Previous post-photographic discourses have primarily focused on the transformations of photographic images. In the framework of our research on post-photographic practices, we invite academics and practitioners to adopt a different approach here and assume that photography is not primarily a technique to produce images, but rather an entanglement with a specific kind of apparatus. Against the background of growing complexity of media practices, our question is: has the very apparatus as much as our conception of it changed?

The workshop wants to address this question from three perspectives: technologically, the digitization of cameras has turned them into computers with attached sensors, and former functions of the hardware are increasingly simulated by software. The construction of a camera nowadays requires less domain knowledge, which has enabled companies from different fields to introduce new camera models and disrupt a previously relatively stable ecosystem. At the same time, many artists have questioned the tool of their photographic practices by turning self-created cameras into artworks in their own rights. Artists like Trevor Paglen (“seeing machines”), Hito Steyerl (“proxy politics”), Aïm Deüelle Lüski (“threshold as place”) and David Claerbout (“dark optics”) have also been driving forces in the discussion of post-photographic cameras.

Finally, a theoretical critique of modernism (of which traditional photography has been an integral part), along with posthumanistic understandings of agency and technology (Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour), have helped to blur what used to be the separate concepts of the camera, photographer and image. Hence, cameras can no longer be understood as black boxes/cameras obscuras. We need to re-assess them as nodes in larger media ecological networks.

We welcome papers by researchers and artists on topics including, but not limited to:

• Artistic practices involving camera constructions, modifications or dissolutions
• New camera concepts and photographic practices in everyday life
• Media archaeologies of the camera
• The photographer’s body as a counterpart to the camera
• The camera in posthuman photography
• Theoretical approaches to the changing concepts of medium and authorship

The workshop is organized by the SNF research group Post-photography at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The conference language is English. Paper proposals (abstract of up to 300 words and CV) for 20-minute talks should be sent to birk.weiberg@hslu.chby 31 Aug 2019. Accommodation and travel allowance will be provided.

For any inquiries, please contact: Birk Weiberg, birk.weiberg@hslu.ch or WolfgangBrückle, wolfgang.brueckle@hslu.ch 

For the SNSF Post-photography research group, see https://blog.hslu.ch/postphotography 

A one day symposium on the topic of science and photography. It will look at how photographs are used in scientific research; how and why we have photographed the human body; what scientific innovations advanced the photographic medium in the early development of photography; and how historic processes are being applied to science and contemporary research.

The symposium is presented in conjunction with the 2019 St Andrews Photography Festival which runs throughout October.

See the full programme here SandP%20Symposium%20Programme%2023-10-19.pdf and book a place by 16 October here: https://onlineshop.st-andrews.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/conferences/special-collections/science-photography-symposium

At a ceremony today an English Heritage blue plaque to the photographer Camille Silvy (1834-1910) and the painter John Linnell (1792-1882) was unveiled on the outside of 38 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, London W2. The building was Silvy's former studio.

The unveiling brought together photographic historians and curators from many of the major British photography collections to hear Mark Haworth-Booth (shown bottom, left), the former V&A Museum curator of photography and author of Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life 1834–1910 and Camille Silvy River Scene, France and Paul Frecker (shown bottom, right), the dealer and collector, talk about SIlvy and his studio. The blue plaque was unveiled by Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A (shown right). 

Camille-Léon-Louis Silvy (born Nogent-le-Rotrou, France, 1834; died Saint-Maurice, France, 1910) was a French photographer, primarily active in London.

He learned photography from his friend, Count Olympe Aguado, in 1857,^[1] and became a member of the Société française de photographie in 1858. He then moved to London and opened a portrait studio at 38 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, becoming a member of the Photographic Society in 1859. Sitters in Silvy's portraits include Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, Queen Emma of Hawaii, Lady Amberley, Harriet Martineau, Adelina Patti, Sara Forbes Bonetta and Frederick Robson. He also photographed many members of the British royal family. The National Portrait Gallery, London, holds his studio's daybooks, which include details of some 17,000 sittings, with about 12,000 of these showing an image from the sitting.

He closed his studio and returned to France in 1868. He himself believed that his nervous system had been damaged by exposure to potassium cyanide in the darkroom but it more likely that he suffered from manic depression. The last thirty years of his life were spent in a succession of hospitals, sanatoria and convalescent homes. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Silvy

This exhibition is dedicated to the collection of photographic works collected by Martin Parr. The photographer, a fervent defender of books, constituted a rich library of more than 12,000 books. Reflecting his particular vision, this colossal collection brings together books of great diversity  collected around the world.

Collaborative project between Les Rencontres, LUMA and Tate Modern, this project highlights 50 works published between 1969 and 2018. The selection reveals a rich panel of artists who have marked photography in many ways. Whether form or content, this selection shows photography in its multi-disciplinarity: humanist photographers, conceptual, photojournalists, but also visual artists and fashion photographers etc.

This panorama of great visual and artistic richness is a tribute to the book as an object a crucial vector of the artistic and socio-political ideals of our time. To dedicate an exhibition to books in 2019 is to claim the importance and the modernity of this medium notwithstanding our time when the virtual is king. Because of its experimental nature and counterpoint to the dissemination of mass images, the book is considered by many photographers to be the most significant vehicle for displaying their work. Essential tool to communicate their vision to the greatest number, the book is still underestimated today in the history of photography.

See more here.

www.rencontres-arles.com

Mécanique Générale

until 22 September 2019

The National Trust for Scotland is pleased to invite papers for the Second Morton Photography Symposium, to be held on Thursday 2 April 2020 at Glasgow Women’s Library, titled 'Ways of Seeing': Women and Photography in Scotland.

The Trust’s major photographic collections feature many women as takers, collectors, preservers or subjects. Prominent examples include the c.6,000 images taken by folklorist Margaret Fay Shaw, the family albums compiled by Violet May Brodie (née Hope) and the hundreds of photographs collected and kept by Glaswegian Miss Agnes Toward, all of which frequently depict women. These photographs show Scottish women in many lights – artist and model, wife and socialite, mother and sister, amateur and academic.

The images of these women breathe life into our places and can help institutions like the Trust improve at putting women of all backgrounds at the centre of the stories we tell about our history. The aim of this symposium is to explore how photography is used to tell women’s stories. We are particularly interested in how this is done in historic houses and heritage/museum spaces, and intend to challenge the existing display and interpretation practices of these institutions. We are also especially interested in photographs taken by Scottish women or depicting women’s lives in Scotland, as well as photographs where the absence of women can tell stories of their overlooked and marginalised lives.

Proposals are welcomed for papers on any of the above themes, or in response to any of the questions below:

• How has the camera impacted the representation of Scottish women or women in Scotland?
• How has photography by women illuminated the stories of marginalised women?
• What are (especially Scottish) women’s unique ‘ways of seeing’ the world through the camera lens?
• How has the camera been used to objectify women in Scotland, or Scottish women abroad?
• How have women photographers in Scotland, or Scottish women abroad, taken control of their own image?
• How does gendering the ‘woman photographer’ position them as ‘other’?
• Where are the women in our public photographic collections?
• Where are the women of colour in our public photographic collections, and what are the consequences of
  their absence to our national identity?
• How are photographs being used (or failing to be used) to tell women’s stories in museum and heritage
  institutions, including historic houses?
• How has photography by Scottish women or women in Scotland been collected or displayed in the past?

As well as full-length papers, we welcome proposals for the Shutter Speed Session that will take place during the symposium. This will be a quick-fire series of 5-minute talks followed by questions.  We intend to publish the proceedings in a special edition of Studies, the journal of the Scottish Society for the History of Photography.

Please send a proposed title and abstract of 200-300 words for a 20-25-minute paper (or 100 words for a 5-6 minute paper for the Shutter Speed Session) to Ben Reiss at breiss@nts.org.uk by Friday 11 October. Please note if you would be happy for your proposal to be considered for either format.

Prospective speakers at any stage of their career and from any personal or professional background are encouraged to submit. We particularly welcome submissions from women across race, gender identity, disability, class and sexuality. Travel bursaries may be made available to full-time students, people not in work or those on a low income. Any enquiries about delivering a paper or attending the symposium may also be directed to Ben at the above address, or phone 07864 918969.

Since it was established Luminous-Lint has become one of the go-to online resources for photographic history bringing together a diverse range of images and texts and presenting them through curated content.  

Photohistory is a complex blending of biographical, technical and thematic information. Photographs and archival research materials are scattered between thousands of collections with different perspectives and cataloging standards. The traditional model of monographs and articles based on exhibitions is now being questioned by Internet based resources that bring together information from thousands of sources to create repositories of knowledge (i.e. Daguerreobase) or broader frameworks to examine the whole of photohistory (Luminous-Lint). In this talk we'll examine the progress of Luminous-Lint so far and the opportunities for collaborative research based on images from over 3,300 distinct collections.

Alan Griffiths, Luminous-Lint's founder will be talking about the website on 6 September at the Royal Photographic Society. See more here and book: http://www.rps.org/events/2019/september/06/luminous-lint-with-alan-griffiths

The restoration of the grave of John Thomson, one of the earliest photographers working in China and the Far East was commemorated today in front of an audience of twenty-five people.

The location of Thomson's grave was previously unknown until it was tracked down by photographic historian Terry Bennett and a crowdfunding campaign, led by Betty Yao MBE, raised the funds to reinstate the headstone which had fallen over and to restore the lettering had become illegible. The event was attended by photo-historians, photographers, local historians, archivists and three of Thomson's descendants.

Thomson photographed the people, landscapes and monuments across a large part of south east Asia, resulting in an important series of books describing the places he visited and his own experiences. His grave in Streatham Cemetery was lost for many years.

Betty Yao commented: “John Thomson’s photographs provide a rich and lasting visual record of the Far East. It is fitting that we restore his grave as a renewed memorial to the man and his work”.

Thomson, was born in Edinburgh in 1837 and died in London in 1921. He is widely acclaimed as one of the best photographers of China of the period. On his return to London in 1872 he ran a successful portrait studio gaining the royal warrant in 1881. He was a member of the Photographic Society from 1879.  Thomson also acted as the principal photography teacher for the Royal Geographical Society, training a new generation of travellers and explorers in photography.

His most important publications were Illustrations of China and Its People (1873/4) and Street Life in London (with Adolphe Smith, 1877).

He retired in 1910 and spent most of time in Edinburgh where he continued to write about photography.

Images: top: Terry Bennett; Betty Yao; the assembled group. © Michael Pritchrd. 

The Moon has always inspired photographers, from Bond and Whipple’s first daguerreotype exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851 to the work of James Nasmyth and James Carpenter, who frustrated by the technical difficulties of photographing the moon with wet collodion plates resorted to building large scale plaster models, which were lit for dramatic emphasis and photographed.  The resulting book The Moon considered as a Planet, a world and a Satelite published in 1874 is an intriguing publication. Taking a photographic perspective.

This talk gives an insight into how capturing the Moon has been challenging, even for astronauts, during the race for space.

To book place click here. 

One of the earliest travel photographers in Asia, John Thomson, who travelled extensively across China, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, in the 1860s and early 1870s, is being honoured at a ceremony on Saturday, 13 July 2019 which will celebrate his newly restored grave.

Thomson photographed the people, landscapes and monuments across a large part of south east Asia, resulting in an important series of books describing the places he visited and his own experiences. His grave in Streatham Cemetery which was lost for many years until its rediscovery by Terry Bennett has been restored following a crowdfunded project led by Betty Yao MBE.

Betty Yao commented: “John Thomson’s photographs provide a rich and lasting visual record of the Far East. It is fitting that we restore his grave as a renewed memorial to the man and his work”.

Thomson, was born in Edinburgh in 1837 and died in London in 1921. He is widely acclaimed as one of the best photographers of China of the period. On his return to London in 1872 he ran a successful portrait studio gaining the royal warrant in 1881. He was a member of the Royal Photographic Society from 1879.  Thomson also acted as the principal photography teacher for the Royal Geographical Society, training a new generation of travellers and explorers in photography.

His most important publications were Illustrations of China and Its People (1873/4) and Street Life in London (with Adolphe Smith, 1877).

He retired in 1910 and spent most of time in Edinburgh where he continued to write about photography.

The commemoration will take place in Streatham Cemetery, Garratt Lane, Tooting, London, SW17 0LT (lot 545, block F) at 11.00am, Saturday 13th July 2019. Everyone is welcome. The nearest underground station is Tooting Broadway, followed by a 10-15 short walk or buses 44, 77, 270, G1 (Streatham Cemetery stop). Afterwards, there will be celebratory drinks in a nearby pub to which everyone is invited. 

Photographies journal has announced its second conference, which will be hosted in Singapore in January 2020. The two-day international event will bring together scholars, photographers, artists, curators, and critics to consider the rapid growth of photography in Asia and its impact in a global and international context.

Photographies is seeking proposals that explore the practices, theories and conditions of photography in and from ‘Asia’, considered as a heterogeneous geography and cultural formation. The conference aims to shed light on specific new issues relating to new technologies, cultural concerns and critical frameworks relating to photography and photography education in these regions. It is particularly interested in presentations or panels whether visual, theoretical or critically led, to address emergent problems and contemporary questions.

More specifically proposals for papers are sought that critically address the following themes or related
issues:

• The role of archives and memory in contemporary photography
• New practices, technologies, and cultural change
• Questions on the history of photography in Asia and photography education
• Environment, ecology and photography
• Festivals, collecting, and circulations of photography.

See more here: https://photographies2020.com/call-for-papers/

This five-week series of workshops led by Michelle Henning and Rowan Lear, with guest speakers Esther Leslie and Louise Purbrick, will examine the materials of photography from a range of critical, cultural and creative perspectives.

It will consider photographs not simply as images, but as chemical and physical objects, products of industrial processes, and as lively things that sense and react to their environments. Drawing on archival objects, short texts and images, we will share ideas around the sensual, social and ecological impact of photographic materiality.

The course will also explore the changing material infrastructures that underpin photographic production, from mines, abattoirs and gelatin processing plants, to pollutants and byproducts. What is it like to work with light-sensitive materials, which also react to human skin and changes in temperature and humidity?

These workshops are ideal for anyone fascinated by the material, industrial and alchemical aspects of photography. Participants are invited to bring in their own research and artwork for discussion and inspiration. Short readings or viewings will be made available in advance in preparation for sessions.

A collaboration with University of West London, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The Stuff of Photography builds on Michelle’s current research in the various archives of Ilford Limited, and develops Rowan’s recent project Planetary Processing.

See: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/workshop/stuff-photography

Almost immediately after the invention of photography, Scottish photographers took their cameras on the road to capture the stories of peoples and communities touched by the forces of British imperialism. For the next thirty years, their journeys would take them far from their homes in the Lowlands to the Canadian wilderness and the treaty ports and rivers of China.

The Global Flows of Early Scottish Photography describes the interplay between these photographers' ambitions and the needs and desires of the people they met. Anthony Lee tracks the work of several famous innovators of the art form, including the partnership of D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson in Edinburgh; Canada's first great photographers, the Scottish immigrants William Notman and Alexander Henderson in Montreal; the globetrotting John Thomson in Hong Kong; and Lai Afong, the first widely known Chinese photographer.

Lee reveals their pictures in the context of migration and the social impact wrought by worldwide trade and competing nationalisms. A timely book, it tells of an era when photography give shape and meaning to some of the most defining moments brought about by globalization in the nineteenth century. Beautifully written and richly illustrated in full colour, The Global Flows of Early Scottish Photography weaves stories together to show that even the earliest pictures were sites of fierce historical struggle

The Global Flows of Early Scottish Photography: Encounters in Scotland, Canada, and China

Volume 26 of McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History

Anthony W. Lee

McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2019

£45.00.  ISBN: 0773558055 / 9780773558052

Order here: https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/the-global-flows-of-early-scottish-photography

The core of the September Piazzi Smyth mini-festival is two full days of talks and debate by experts and researchers on topics related to the life and legacy of Charles Piazzi Smyth – mountain top astronomy, photography, meteorology, and pyramidology. This event is open to any interested member of the public.

Location

The meeting will be held in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, George Street, Edinburgh.

Dates

Sept 3-4 2019, between 09:00 and 17:00 each day

Registration

There will be a £45 registration fee. Note that the registration fee includes lunches, tea and coffee breaks, and tickets to the movie screening on Sept 2nd and the public lecture on Sept 3rd, so no need to book these twice.

Registration is through a University of Edinburgh registration page.

See more here: https://www.piazzismyth.org/piazzi-smyth-symposium/ 

Image: A very early “calotype” photograph taken by Charles Piazzi Smyth in 1840 – one of the very earliest photographs of South Africa.

Dominic Winter's auction of photographs on 3 October includes rare publications by John Thomson and other rare topographical photographs. The highlight is a newly discovered fifth copy of Thomson's first China photography book, Views on the North River (1870). 

Thomson was one of the first to extensively document the Far East, photographing there between 1862 and 1872, before returning to the UK and producing, in association with Adolphe Smith, the seminal and pioneering documentary photography book, Street Life in London (1876-77). Thomson published many of his images of China, Thailand and Cambodia in a series of books, often using actual photographs in the publications, making them costly small printings, and now all consequently rare. Most well-known is his four-volume work Illustrations of China and Its People. A Series of Two Hundred Photographs, published in 4 volumes (1873-74). The wide body of images in that work are reproduced as photogravures and so these fine images and the books are generally found in good condition.

More difficult to find in fine condition are the books published with mounted original photographs, of which the earliest, The Antiquities of Cambodia (1867), with 16 albumen prints, is the most familiar. Of Thomson's China books with real photographs, Foochow and the River Min (1873) with 80 carbon prints is the best known, even though only published in limited edition of 46 copies; the last complete copy at auction fetched £350,000 at Sotheby's, London, in 2012.

Rarest of all is Thomson's first China photography book, Views on the North River (1870), with 14 mounted albumen prints. On this expedition into the Guangdong province the weather was poor and Thomson was disappointed with his photographs. There are only four copies of this book known: at Hong Kong University, the National Library of Scotland, Cornell University, and one privately owned in North America. No copies have ever been offered for sale. The auction will offer a newly discovered fifth copy, held for 150 years in a private British family's possession, alongside four further related photograph albums of the 1860s/70s: views of Hong Kong by John Thomson, circa 1868; view of Hong Kong by William Floyd Pryor, circa 1870; and two albums of views of Hong Kong, China, India and Burma. The sale will also comprise further 19th-century Asian and other travel photography, both as individual prints and albums from various sources.

19th & 20th Century Photographs, featuring India, China & the Far East

Cameras & Photographica, Postcards, Scrap Albums & Ephemera

Thursday 3 October 2019

See: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/auction-previews

This enchanting feature documentary explores the life and work of a lost master of American photography. In his 2015 obituary The New York Times declared him 'one of the most accomplished recorders of the American experience.' yet most people have never heard of him.

The discovery in 2011 of vintage prints, contact sheets, and negatives spanning Feinstein’s 70 year journey in photography was the first chapter in the making of this film. The documentary took on a life of its own, urging the filmmaker to look beyond the pictures and into the life story of the inspiring man who’s search for beauty in the everyday compelled him to click the shutter and capture those moments. Harold Feinstein lived an extraordinary life and his photographs and this story are a gentle but powerful and timely reminder to all of us to stop and appreciate the wonder of life itself.

Last Stop would be a welcome tribute at any time, but it's especially bracing when today's constant deluge of visual images can't help but dilute the impact of photography. Dunn's film is fully attuned to the vibrancy and tenderness and sense of possibility in Feinstein's photos. 

Background
When Harold Feinstein was just 19, Edward Steichen bought three of his prints for the permanent collection at MoMA and during the 50’s and 60’s he was having shows with Saul Leiter, Gary Winogrand and others in the New York School of photographers. He was also a renowned darkroom printer - but he wasn't one to pursue a career, as he was a free- flowing artist with a healthy appetite for the good things in life.

Whether captured as a draftee in the Korean War, in a Bebop infused Manhattan loft or a rural hippy enclave in upstate New York, Harold’s 35mm black and white photographs captured the essence of life with a with a uniquely humanist eye. The rediscovery of Feinstein’s vast and diverse body of work came in his final years and the film meets him then; in his early eighties and with a zen-like appreciation for the life he lived.

Filmmaker Andy Dunn spent precious time with Harold in his Massachusetts home and also on one last road trip to his beloved birthplace, Coney Island. Through the testimonials of friends, lovers, family members and photography experts, this atmospheric film paints an intimate, yet critical, portrait of this complex and inspirational underdog of 20th century photography.

A renowned teacher and spiritual guide with a hedonistic outlook for life, Feinstein is remembered as a guru as well as an artist by those who knew him - a true original whose philosophy on life is as thrilling to discover now as it was in his prime. With unrestricted access to his archive, much of it unseen before, the film shows how Feinstein’s unique outlook on life was reflected in his life-affirming photography.

Last Stop Coney Island: The Life and
Photography of Harold Feinstein
Doc Days screening & Q&A at CURZON Soho
Monday, 15 July 2019, 6:30pm

Trailer & Info: www.feinsteinfilm.com

This talk will investigate structural colourism in the history of photographic processes, emphasised through the invention of colour correction cards in the 1950s. These were used by photography labs to calibrate skin tones, shadows and light during the printing process – favouring lighter skin tones, while leaving darker skin tones looking blurred or unidentifiable.

Photographer and activist Angélica Dass will discuss her project Humanae, investigating the chromatic range of human skin tones using a taxonomy adopting the format of the PANTONE® Guide – challenging social classifications of race and colour.

Film and theatre director Nadia Latif will look at how the evolution of cameras and lighting in film have influenced the depiction of black actors, actresses and characters.

COLOURISM & PHOTOGRAPHY

Tuesday,  2 JUL 2019
7PM, DOORS OPEN 6:30PM
LONDON: AUTOGRAPH
£5 / 4
See: https://autograph.org.uk/events/colourism-and-photography?mc_cid=cc34cbd9f6&mc_eid=dee88b2478

An exhibition of over 30 vintage photographs from Terence Donovan’s early career will go on display at Huxley-Parlour Gallery from 3-27 July. Donovan (1936-1996) rose to prominence in the 1960s as part of London’s post-war renaissance in art, fashion, graphic design and photography. Terence Donovan: The 1960s will showcase his best-known photographs from this period alongside some lesser-seen images to illustrate the scope of his work this formulative period.

The exhibition includes portraits of Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Monica Vitti, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Celia Hammond and Dave Brubeck amongst other cultural figures of the era, shot for a range of both advertising and editorial commissions. Also included are eight original and unique contact prints – small photographs made by laying the negative directly onto the surface of the light sensitive paper. Donovan meticulously reviewed his contact sheets, indicating his selected frames by piercing them with a pen or marking them with a pen or chinagraph pencil. He discarded the contact prints of the frames he did not want used, keeping only those that he felt good enough to print or publish. These prints provide an important insight into Donovan’s working methods and his creative process.

Charting Donovan’s early career from 1959, when he opened up his first London studio, to the heights of his success throughout the 1960s, the works in the exhibition show how he helped to redefine photography and shape the aesthetic of London’s ‘Swinging Sixties’. The honesty and energy of Donovan’s photographs quickly helped to establish his own visual language rooted in the world he knew best – the streets of London’s East End, where he had grown up. Often situating his models in bomb-ravaged ruins or in industrial building sites, his gritty and noirish style looked to reportage, rather than fashion photography, for its inspiration. He worked for some of the most progressive magazines of the time including Queen, Town and London Life and his images quickly became emblematic of the era and established Donovan as a new force in British photography.

Terence Donovan was born in London’s East End in 1936. At the age of 22, he opened his first studio in London, becoming an immediate success. He worked for leading advertising agencies and fashion and lifestyle magazines including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle. Later in his career he produced television commercials and advertising campaigns alongside editorial work for cutting edge magazines and newspapers, most conspicuously the now-legendary Nova magazine. He also directed the video for Robert Palmer’s song Addicted to Love (1986). His work has been the subject solo exhibitions at the Museum of London and The Photographers’ Gallery, London, and group exhibitions at the V&A, London; FOAM, Amsterdam; National Portrait Gallery, London and Cincinnati Art Museum amongst others.

Huxley-Pasrlour Gallery, London. https://huxleyparlour.com/exhibitions/

Image: Terence Donovan, Ros Watkins, Advertising Shoot for Acrilan, 3 March 1961.

Catherine Troiano has been appointed by the National Trust as Project Curator - National Photography Collections. The position was advertised in March. The role provides oversight of the Trust's photography collections with a particular focus on the E Chambre Hardman House in Liverpool and delivery of an exhibition based on that collection at the Walker Art Gallery. It is funded for two years and she takes up the post in July. 

Troiano has been at the V&A Museum as an assistant curator from 2015-2018. She was appointed Curator, Photographs in September 2018. Troiano has worked on a number of projects with the Hemera Collective, a curatorial collective specialising in photography and lens based media,

She completed at the University of Edinburgh and since 2016 she has been studying for a PhD at De Montfort University’s Photographic History Research Centre. Her research explores institutional representations of photography in Hungary, examining the complex socio-cultural and political environment shaping institutional practice in the after-post-communist moment.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) and The University of New Mexico have announced the groundbreaking findings of a two-year study of the plasmonic properties of daguerreotypes. Using atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, together with numerical calculations, the team of scientists from The Met and UNM, in collaboration with Century Darkroom, Toronto was able to determine how the light scattered by the metallic nanoparticles on the surface of a daguerreotype determines the characteristics of its image, such as shade and color.

The pioneering research titled — Nineteenth Century Nanotechnology: The Plasmonic Properties of Daguerreotypes, published recently in the journal PNAS — not only provides an in-depth understanding of these 19th-century photographs that are crucial for their preservation, but also introduces new possible approaches for color printing where nanostructures are directly manufactured by light.

“We are thrilled by these findings that help us better understand the fascinating properties of daguerreotypes and shed light on how to continue to advance the preservation of these incredible works of art,” said Silvia A. Centeno, a research scientist in the Department of Scientific Research at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“The team at the University of New Mexico embarked on this study to achieve a better understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to the optical response of daguerreotypes and to contribute to the development of protocols for preserving these fragile artifacts,” said Alejandro Manjavacas, assistant professor, UNM Department of Physics and Astronomy. “Thanks to the fantastic teamwork between scientists from both the cultural and scientific communities we were able to accomplish what we set out to do.”

Unlike other types of photographs, daguerreotypes rely on light scattering by metallic nanoparticles to create images that project off a reflective silver substrate. These early photographs can be recognized as the first examples of plasmonic color printing, an emerging research field that exploits the interactions between light and metallic nanostructures to produce vivid colors.

Daguerreotype in the study collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (artist unknown, ca. 1850s) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of different regions of the daguerreotype.

The image tones of a daguerreotype are dynamic and unique in that they can change with the viewing angle and, for the first time, this effect is explained by the authors, who found that the morphology and size of nanoparticles determines how these will scatter thus creating the visual outcome of the daguerreotype.

Studies of the image properties of daguerreotypes serve to inform the development of preservation protocols, as well as novel approaches to future color printing technologies inspired by past ones.

The team of scientists consisting of Andrea Schlather and Centeno from the Department of Scientific Research at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paul Gieri and Manjavacas from UNM's Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the Nanoscience and Microsystems Program, and Mike Robinson from Century Darkroom, Toronto collaborated on this study.

The research was sponsored in part by The National Science Foundation (NSF) and by the Annette de la Renta Foundation, and made use of the computational facilities provided by the UNM Center for Advanced Research Computing.

See: https://news.unm.edu/news/trailblazing-findings-of-daguerrerotype-properties-revealed-by-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art-and-unm

The Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) - Girona city Council (Catalonia) presents a new audiovisual product for a better understanding of the photographic process of developed gelatinobromide. This process was created by Richard Leach Maddox in 1871 and improved by Charles Harper Bennett in 1878. It has been very successful as it is the main photographic b/w process of the twentieth century.

This audiovisual, created using 3D animation techniques, is the sixth proposal of a series dedicated to the evolution of the photographic technique and photomechanical procedures that started in 2007. The script is done by the professor Josep Pérez  and the project execution is assumed by the CIFOG (Escola de Cicles Formatius de Girona). This audiovisual, unique in its presentation, has a clear dissemination function and, unlike the theoretical texts, allows the viewer to get a clear idea of this photographic procedure.

https://youtu.be/BOADnH-r4QQ