London's History and Theory of Photography Research Centre at Birkbeck has announced its autumn seminar programme. All events are free and open to all. 

Wednesday, 20 November 2019, 6-7:30pm. Room 106, 46 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PD.

Andrés Mario Zervigón (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)

Fully Visible and Transparent: Zeiss Anastigmat

In 1890, the famous Jena Glass Works of Carl Zeiss released the Anastigmat photographic lens. The innovative device advanced a chapter in optical technology that seemed to have progressed automatically in a predetermined manner since the medium’s origins. The new lens offered a consistent field of focus across the photographic plate and corrected for a number of additional aberrations at lower and higher f-stops. But why exactly had Zeiss developed its expensive mechanism and what drove photographers to buy it? This paper suggests that the consistent focus and varied depth of field that the Anastigmat provided were not in and of themselves the desired goals of the improvements, but that they were instead visible signals of a pictorial model that makers and consumers had been seeking since the public introduction of photography in 1839. The goal was a transparent realism that remained stubbornly external to the medium, an illusionistic standard that had largely been mediated by painting since the renaissance and was now apparently possible in photography as well.

Andrés Mario Zervigón is Professor of the History of Photography at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. His scholarship concentrates on the interaction between photographs, film, and fine art, generally focusing on moments in history when these media prove inadequate to their presumed task of representing the visual. Zervigón is author of John Heartfield and the Agitated Image: Photography, Persuasion, and the Rise of Avant-Garde Photomontage (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and Photography and Germany (Reaktion Books, 2017). With Tanya Sheehan he edited Photography and Its Origins (Routledge, 2014), with Sabine Kriebel Photography and Doubt (Routledge 2017), and with Donna Gustafson Subjective-Objective: A Century of Social Photography (Zimmerli Musuem/Hirmer Verlag, 2017). His current book project is Die Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung - The Worker's Illustrated Magazine, 1921-1938: A History of Germany's Other Avant-Garde, for which he received a CASVA Senior Fellowship (2013-14). At Rutgers Zervigón leads The Developing Room, an academic working group that promotes interdisciplinary dialogue on photography’s history, theory and practice.

Monday 9 December 2019, 6-7:30pm. Room 106, 46 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PD

Charlene Heath (Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto, Canada)

To Circulate and Disperse: Jo Spence, Terry Dennett and a Still Moving Archive.

Image: Justine Varga, Overlay, 2016-18.

Join us for an afternoon of discussion and a film screening to mark the opening of the exhibition Bernd and Hilla Becher: Industrial Visions.

A distinguished panel of experts, chaired by Dr Russell Roberts (co-curator of Bernd and Hilla Becher: Industrial Visions) and including Max Becher (photographer and son of Bernd and Hilla Becher), Gabriele Conrath-Scholl (Director of Die Photographische Sammlung /SK Stiftung Kultur der Sparkasse KölnBonn) and Marianne Kapfer (director of The Photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher) will discuss the Bechers' work in more detail, and how their time in Wales influenced their practice.

Followed be a special screening of The Photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher (2012) by Marianne Kapfer.

National Museum Cardiff
25 October, 1300-1600
£5-7

https://museum.wales/cardiff/whatson/10896/Panel-Discussion-and-Film-Screening-of-The-Photographers-Bernd-and-Hilla-Becher/

Image:  Bernd and Hilla Becher: Blaenserchan Colliery, Pontypool, South Wales, GB, 1966

© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, represented by Max Becher, courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archive, Cologne, 2019

From the late 1880s there was a marked increase in the number of British women becoming professional photographers. Drawing on archival documents and photographs in the National Portrait Gallery collection.

This talk examines the dynamics of women photographers’ studios to better understand how they became competitors in a male-dominated industry.

George Mind: 'The fair abode of femininity'
University of Westminster, Harrow Campus
Wednesday, 9 October 2019 from 1330-1400
See: https://westminster.ac.uk/events/westminster-photography-forum-george-mind-the-fair-abode-of-femininity

Image: Lallie Charles, Bea Martin, Rita Martin, circa 1899, copyright National Portrait Gallery

Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography is a conference within a conference, hosted by the National Stereoscopic Association at the 46th annual 3D-Con in Tacoma, Washington. 

In the last thirty years, scholarship on stereography has moved from the margins to a more central position in the history of photography and visual culture. A new wave of scholars has emerged with studies that range from stereo’s inception to contemporary virtual and augmented reality. These scholars are creating a language for stereo photography even as it is expanding into nascent vision. Potential topics for paper presentations include: historical and archival discoveries; studies on collecting, p/matronage, and the culture of stereo; the marketing and incorporation of 3D; domesticities and instruments; immersive media, interactivity and performance; 3D cinema and video; the politics of historiographical suppression or distortion; hyper-simulation to surveillance; representations of stereo in popular media; reading stereo perception, as well as others. Papers on topics from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century are invited. Stereoscopic projection is available at the conference.

Deadline for abstracts: March 2, 2020. Send an abstract of 500 words and a biography of 250 words including institutional affiliation. Independent scholars are welcome. Email to: Melody Davis, davism6@sage.edu

Notification of acceptance by May 1, 2020. Digital images will be expected by June 30, 2020.

Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography

14 August 14, 2020 at The National Stereoscopic Association’s 3D-Con

The Hotel Murano, Tacoma, Washington, 11-17 August, 2020

The stereoscopic craze that swept over France and Britain from the mid-1850s to the 1862 Exhibition led to the production of millions of binocular photographs that are an invaluable help for anyone who wishes to study and understand the Victorian era. Among those images, so precious for the historian of the period, are hundreds of portraits of famous and totally anonymous Victorians. Projected on a large screen and visible in 3-D through special glasses, they bring to life in a very vivid way those ghosts of the past and let us step, for a while, straight into the very heart of photographs that were all taken when Queen Victoria was ruling over Britain. Even the “carte-o-mania” which succeeded this stereoscopic frenzy yields, at times, some surprising full length and full 3-D portraits in a way that will be explained by photo historian Denis Pellerin with chosen examples from Brian May’s and the NPG’s collections.

Book a place here: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/friday-lates/lecture-11102019

National Portrait Gallery
11 October 2019, 19:00
Ondaatje Wing Theatre
Tickets: £10 (£8 concessions and Gallery Supporters)

Photography has been entangled with education processes for nearly two centuries. For much of that time, photography has been used to communicate information, cement knowledge, and train individuals, groups, and machines alike in visual literacy and the meaning of cultural customs. In the late twentieth century, photography became absorbed into academia as a subject of study. In more recent years, photographic historians and scholars have also begun to consider photography, photographs, and photographic practices as a means to tap into diverse historical processes at large. This paradigm shift has also resulted in various instances in which photography studies has been incorporated into the academic curriculum as a prism through which historical, social, cultural, and political phenomena can be studied.

In its 8th Annual Conference, the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) invites applicants to consider the role of photography in education as well as particular histories of intersections between the two. Themes may include (but are not limited to):

• Photography in schooling programmes
• Photography and visual literacy
• The development of photographic education
• Photographs in the classroom
• Photography as an auxiliary to art, archaeological and historical education
• Education and the photographic industry
• Photographic technologies in education systems
• Photographs as participants in familial/domestic education processes
• Photography in social and political propaganda
• Photography-based teaching/learning/training
• Uses of photographic technologies in artificial intelligence
• Digital humanities and photographic history
• The influence of photographic vision on memory, remembering and the imagination
• Educational uses of photographs on New Media platforms.
• Photography and “how-to” guides.
• The material culture of photography education.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to phrc@dmu.ac.uk by 7 January 2020. Include your name, affiliation and contact details in the same document but please do not send a cv.

Camera Education: Photographic Histories of Visual Literacy, Schooling, and the Imagination
Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
15-16 June 2020
De Montfort University, Leicester UK

Confirmed keynote speakers to date:
Professor Jane Lydon, Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History (the University of Western Australia)
Professor Andrés Zervigón, Professor of the History of Photography (Rutgers University, USA)

Follow on Twitter @PHRC_DeMontfort

Conference hashtag #PHRC20

For any queries please email: phrc@dmu.ac.uk

The Icon Photographic Materials Group is delighted to announce the third photo conservation round table, taking place on Friday 29th November at the Science Museum in London. The event will consist of five-minute presentations and discussion, and aims to promote collaboration and knowledge sharing among conservators, as well as other professionals interested in the care and preservation of photographic materials.

We invite speakers from public institutions, private practice and education to talk about their work, and the issues and challenges involved in caring for historic and modern photographic materials. Subjects could include (but are not limited to) treatment practices, preventive conservation, scientific research, education, outreach and funding. Our aim is to build a comfortable space for discussion and to broaden our network by learning about others’ work.

If you’d like to give a five-minute presentation, please send a titled proposal (c.100 words) with your name and affiliation to phmg@icon.org.uk by 3rd November. Presentations should include around five PowerPoint slides, which should be illustrative rather than textual. Please get in touch as soon as possible for further details or to discuss your idea. We look forward to hearing from you!

The event will take place between 13:00 and 17:00. Different ticket prices will apply to presenters, Icon members and non-Icon members. Tea, coffee, and biscuits will be provided. The round table event will be followed by the Icon PhMG annual general meeting, which is free to attend.

A final version of the programme will be available by mid-November, but you can check our Eventbrite page for updates before then.  Please follow this eventbrite link for more information and to book your tickets.

For the first time since 1860 Diableries will exhibited in London, just in time for Halloween. The exhibition coincides with the publication of a new edition of Brian May, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming's Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell which now includes all of the original stereocards, the missing cards having been found.

For one day only Soho's Century Club will be transformed in to a gothic Victorian crypt of temptation and seduction. Whilst surrounded by fantastic imagery depicting demonic scenes with carousing skeletons, devils and satyrs you will have the opportunity to see the Diableries stories come to life in 3D. Dr May will display a selection of his original stereocards alongside some of his  most treasured stereoscopes and Victorian stereoscopic cameras. 

There will be a 3D screening of the spelling animated 3D short film One Night in Hell.  The original iconic skull guitar from Queen's It's a Hard Life video - that makes an appearance in the film with a skeleton rocking the underworld - will also be on display for the first time. 

Find out more at: www.diableries.co.uk

Diableries. The exhibit
Monday, 28 October 2019 from 1100-1600
at The Century Club, 61-63 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1
Entry is free. 

Sotheby’s has announced that it will be offering a copy of John Thomson’s Views on the North River (Hong Kong, 1870) in its auction of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History on 12 November 2019.

This is the rarest of all of Thomson’s photobooks on China, of which fewer than 10 copies are known and only 3 copies are located in institutional libraries. The last copy sold at auction was 38 years ago at Sotheby’s Belgravia on 17 June 1981, lot 194 which realised £1,500. The estimate for this copy is £20,000-30,000 GBP.

This publication was the result of Thomson's sailing voyage in the summer of 1870 up the North Pearl River from Canton (Guangzhou), and was reviewed in the Hongkong Daily Press on 31st October 1870: 'Mr Thomson has just published a volume of admirable photographs of scenes on the North River, entered about 40 miles above Canton through the Fatshan creek. The views, which are beautifully executed, are accompanied by a short description of the places which they respectively represent ... Better praise cannot be given to them than stating that they are fully up to the standard of the previous views which have gained Mr Thomson the high reputation he enjoys.' (quoted in Bennett).
'Views on the North River would have been expensive to produce and the print run was probably small ... Later in 1870 Thomson was in Foochow (Fuzhou) to embark on a trip along the River Min where he produced some of his most powerful landscape work' (Bennett, T. History of Photography in China: Western Photographers 1861-1879 (Quaritch, 2010), p. 227

The Sotheby’s sale also includes an album of 37 albumen prints of Hong Kong by Thomson (c. 1868) and many other albums of 19th and early 20th century topographical photographs of the world. Enquiries: richard.fattorini@sothebys.com

sothebys.com/travel

Images from Thomson’s ‘Views on the North River’, Courtesy: Sotheby's. 

The National Trust has announced two new vacancies at The Hardmans’ House. The full time fixed-term Archivist and Digitisation Conservator roles will be based at Liverpool Central Library and Archives on a two year project that will focus on the cataloguing, digitising and rehousing of the Edward Chambré Hardman Photographic Collection.

Archivist - https://careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/?_ga=2.64376492.2002886058.1568103503-1105403324.1568103503#/vacancy-detail/84276

Digitisation Conservator - https://careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/?_ga=2.64376492.2002886058.1568103503-1105403324.1568103503#/vacancy-detail/84248

For anyone practising the Malde-Ware platinum/palladium printing-out method of photography, there is a call for submission of work for possible inclusion in Pradip Malde's forthcoming book on this process.  The book will be published in the Focal Press series, edited by Christina Z. Anderson.

Open call: Photographs by the platinum/palladium print-out method using ammonium salts.
Submission deadline is December 15, 2019.

Focal Press, an imprint of Routledge, has spearheaded a series entitled Contemporary Practices in Alternative Process Photography. Each book in the series is devoted to a single process, or a process and its related techniques. Now, Focal Press/Routledge and Pradip Malde, with Mike Ware, are teaming up to publish a book about the platinum/palladium print-out method using ammonium salts.

Submission of works requires the completion of this form, and uploading between 3 and 10 image files as indicated below. Note the image file format: TIFF file, no compression, in sRGB colorspace, 8 bits per channel, sized as close to but no larger than 300ppi, 10˝ longest side, maximum file size 40 MB each. Each file must be named: <yourlastname_filename>.tiff or, if submitting for a group: <groupname_filename>tiff e.g. malde_20190902.tiff or kozoeditions_20190902.tif.

In addition to the print images, please try to include a photograph/scan of a standardized color target, captured under the same conditions as the prints–this will allow for color-accurate reproduction. There are suggestions about how to copy and scan here:

https://pradipmalde.com/scanning-and-copying-platinum-palladium-prints/

Please try to include at least one vertical image and one horizontal in the submission, as this will increase the options for fitting images into multiple page formats and layouts.

Submission does not guarantee that your image(s) will be published. Although there is no monetary compensation, the benefits include wide exposure of your work, a publication line on your résumé, and the placing of your work in a contemporary account about the platinum/palladium print-out method using ammonium salts.

If your work is accepted, you will be asked to respond to a supplemental 500 to 2000-word questionnaire about your working process, and to complete a release form.

See more here. 

Four months ago, SFMOMA hosted a special symposium entitled, Reprinting Color Photographs as a Preservation Strategy. The full program, transcripts, and videos are now live on the website via the link below.

See more here. 

In Summer 2020, Dulwich Picture Gallery will present the first exhibition to trace the history of photography as told through depictions of nature, revealing how the subject led to key advancements in the medium, from its very beginnings in 1840 to present day. Unearthed: Photography’s Roots will be the first major photography show at Dulwich Picture Gallery, bringing together over 100 works by 25 leading international photographers, many never seen before.

Arranged chronologically, it will highlight the innovations of some of the medium’s key figures, including William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) and Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) and several overlooked photographers including Japanese artist, Kazumasa Ogawa (1860-1929) and the English gardener, Charles Jones (1866-1959). It will be the first show to publicly exhibit work by Jones, whose striking modernist photographs of plants remained unknown until 20 years after his death, when they were discovered in a trunk at Bermondsey Market in 1981.

Questioning the true age of photography, the exhibition will open with some of the first known Victorian images by William Henry Fox Talbot, positioning his experimentation with paper negatives as the very beginning of photography. It will also include a large collection of works by the first female photographer, Anna Atkins (1799-1871), and 3D stereoscopic work by the Lumiere Brothers - which will be displayed publicly for the first time.

With a focus on botany and science throughout, themed rooms will range from typology and form, to experiments with colour and modernism and bohemia. Final rooms in the show will display more recent advancements in the medium, with the glamour and eroticism of artists Robert Maplethorpe (1946–1989) and Nobuyoshi Araki (b. 1940), and experimentations with still life compositions. The exhibition will also examine the influence of Dutch still life painting on photography.

Dulwich Picture Gallery’s unique architecture and surrounding green spaces will provide the ideal setting for the exhibition. Its Mausoleum will host work by renowned video artist, Ori Gersht (b.1967), On Reflection, displayed publicly for the first time in the UK, and visitors will be encouraged to explore the Gallery’s gardens as part of their visit.

Unearthed: Photography’s Roots is curated by Alexander Moore, Head of Exhibitions at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and former Head of Exhibitions for Mario Testino. He said: “Plants and photographs are similar in their makeup; both require light, water and minerals in order to transform, and they are sensitive, delicate objects. Visitors will find something unexpected in this exhibition; from the medium’s astounding yet overlooked female pioneers to the undiscovered genius of Charles Jones, I hope that people will leave having made their own discoveries.”

Jennifer Scott, The Sackler Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery, said: “Unearthed: Photography’s Roots will be the first of its kind at Dulwich Picture Gallery. The Gallery itself is embedded in nature in its beautiful grounds, making for a meaningful and inspiring visitor experience, both indoors and outdoors. Visitors will see a large number of photographs that have never been exhibited before. The exhibition will reveal the fascinating technical processes and narratives behind these images, whilst exploring the rich history of the medium.”

The exhibition will include a number of major loans from public and private collections, many never displayed publicly before. Lenders include The Horniman Museum and Gardens, the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, Michael Hoppen Gallery and Blain Southern.

Images: Charles Jones, Broccoli Leamington, c.1895-1910,. Image courtesy Sean Sexton / Dulwich Picture Gallery.  Kazumasa Ogawa, Morning Glory, from ‘Some Japanese Flowers’, ca. 1894. /  Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Loupe is a free photography magazine widely available across the UK. Launched in 2016 and now published on a bi-annual basis, it is best known for featuring a diverse range of contemporary photography. Over the years it has built a loyal following and has launched a Kickstarter funding call to to make Issue 10 the best and most widely available to date. 

Find out more and support here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loupemagazine/loupe-issue-10

September 2019 marks the 30th anniversary since the establishment of Street Level Photoworks. To celebrate this landmark anniversary it will be looking back on the history of those who have helped shape Street Level Photoworks. But it also means celebrating the present and in looking forward to the future of what photography offers diverse audiences and artists and all that this means for our ongoing partnerships and collaborations.

Since being founded in 1989 by Glasgow Photography Group, a collective of photographers and those passionate about the medium, Street Level's core aim has remained consistent in providing people with a range of opportunities to engage with photography, as artists, participants, audiences, and sector partners. Over our 30 year history we have worked with a considerable number of artists and facilitators to deliver exhibitions, community collaborations, workshops, talks, residency exchanges and all manner of events in between that champion the diversity and creativity of photography from Scotland and further afield.

Read more here: http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/article/30-years

The Living Picture Craze: An Introduction to Victorian Film. Film takes a starring role in this free online course from the British Film Institute exploring the emergence of a new medium that was set to capture the world's imagination. 

Explore the birth of film and the end of Queen Victoria’s epic reign. Roll up! Roll up! Take your seats for the ‘Living Picture’ craze! In this course we journey back to the end of the Victorian era; a time of intense modernisation and unprecedented change. Using the BFI’s unique collection of surviving Victorian films we will debate common myths about the period and the materials, as well as examine what the films reveal about the society that produced them.

This year marks the centenary of the death of William Crookes. Journalist, chemist, photographer, spiritualist, businessman, sometime Secretary of the Royal Institution and President of the Royal Society of London, Crookes was a key figure in the science of the second half of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth. This meeting, which is part of the ChemFest celebrations of the sesquicentenary of the periodic table, will examine various aspects of Crookes's extraordinary career and his place in science. The AGM of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be held before the meeting at 13.15.

He edited the Journal of the photographic Society and Photographic News at various times. 

Programme

13.30     Registration

13:45     Welcome and Introduction: Frank James, (Royal Institution and Chair of SHAC)

First Session Chair: Anna Simmons (UCL)

13.50     Richard Noakes (Exeter University). 'Two Parallel Lines'? The Trajectories of Physical and Psychical Research in the Work of William Crookes

14:30     Kelley Wilder (De Montfort University, Leicester). William Crookes, a life in Photo-Chemistry

15.10     Refreshment Break 

Second Session Chair: Peter Morris (Chair of RSCHG)

15.30     Frank James (Royal Institution and UCL). William Crookes and Michael Faraday

16.10     Paul Ranford (UCL). Crookes’s “Invisible Helper” – George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903)

16.50     William Brock (University of Leicester). The key to the deepest mystery of nature: Crookes, periodicity and the genesis and evolution of the elements   

17.30     Close of meeting

There is no charge for this meeting, but prior registration is essential. Please email Robert Johnstone (robert.johnstone.14@ucl.ac.uk) if you would like to attend. If having registered, you are unable to attend, please notify Robert Johnstone.

William Crookes (1832-1919)

Saturday 19 October 2019, Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BS

http://www.rigb.org/visit-us/find-us

Events:

Short film program Color Moods at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Thursday to Sunday, Nov. 07 to 10, 2019

Special guided tour with Barbara Flueckiger, professor for film studies (University of Zurich), and book launch Color Mania, Saturday, Nov 9, 2019, 2 pm

The interplay between scientific studies and the photographic medium is the theme for this year's St Andrew's Photography Festival. The programme includes a symposium, exhibitions and public events all taking science and photography which draw on the rich collections of the University of St Andrews. A number are of particular interest to those interested in photographic history, including: 

• The Moon; Nasmith & Carpenter
• Tracing Movement: Animal Locomotion, Photography and the Emergence of Cinema
• Animal Locomotion; Edweard Muybridge
• Images of Knowledge: Karl Blossfeldt’s Originary Forms of Art
• Seeing the Past: Digitally Reconstructing and Recording Historic Sites
• Chemistry of Colour
• Shooting Stars: 19th Century Astronomical Photography

Download the full programme here (PDF).