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 recordings from the individual presentations made at the study day are now available here: https://vimeo.com/khiflorenz

The University of Edinburgh's Centre for Global History's seminar series is hosting Dr Luke Gartlan of the University of St Andrews who will be presenting a paper Bringing Empire Home: St Andrews and the Global Networks of Victorian Photography on 18 November at 1600. Registration is free and open to all.  

Details here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/centre-global-history/events-and-seminars/current-programme

Rebecca Gowers uncovered a fascinating story within her family tree - that of Harry Larkyns. She learnt that Harry was an attractive cad who lived a charmed life right up until the moment he fell in love with the wife of noted photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Rebecca will discuss the scoundrel Harry Larkyns and will be joined by our The National Archives collections expert Katherine Howells, who will showcase some of the Muybridge pictures held within our collection at The National Archives. This talk will conclude with a live Q&A with Rebecca Gowers and Katherine Howells.

Presented by The National Archives
Online, 18 November 2020 at 1930
Book here.

An online event with Dr Jan Graffius, curator of collections at Stonyhurst College, who will be talking to Gilly Read FRPS about Roger Fenton and his photographs of Stonyhurst and the surrounding countryside.  

Although Roger Fenton (1819-1869) is best known for his images of the Crimean War, he trained as a painter and photographed many varied subjects. He lived near Stonyhurst at Crimble Hall and took many landscape photographs around Stonyhurst as well as photographs of the College itself. Fenton was also the first secretary of the Photographic Society, now the Royal Photographic Society. 

The talk is free and can be booked here: https://rps.org/stonyhurst

BPH reported the death of Chris Killip recently. Mark Haworth-Booth, the former curator of photographs at the V&A Museum, has a written a blog which corrects that assertion in some of Killip's obituaries that he was not properly recognised and considered during his lifetime.

The V&A, perhaps exceptionally, purchased work by Killip from 1978 and later purchases included all 69 photographs from his first book, Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx, published in 1980. Haworth-Booth was also consulted over his appointment as Professor at Harvard in 1991. 

The full blog can be read here: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/chris-killip

A BPH correspondent has been trying to find a reference to a photographer whose glass negatives were found in a friend's loft. The negs are all apparently marked 'H.M. & S.' and appear to date from the late 1890s or early 1900s. Does anyone recognise the initials?

In 2021 The Photographers' Gallery, London, celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. A new online resource looks at the history of the Gallery's print sales from 1971.From the Gallery's outset founder, Sue Davies, recognised that selling photography could  help support its programmes at Great Newport Street.

The text is accompanied by audio - interviews with former managers of print sales Helena Srakocic Kovacs (1975-1980), Zelda Cheatle (1981-1989) and Francis Hodgson (1989-1993). 

Read and listen to more here: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/printsaleshistory

Cambridge University's Whipple Museum collections are now fully online. Like other museums, only a small proportion of our collection is on display at any one time and, in the current public health situation, physical access to museums has become very challenging. But now you can search and browse through records and images of close to 7,000 objects, as well as records of its trade literature - all from the comfort of your own home.

In addition, the Researcher Portal allows you to download images, book research visits, request permission to publish images, and suggest ways to correct or improve the published records.

For photographic historians the Whipple collection includes some important photographic equipment. 

See: https://collections.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/ 

A free new online picture archive from Reach plc, the owners of The Mirror and The Express newspapers, has been launched as the nation goes into lockdown. Despite events being cancelled nationwide the new tool allows people to celebrate and share historical moments like fireworks night, Remembrance Sunday. Memory Lane is backed by broadcaster, author and historian Professor Kate Williams.

The launch of Memory Lane follows a YouGov survey carried out for Memory Lane suggesting that the past is in danger of being lost because 80% of Brits haven’t digitised all their photos.

According to the newly commissioned nostalgia survey for Memory Lane almost a third of the population (31%) are looking at old photographs to get themselves through these times. So Memory Lane is asking the public to preserve, discover, celebrate and share images which matter to them as we enter another challenging time during the pandemic.

However, BPH would highlight the T&Cs of the site and warn potential users to be mindful of this if choosing to upload images:

If you post or upload content to the Site, you grant us a perpetual, royalty free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and licence to use, reproduce, publish, communicate to the public, translate, create derivative works from and distribute such content into any form, medium or technology now known or hereafter developed. In addition, you waive any and all moral rights in such content.

See: https://www.memorylane.co.uk/

A new resource describes the history of photography and photographic studios in South Africa. It is accompanied by a gazetteer of studios for the same period. The text and resource has been compiled by Carol Hardijzer. 

See: http://www.theheritageportal.co.za/article/operators-mirrors-memory-south-african-photographers-1846-1915?fbclid=IwAR3isIOP6e1voF0SUGI61PPC3Bz5A9O9jtq9YrKH7uFPc-CQv7euhJoo_Zs

The latest edition of The Classic - a free magazine about classic photography is now available. In addition, the publishers have also launched The Classic Platform, an online resource with articles from Denis Pellerin and Richard Meara, and more due to go up shortly. Also available is an auction calendar. 

See:  https://theclassicphotomag.com/the-classic-04/

https://theclassicphotomag.com/the-classic-auction-calendar/

An early album of salt prints by Rev George Bridges is being offered in an online auction by Sotheby's from 3-17 November 2020. Bridges was a contemporary of Talbot and these show some of the first Calotypes of Greece, Turkey and Italy. It is estimated at £20,000-30,000. 

The lot description reads: 

BRIDGES, GEORGE WILSON

Album of photographs titled 'Talbotype album Mediterranean', 1846-48

oblong 4to (208 x 275mm.), 24 SALTED PAPER PRINTS (each 150 x 208mm., or the reverse), each mounted by the corners without adhesive through slits in pale blue laid paper (no visible watermarks), recto only, each with contemporary manuscript captions in pencil and/or ink, one of Athens dated 1848, one of Pompeii dated 1847, contemporary black half morocco gilt, green cloth boards, upper cover with black morocco gilt label, flat spine gilt, patterned endpapers in green, purple and gold, preserved in a modern green cloth folding box, cloth boards cockled and dampstained, binding slightly rubbed

AN IMPORTANT ALBUM OF PIONEERING TOPOGRAPHICAL PHOTOGRAPHS WITH SOME OF THE FIRST CALOTYPES OF GREECE, ITALY AND TURKEY, comprising views of Athens (15), Rome, Naples, Pompeii (3), Sicily (Messina, Mount Etna, and Palermo), and Constantinople.

George Wilson Bridges (1788-1863) was the first photographer to use William Henry Fox Talbot's "Talbotype" (calotype) paper photographic process in Greece and Constantinople, and was one of the earliest calotype photographers in Italy. Bridges was an English clergyman who had lived in Jamaica and Canada and on his return to England came to know William Henry Fox Talbot. In December 1845 Bridges was instructed in the art of the calotype photographic process by Nicolaas Henneman (valet and assistant to Talbot), at Talbot's home of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. In March 1846 Bridges embarked on what was to be a seven-year tour of the Mediterranean, joining two other calotype pioneers, Calvert Jones and Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot in Malta. He then set out and travelled to Sicily, Italy, Greece, and the Holy Land, and during his travels he also visited Constantinople. Although Bridges produced around 1,700 calotype negatives during this seven year tour his photographs are rare.

PROVENANCE:

Unknown owner, "Malta, Februari, 1849" (ink inscription on verso of preliminary blank, with the original owner's name inked-out); in the 1850s this album was gifted to a friend in whose family this album was preserved until 2012 when acquired by the present owner

Details are here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/travel-atlases-maps-natural-history/bridges-album-of-talbotypes-photographs-of-athens

Join us 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. The talk is supported by TORCH through the Humanities Cultural Programme.

Details and booking here: https://sites.google.com/view/photooxford2020/whats-on/events

Read more about Anna Atkins here.

Rachel Nordstrom from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, Victor Flores, from Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal, Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe, from the London Stereoscopic Archive, have joined forces to organise this free online Zoom event, a celebration of Stereoscopic 3D. They have invited photo historians, artists, collectors and photo dealers to talk about their passion to explore various aspects of stereoscopy.

The Stereoscopy Blog is hosting a webpage dedicated to this event with details of the programme and registration which is free.

See: https://stereoscopy.blog/celebration-of-stereoscopic-3d/

Sophie Gordon, head of photographs at the Royal Collection Trust (RCT), Windsor, has now confirmed publicly that she is accepting voluntary redundancy. She has been at the Collection for 15 years. The RCT is undertaking a significant restructure following a fall in visitor numbers and revenues as a result of COVID-19. The Trust is also making compulsory redundancies. Gordon's former curatorial colleague Helen Trompeteler who left in the summer and has not been replaced. 

She wrote: "I decided to take the voluntary redundancy offer, as it is time for me to move on. Lots of reasons, some personal, some professional. My post - Head of Photographs - is still on the org chart in the newly restructured Royal Collection, but it is apparently going to be frozen for a couple of years. Although at this point, frankly, anything could happen". She encourages everyone to support the sector by visiting museums and galleries."

Sophie can be followed on Twitter and Instagram at: @shiveringfluff  

Image: Sophie Gordon / social media

In this talk I will discuss my work to draw to together the disparate photographic archive of the West India Regiments. Scattered across the Atlantic in public and private collections, photographs of the men who formed the first 'official' British Army regiment made up of men of African descent represent the men in contradictory ways. The men were both racialised as “others” and accepted as a formal part of the apparatus of the British Empire. At a time when “scientific” proof was being gathered to cement ideas about race, the men were certainly identified as black, and were differentiated from the white personnel of the British Army in a number of ways. However, they were not subjected to the same racialisation as the black civilians that they shared their homelands with. In fact, they were often depicted in ways that undermined the very stereotypes so commonly assigned to their peers. I'll discuss how the Regiments' archives can be used to learn about the characteristics of the British Empire between the mid-19th and early 20th century and some of the difficult histories that their archive intersects with.

Monday, 19 October at 1930
Dr Melissa Bennett - National Trust/Greater London Authority (PhD University of Warwick)
Arranged by IWM War and Conflict Network
Registration is free here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mjgOOm2MTyGChA_dyGx0tw?t=1602515684073

A short post on BPH has drawn attention to the current owners of the Hills and Saunders negative archive selling off negatives individually on eBay. The collection is - or was - owned by Pete Boswell who posted on BPH about his acquisition here in 2103. 

A previous website Harrowphotos.com which offered the opportunity to buy prints was registered in 2014 and is now no longer available. Pete Boswell was a director of Save Photo Ltd which was dissolved in 2016 and in that capacity he reported on saving Churchill negatives from the H&S archive. A number of other associated companies are also now dissolved, suggesting that the original commercialisation of the archive did not live up to expectations.

In an interview with BPH today, Pete Boswell explained that the Hills and Saunders Archive which consists of some 94,000 plates has now been fully digitised and indexed. The current owners have invested a considerable amount money into the archive's rescue and recovery, conservation, indexing, cataloguing and digitisation. It is considered one of the largest collections of of its kind in private ownership.

The majority - some 96 per cent - of the pictures contained within the archive are related to Harrow School pupils and staff from 1860-1965 and these are being retained by the owners and a selection of them are to be published shortly.

A small selection of around 200 plates that are not core to the main Harrow collection are being disposed of and are being offered to collectors and private owners. It is some of these that are currently on eBay. 

An index of all the Hills and Saunders negatives, by number and name, is available here: http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~victorianphotographs/family/hills/hills.htm 

Images from current eBay listings (reversed from negative to positive)

Photographica is a new French-published magazine which aims to support and show research around the history of photography for university and museum level. It is supported by the Société française de photographie (SFP) and the Ministry of Culture and is published by Éditions de la Sorbonne. It will be published twice a year and include reviews of books, catalogues, journals, conferences and study days. The editors are Éléonore Challine and Paul-Louis Roubert.

Photographica
A publication of the Société française de photographie
71, rue de Richelieu, 75002 Paris
Contact: secretariat-redaction@photographica-revue.fr

Published and distributed by Éditions de la Sorbonne
212 rue Saint-Jacques, 75005 Paris

Website: https://sfp.asso.fr/photographica/numeros-issues
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photographica.revue
Instagram: @photographica_revue

Photoria is a new resource documenting female photographers and associated trades, working in Australia between 1850 and 1950. It currently has some 400 names with, most likely, more to be discovered and documented. 

See and explore here: https://photoria.com.au/