an aluminium camera case labelled IAIN MACMILLAN, and accompanied by a black and white photograph of Iain with the Hasselblad camera around his neck.  It is estimated at £2000-2500. 

The lot is offered by the Iain Macmillan Archive.  Having met John Lennon at the Indica Gallery with Yoko Ono in 1966, Lennon later invited Macmillan to photograph the Beatles for the cover of their final album 'Abbey Road'. Given the Beatles recorded most of their music at the EMI Studios on Abbey Road, St John's Wood, London, they decided to name their last album after the road. Armed with a sketch Paul McCartney had given him a couple of days before of what the picture should look like, Iain knew he didn't have long to get the right shot for the world's most famous band.

On 8th August 1969, at around 11:30 am, a hired policeman stopped the traffic, Iain climbed up a large stepladder in the middle of Abbey Road and took just six pictures of the Beatles crossing the street. In approx 10 minutes Iain shot the band in various orders, but it was frame no.5 that was used for the cover of the album - the only photo where all four of them are striding in perfect formation.

See: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25996/lot/185/

The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation has announced the two winners of its annual Photography and Moving Image Book Awards. Chicago-based artist LaToya Ruby Frazier has won the Photography Book Award for her eponymous book LaToya Ruby Frazier (Mousse Publishing & Mudam Luxembourg), which brings together three photographic series that comment on racial discrimination, poverty, post-industrial decline and its human costs.

Hannah Frank has posthumously been awarded the Moving Image Book Award for Frame by Frame: A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons (University of California Press). In this book, Frank takes a frame by frame look at the laborious process behind the pre-digital processes of cartoon-making, enriching understandings of the Golden Age of animation.

In lieu of a physical awards ceremony, the 2020 winning titles will be showcased in a free digital event in partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery at the end of September, featuring conversations about the two winning titles, which will be open to the public online.

Artist and Editor Talks – Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards 2020 showcase
30 September 2020 [Time TBC]
The Photographers’ Gallery - live streamed event.
RSVP via: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/talks-and-events/kraszna-krausz-book-awards-2020

More information on the work of the Foundation can be found online at kraszna-krausz.org.uk

There was a paradigm shift in the way photography was taught in Britain in the 1960/70s. In How Change Happens: Photography Education and Society May McWilliams uses four colleges - Derby College/Trent Poly, Newport College, London College of Printing, Regent Street Polytechnic -  as case studies to illustrate the change. Oral history accounts of the main players bring the story to life. She sets the changes in photographic education within the broader context of changes in higher education and society.  

Another shift is taking place now. In the final chapter she considers the challenges for photography educators today and draws parallels with the 1970s.

How Change Happens: Photography, Education and Society
May McWilliams, with a foreword by Dr Michael Pritchard
September 2020
ISBN: 978-1-71-538597-2
£27.95, 166 pages with 33 illustrations
Available through Amazon

Fotografiska London, the Museum of Photography, which was originally due to open in 2018 has been cancelled as the investment group behind it, Fotografiska London Ltd / AB, has ended its efforts to open at the Whitechapel High Street location. Originally scheduled to open in 2018, and then postponed, uncertainty around Brexit, coupled with current COVID-19 concerns, have now made it untenable for the London-based licensee to successfully establish a franchise.  The earlier delays suggest that issues around the financing predate COVID-19.

Fotografiska International sees London as a leading cultural city, and will evaluate other opportunities in London directly in conjunction with real estate partners.

Footgrafiska's other locations in Stockholm, Tallinn, and most recently in New York, continue as before. Fotografiska in Stockholm, which was founded in 2010, stages between 20 and 25 large-scale exhibitions per year and attracts some 500,000 visitors per year. Part of its mission is “inspiring a more conscious world” through its photography exhibitions and programming.

See: https://www.fotografiska.com/london/

Let Us Now Praise Famous Women: Discovering the work of Female Photographers is an online conference being held on 24 October as part of Photo Oxford. It will explore the critical work of women writing about, collecting, and curating photography by women.

Key questions include how women’s voices are heard in the history and criticism of photography, the influence of the feminist movement on women photographers’ careers, and the role of museums in shaping the legacies of women photographers. The day also foregrounds strategies for emerging photographers to find themselves in a supportive network of ideas and practice.

Speakers include Val Williams, Patrizia di Bello, Anna Fox, Fiona Rogers, and others. 

Attendance is free. Booking and the programme can be seen here: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/let-us-now-praise-famous-women

Although he would come to be best known as a member of the British royal family, Lord Snowdon was first, foremost and to the end, a photographer. A selection of his prints and other personal possessions are offered in a Christie's auction:  Snowdon: A Life in Art and Objects running online from 4-24 September. 

See: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/snowdon-life-art-objects/lots/1797#browse-lots

https://www.christies.com/features/The-photographs-of-Lord-Snowdon-10855-1.aspx?lid=1

Bailey and Snowdon are in conversation, shortly before Snowdon's death: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/david-bailey-lord-snowdon-in-conversation

Roger Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock, is to retire at the end of this month. In a Facebook post to friends he said: 'After 20 years at the Fox Talbot Museum it seems the right time to go. I leave with so many great memories. This has been the most significant portion of my career and I’ve enjoyed it so much. The best memories were my talks with the artists, working out plans for their exhibitions, and then to see it come to fruition on the walls. There is so much more I’d like to do. I still have a long list of artists I would have liked to work with, so many exhibitions that would have been fun to create.'

Watson's imminent departure comes as the Fox Talbot Museum and Abbey grounds re-open to the public after lockdown and the National Trust, which owns the Abbey, museum and village, weathers a storm around proposed changes to its public remit. Specialist jobs and the way it presents its properties and collections to the public are under threat.     

Roger Watson was born in rural Tennessee and received a BA in Communications and later a Fine Arts degree in Photographic Arts from Michigan State University, where he first encountered the history of photography. He began his museum career at the Kresge Art Museum. After several years of consulting work with various private and institutional collections he returned to the museum world working at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York under the direction of Grant Romer, a world authority on the history of early photography. During his time there Roger curated several exhibitions, wrote numerous articles for photo history journals and helped create the Historic Process Workshops which revived 19th century photographic practices.

He joined the Fox Talbot Museum in 2000, originally to catalogue the archive of images and manuscript material left by William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, He was also appointed Corresponding Editor for the Talbot letters project based first at University of Glasgow and now at De Montfort University. In 2007 he was appointed curator of the museum and has overseen the revival of the museum’s exhibition program and brought the Historic Process Workshops to a new home in Lacock. His book Capturing the Light – The Birth of Photography (with Helen Rappaport) which examined Talbot and Daguerre was published in 2013.

Image: © Michael Pritchard

The National Trust has re-opened Lacock Abbey grounds and the adjacent Fox Talbot Museum. Admission is by pre-booked timed ticket. The Abbey rooms remain closed.

Admission is £10 and at the time of writing there are slots available at half-hourly intervals until 13 September. Tickets are released weekly each Friday and must be booked by 1500 on the day before the visit. .

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lacock-abbey-fox-talbot-museum-and-village

The National Trust continues to attract comment regarding its future plans. See more here.  

One of the more heart-warming stories coming out of the UK's COVID-19 lockdown was the fund-raising garden walk of centenarian Tom Moore, who raised over £30 million and was knighted for his efforts. There is a photography angle to this and the following text from the Keighley and District Photographic Association is used with permission: 

In May 2020 we were contacted by Amy Roth, a Producer from North One Television, who was working on an ITV documentary about Captain Sir Tom Moore. North One Television had interviewed Captain Sir Tom and he had mentioned that he had been a member of our club between 1934 and 1936. Amy wondered if we could help track down some of his work.

As one of the oldest camera clubs in the country our club archives include several hundred glass slides that date from the 1890s to the 1950s. In 2016, having found that some of these glass slides were beginning to show signs of deterioration, we had decided to digitise them so that the images were not lost. We had completed nearly two  hundred slides by the time Amy contacted us; the digitisation process being tackled in batches of 25, as and when we had time. Amy’s contact spurred us on and the next twenty five slides were pulled out and we were immediately attracted to two slides in particular; one slide was marked as the work of W Moore and the other the work of T S Moore. Amy was asked to confirm with Captain Sir Tom’s family if W or TS were relevant initials for members of their family. Their response was that TS was not relevant, as Captain Sir Tom has no middle initial, but W could be his father, Wilfred, who was a keen photographer.

By luck, in the glass slides already digitised there were two that captured our teams that, in 1920 and 1955, had won Yorkshire Photographic Union’s prestigious Keighley Trophy, named in honour of Alexander Keighley, our co-founder. These two images were sent to Amy in the hope the Moore family could identify one of the members as Wilfred. They could! He was part of our team that won in 1920. So, one hundred years ago, in the year that Captain Sir Tom was born, his father helped us win the Keighley Trophy.

We renewed the search of our archives and made a significant find - a box labelled ‘Wilfred Moore Slides’ containing over one hundred of his glass slides. Amy selected twenty that she wanted us to digitise for possible inclusion in the documentary. The production deadlines meant that we only had a few days to do the necessary work and Club President, John Raven, rose to the challenge.

In July North One Television held their second interview with Captain Sir Tom and they showed him the prints of his father’s images. In one of the images he was able to identify his grandfather. In the 1920s Keighley Trophy team photo Captain Sir Tom remarked that his father was younger than in any other photo he had ever seen. This is the picture above - Wilfred Moore is back row, left. On August 13th ITV broadcast their documentary ‘The Life and Times of Captain Sir Tom Moore’ and we were delighted to see a number of our Wilfred Moore images were included and that we were listed in the credits.

We have invited Captain Sir Tom to become an Honorary Member; it would be wonderful to welcome him back after all these years.

Text and image used with permission and © Keighley & District Photographic Association. With thanks to Alan Peacock.  See: https://www.kdpa.co.uk/

This first, of a three-part series, led by Colin Pantall, consists of eight lectures. It will introduce you to the contemporary practice of photography through examples that link the historical, the contemporary, and the theoretical in a way that is dynamic, visual, and accessible to everybody.

Touching on major photographic genres such as landscape photography, portraiture, and conflict, it will look at some of the key photographers and ideas that have shaped how we see the world today and will also present a global, pluralist outlook on both the wonderful expressive and artistic qualities of the photographic image, as well as its darker side.

Looking to the present, Looking to the past
Online course, eight weeks, 9 September 2020-28 October 2020
£100 / £90
See more of the programme: https://rps.org/looking1 

From Banff to Balmoral: The photography of George Washington Wilson is an online talk by Paul Stonell from the Royal Collection Trust, for Aberdeen University museums and special collections. 

See: https://youtu.be/JbYsSvTBf1U

The announcement in The Chemist (March, 1851) of Frederick Scott Archer’s wet-collodion process transformed how photography was practiced professionally and by amateur photographers for much of the nineteenth century. Photography’s reach broadened socially, grew artistically and extended geographically.