Back in May the NLS / NGS advertised for a curator (see BPH here) for the newly acquired £1 million Mackinnon Collection. The newly appointed curator is Blake Milteer who has most recently been photography collections curator at the National Library of Scotland. Before that he had a number of curatorial and teaching posts in the United States. 

The latest issue of the National Library of Scotland's Discover magazine (Summer 2018)  includes a feature on the Mackinnon Collection (see BPH here). The Collection provides a visual record of how Scotland has changes physically, socially and economically since the 1840s. 

Discover is free from venues in Scotland or can be downloaded here.

The Scottish Society for the History of Photography has been delivering a remarkable series of events, lectures, articles and scholarly texts on the world of historic and contemporary photography since 1986.

This issue of Studies in Photography contributes to the continuing debates around photography and performance in their expanded fields and presents a number of case studies in a diverse and international range of work. This includes Greek funerary practices, Scottish Victorian portraiture, Belgian surrealist work, and the performative image surgery of the French artist ORLAN.

Contents include:

• Photography and Performance
• Photopoetry
• ORLAN 
• Paul Nougé
• Writer’s Choice - Janice Galloway

The Summer 2018 edition is now out. Of particular note is Sara Stevenson's article on Marcus Sparling and Fenton. 

Copies can be purchased here 

Drawing on the BBC's rich archive, this documentary reveals the working practices, lives and opinions of some of the greatest photographers of the last 60 years. From Norman Parkinson to David Bailey, Eve Arnold to Jane Bown, Henri Cartier-Bresson to Martin Parr, for decades the BBC has drawn our attention to the creators of what has become the most ubiquitous contemporary art form.

Pioneering BBC programmes like Arena, Monitor and Omnibus have given unique insights into the careers of photography's leading practitioners. Through a selection of fascinating clips, this programme brings into focus the key genres - fashion, portraiture, documentary and landscape - and the characters behind the camera who have helped defined them.

BBC4: On Camera: Photographers at the BBC
Wednesday, 29 August 2018 at 2300, and then on the BBC iPlayer

A recently issued catalogue from the booksellers Quaritch Victorian Work and Leisure includes a number of unusual photographs, stereocards and items of magic lantern interest. 

Click here to download: 

Victorian%20Pasttime.pdf. 

Organised by Dr Stephen Putnam Hughes and Emily Stevenson, SOAS Anthropology Department, with support from the Economic and Social Research Council and the SOAS South Asia Institute, this one-day conference looks at the role of the postcard in representing peoples and places. Of particular note is the presentation by Professor Elizabeth Edwards, 'Little marks of ownership: museum postcards 1913-1939'. 

See the full programme and book here.

As part of a series of Twilight Talks at Bath's world-renowned fashion  museum Keith Lodwick, Curator of Theatre and Screen Arts at the Victoria and Albert Museum, will share a treasure trove of 3D stereoscopic slides from the Vivien Leigh Archive.

Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 1815
£10 adults / £8 students
Fashion Museum, Bath

See more and book here

Tate's growing collection of Paper and Photographic artworks presents unique challenges for conservation and preservation, requiring innovative solutions.

You will lead the development of the team, supporting research and enhancing practice in standards of care. You will formulate a preservation strategy for the historic, modern and contemporary art works in our care and further the national and international profile of the team.

Our Conservation department brings excellence to the care of all Tate’s collections. As a member of the Conservation Management Team, you will work with the Head of Conservation in the strategic planning and leadership of the department. You will co-ordinate the delivery of Tate’s public programme and be responsible for the operational planning, management and development of a team of specialists.

Read more and apply by 21 September here.

The New York Public Library which holds a copy at Anna Atkins' British Algae is hold an an exhibition devoted to her from 19 October 2018-17 February 2019.  Anna Atkins (1799–1871) came of age in Victorian England, a fertile environment for learning and discovery. Guided by her father, a prominent scientist, Atkins was inspired to take up photography, and in 1843 began making cyanotypes—a photographic process invented just the year before—in an effort to visualize and distribute information about her collection of seaweeds. With great daring, creativity, and technical skill, she produced Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book to be illustrated with photographs, and the first substantial application of photography to science. Ethereal, deeply hued, and astonishingly detailed, the resulting images led her and her friend Anne Dixon to expand their visual inquiry to flowering plants, feathers, and other subjects. This exhibition draws upon more than a decade of careful research and sets Atkins and her much-admired work in context, shedding new light on her productions and showcasing the distinctive beauty of the cyanotype process, which is still used by artists today.

Details of a symposium devoted to Atkins and her work will be announced shortly.

A companion exhibition looks at how Atkins's legacy lives on through the works of artists today in Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works, on view September 28, 2018–January 6, 2019

Read more here: https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/blue-prints-pioneering-photographs-anna-atkins 

Image: Anna Atkins, "Halyseris polypodioides" from Part XII of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, ca. 1849, cyanotype.

The Royal Photographic Society has a long and distinguished history back to 1853. For much of its existence it has been the place where matters affecting photography’s technical development and its position as an artistic medium were debated and reported on. Its publications and membership are a key resource for anyone researching British photographic history.i

The Society has recently published a blog designed to help those researching its history, members and exhibitions. See more here: http://www.rps.org/blogs/2018/august/researching-the-society

To truly lead our curatorial department, build our research profile, develop our collections and deliver content for an ambitious 'masterplan', we are looking for a Head Curator to join us at the National Science and Media Museum (NSMM), in Bradford, on a permanent basis.

In this role, you will champion your team to realise our ambitions to collect more contemporary materials, developing and maintaining our collections and creating innovative ways to engage our visitors. You will also be a senior leader at NSMM, communicating our vision to stakeholders, promoting a culture of high performance and encouraging collaborative practice, as well as raising our museums profile and expanding our networks. 

Joining us, you will use your significant experience of curating collections and communicating stories in unique ways. Having experience of team leadership and skills at strategically managing budgets you will be passionate about working collaboratively, bringing a well-established network to advocate for best practice and sharing knowledge to develop our collections.

You will be offered excellent benefits including 27 days annual leave in addition to 8 bank holidays, the ability to join our pension scheme, BUPA medical and dental healthcare and an interest free loan offer whilst developing your career in a world class museum group.

Click here to view the Vacancy Information Pack which provides you with details of the role and supporting statement questions.

More here too.

This is not simply another colloquium about African photography within the field of visual studies. It is concerned with the question of how histories are written or assembled, and the materials that are drawn upon to narrate or analyse the past of the African continent, and the relationships between them. The field of African history is usually dominated by texts and oral-based accounts. When we ask what images (particularly photographs) do to the constitution of pastness and how it is narrated, this opens another kind of discussion. Fundamentally this is about the way photographs sit in uneasy and ambiguous relation to other materials generated in the past. They organise time and space differently. 'Photographs change everything’ (Edwards). What analytical opportunities do these insights open to us?

One part of this thinking concerns the disruptions of photographs when brought into conversation with other historical materials. There is a discursive association of history with what is visible, and what is usually taken into account archivally, which photographs are not. Does this mean that photographs constitute a kind of historical unconscious, at the edge of history? 

A further part of our thinking is stimulated by the way photographs themselves work ‘at the edge of sight’, which goes beyond normative ways of seeing of, or through, photographs. Our keynote lecture will be presented by Shawn Michelle Smith of the Chicago Art Institute, author of On the Edge of Sight and co-editor of Photography and the Optical Unconscious. 

Papers are not geographically confined to the African continent. We invite papers that address the more general methodological and theoretical challenges of working with photographs in relation to other archives and media. Abstracts should be sent to visualhistoryuwc@gmail.com. Full papers for pre-circulation will be requested several weeks in advance of the workshop. 

The workshop is organized by the National Research Foundation (NRF) SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. All workshop accommodation and meals will be covered. A limited amount of funding is available for travel costs.  

Deadline for abstracts: 31 July 2018

Contact: Patricia Hayes, visualhistoryuwc@gmail.com

On the Edge of History: Photographs and African Archives 

International Workshop on Visual History & Theory

Cape Town

27-28 September, 2018

The University of St Andrews Library, Special Collections Division will be hosting a conference on Stereo Photography from 18-19 October, 2018 in conjunction with the St Andrews Photography Festival 2018: (Stereo)Views of Scotland.

The topics are broad reaching and will cover both the historic as well as the contemporary; from the rivalry between Sir David Brewster and Charles Wheatstone to how we have used, understood and interacted with 3D photography over the past two centuries.

This two day conference is an opportunity for researchers, historians, photographers, collectors, curators, collections staff and photo-enthusiasts alike to come together, in the home of Scottish Photography and picturesque town of St Andrews to gain a better understanding of the birth, development and evolving media that is stereoscopy.

All 3D presentations throughout the conference are delivered with the generous support of the London Stereoscopic Company.

For registration and to see the full programme click here: http://ow.ly/oI7m30l6KX9

The V&A Museum has released details of forthcoming exhibitions which include a number of photography shows, although many of the other highlights will include photography. 

V&A Photography Centre / Opening 12 October 2018
The world’s first photographic experiments, pictures by 20th century greats Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, recent
acquisitions by Linda McCartney, and newly commissioned works by Thomas Ruff are displayed as phase one of the V&A’s new Photography Centre opens this October. Designed by David Kohn Architects, the first phase of the Centre more than doubles the space dedicated to photography at the V&A, and includes a ‘Dark Tent’ projection space and digital wall to show the world’s most cutting-edge photography. Drawn from the V&A’s world-class collections, not least the Royal Photographic Society Collection, the first temporary displays bring together 600 objects from across Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia to trace a history of photography through the lens of collectors and collecting.

From Daguerreotype to digital, highlights on display will include the work of early colour photography pioneers, Agnes Warburg, Helen Messinger Murdoch and Nickolas Muray, and recent acquisitions by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Cornelia Parker and Mark Cohen. A pioneering botanical cyanotype by Anna Atkins, images by the world’s first female museum photographer, Isabel Agnes Cowper, and motion studies by Eadweard Muybridge, join photographs by some of the world’s most influential modern and contemporary photographers, including Eugène Atget, Man Ray, Walker Evans, Cindy Sherman and Martin Parr.

Dorothy Bohm / 3 November 2018 – 17 March 2019. Museum of Childhood
This intimate and joyful display of works by eminent photographer Dorothy Bohm explores the universality of childhood. Bohm escaped Nazi Germany for Britain in 1939 with a Leica camera, a parting gift from her father. She went on to help establish the Photographers’ Gallery in 1971, has written several books and has exhibited her work internationally. On display will be highlights from Bohm’s vast collection of photographs of children, taken over the last 75 years from around the world. Despite her photography  covering so many decades, different cultures and countries, our shared experiences of childhood shine through in Bohm’s unique and exceptional photographs.

Tim Walker HonFRPS / 7 September 2019 – 8 March 2020 / Tickets on sale Spring 2019
This exhibition is an immersive journey into the fantastical worlds created by photographer Tim Walker. The V&A has been a continuous source of inspiration for Walker over the past 25 years and at the heart of the exhibition will be a brand new series of photographs directly influenced by his research into the V&A’s enormous and eclectic collection. The show pays tribute to Walker's distinctive contribution to image-making,

while also exploring the work of his creative collaborators. It will shine a light on the important roles played by set designers, stylists, make-up artists, models and muses, who all help bring Walker's unique ideas to life. Designed by leading British art director Shona Heath, the exhibition encompasses photographs, films, photographic sets and special installations across the museum, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of one of the world's most inventive photographers.

Across Science Museum Group, our curatorial team are committed to inspiring futures by sustaining and growing our world-class collection and delivering a creative and bold programme of outputs including exhibitions, galleries, events and online narratives.

To support this vision, we are looking for an Associate Curator of Broadcast and Television to join us in at the National Science and Media Museum, in Bradford, on a 12-month, fixed-term contract.

In this role, you will work across the breadth of our subject area, undertaking research to identify objects, create rationales for acquisition and disposal and draw out meaning from our extraordinary media collections, whilst allowing you to develop your existing understanding in the material culture of broadcast and film.

Joining us, you will bring excellent collections development experience and storytelling ability, allowing you to carry out research and work with specialists to communicate your knowledge of the history of broadcasting and television to non-specialist audiences.

You will be offered excellent benefits including 25 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays, BUPA medical and dental healthcare, the ability to join our excellent pension scheme, an interest free loan offer and numerous staff discounts whilst developing your career in a world class museum group.

For further information please visit our website http://bit.ly/2Jy0fgp

The National Trust for Scotland is inviting papers for the first Morton Photography Symposium, to be held on Tuesday 9 April, 2019 at Broughton House & Garden, Kirkcudbright: The Camera, Social Networks and The Inaccessible, from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. This symposium is inspired by a collection of photographs held at Broughton House in Kirkcudbright; the home of Scottish painter, Edwin Atkinson Hornel.

Comprising glass plates and prints taken in Japan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar) and Scotland, the collection shows how photographs inspired Hornel’s artwork.  He joined a photographic society in Japan, was sent photos by his fellow artists in Scotland and worked with a photographer at home in Kirkcudbright. The camera and these social networks gave him access to people, places and subjects that may otherwise have been hard to reach.

Papers on any aspect of the photographer and social networks, as well as on how the camera creates a distance that can justify access to ‘foreign’ sites or inaccessible subjects, will be considered. It is hoped the conference proceedings will be published at a later date.

Subjects may include (but are not restricted to): 

• The camera’s ability to provide access to inaccessible people, places and cultures.
• How social networks – from 19th century photographic societies to contemporary sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – can provide forums for sharing photographs and accessing the inaccessible.
• The networks created and used by Scottish artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• The influence of the camera on Scottish painting.
• The camera as a tool of colonialism and/or stereotyping.
• How the camera can provide new opportunities for, or give a voice to, marginalised people, places and cultures.

Please send a proposed title and abstract of 200-300 words for a 20-25 minute paper to Ben Reiss at breiss@nts.org.uk by Friday, 12 October. Scholars at any stage of their career are encouraged to submit proposals. 

Any enquiries about delivering a paper or attending the symposium may also be directed to Ben at this address, or please phone 07864 918969.

He may be best known as the guitarist for legendary band Queen but Brian May will visit Aberdeen in August to celebrate the work of another great who rose to fame thanks to a very different royal connection.

The musician and song writer will appear at the University of Aberdeen in his capacity as photographic historian and Director of The London Stereoscopic Company for the launch of a new book dedicated to Scotland’s great Victorian photographer George Washington Wilson, who hailed from the city, written by the aptly named Professor Roger Taylor. The university houses the GWW archive. 

Wilson rose to fame after he was appointed to document the construction of Balmoral Castle and became Photographer to the Queen. His innovations in stereoscopic photography during the 1850s created some of the most captivating stereo (3-D) images of the Victorian period.

May has contributed to a new book George Washington Wilson, Artist and Photographer written by Professor Roger Taylor, the world authority on George Washington Wilson. It will be launched in the city on August 16 at the University of Aberdeen which holds the largest collection of Wilson’s work.

Wilson was a technical and aesthetic innovator and when he began taking two shots of a scene which when viewed together created a three-dimensional image, it quickly became a craze first in Britain and then across the world.

To view the images in their full glory, a special viewer is required and to mark the entry of LSC into book publishing, May created the OWL stereoscope.  This unique viewing device allows modern audiences to see the photographs in the same way as their Victorian counterparts and is included with every book.

May will join Professor Taylor for a celebration of the life of George Washington Wilson at the University of Aberdeen’s King’s College campus. It is a fitting venue for the event as the University holds some 38,000 of the estimated 40,000 glass plate images Wilson captured around the world during his prolific career.

The pair will trace Wilson’s career and show key examples of his work, as featured in the book, using a stunning new 3-D projection system. The audience will also be provided with the highest of quality 3-D glasses to enjoy the images as they were intended.

Professor Phil Hannaford, Interim Senior Vice-Principal of the University of Aberdeen, said he was delighted to be able to celebrate the launch of the book in Wilson’s home city.

“The city of Aberdeen and the University has a long association with George Washington Wilson – a true pioneer of photography – and we are proud not only to hold the world’s largest collection of his work but to have undertaken extensive work to digitise this wonderful collection and make it available to the public.

“The book George Washington Wilson, Artist and Photographer is an outstanding work which will bring his work to new audiences. “We are delighted to be able to welcome Brian May and Professor Roger Taylor to our campus to celebrate the launch of this new work and look forward to hearing their fascinating insights into his life and work.”

Brian May said: “It’s my great pleasure to introduce to you all this beautiful book, at the request of its author, my great friend Professor Roger Taylor. It’s been many years in the making, and I’m confident it will have been worth every minute. It presents the life and work of celebrated Scottish landscape photographer George Washington Wilson, who with great skill and flair, photographed the unique beauties of the Scottish countryside in the 1860s with his stereoscopic camera. The resulting 3-D images proved immensely successful and established Wilson’s national reputation as a pre-eminent photographer. Now, courtesy of the Lite OWL included with every book, Wilson’s images can be experienced in exactly the same way they were enjoyed by the Victorian public.”  

Tickets for the launch event, which will be held in the Art’s Lecture Theatre, King’s College, Old Aberdeen on August 16, are available from www.abdn.ac.uk/events/13419/

George Washington Wilson: Artist and Photographer, by Prof Roger Taylor, Intro by Brian May, The London Stereoscopic Company, publishes on 15 August 2018, £30

Making the collection available to the public

In 2011 the University of Aberdeen made available online more than 35,000 high resolution digital versions of images originally taken between 1853 and 1908 by the Aberdeen photographic firm George Washington Wilson & Co.

The images, taken throughout Scotland the UK and beyond, allow the examination of details previously hidden from the naked eye.

The George Washington Wilson online archive can be viewed at www.abdn.ac.uk/historic/gww/index.htm

At the National Science and Media Museum, Insight is our unique collections facility, a 'treasure-trove' of over 26,000 library, archive and image collections. As a large, informal, learning centrethat is truly open to all, our information ignites curiosity, enhancing the visitor experience for our diverse audiences, researchers and the wider public.

To support our ongoing management and development of these collections, we are looking for an Archive and Library Manager to join us at the National Science and Media Musuem in Bradford, on a permanent basis.

In this role, you will be our senior archivist at the musuem, championing the care of and promoting access to our historic collections in Insight. Aside from managing the daily operation of our centre andany colleagues who support its running, you will assist with digitisation projects, cataloguing and working collaboratively to promote best practice across Science Museum Group.

Joining us, you will bring experience of managing library, archive or special collections services and have detailed knowledge of collection management best practice. With experience of and a passion for cataloguing projects, you will be a positive advocate of our collections, being able to work collaboratively and support the development of multi-functional teams.

You will be offered excellent benefits, including 25 days annual in addition to 8 bank holidays, a contributory company pension scheme, BUPA medical and dental care, an interest free loan scheme and numerous staff discounts whilst developing your career in a world class museum group.

Applications close 28 July. See more here

Special Auction Services auction of Fine Photographica on 17 July includes the Mervyn Heard collection of magic lantern slides, optical toys and stereoscopy.Also included are photographs and cameras.  A respected collector and scholar of the popular visual culture and and the lantern Heard died last year.

The catalogue is available here: https://www.specialauctionservices.com/Auction-Calendar/2018/Fine-Photographica-(1)

We are seeking an Assistant Curator to work in the Word & Image Department for 12 months. You will have responsibility for assisting with projects connected to the museum’s important and growing collection of fashion photographs. As a member of a curatorial team, an Assistant Curator provides curatorial support to the museum’s Collections departments and to museum projects, and liaises with the Collections Services teams. (Conservation; Technical Services; Photography Services; and Documentation and Collections Management Services). 

Assistant Curators spend their time working on object-related activity and maintaining documentation which is relevant and integral to the museum’s collections management policy. All posts deal with enquiries from the public – written, by telephone and in person – and Assistant Curators should have a strong commitment to public access. The range of tasks undertaken by Assistant Curators varies considerably at different points of time but it is the museum’s intention that Assistant Curators should gain as wide an experience of curatorial work as possible.

See more here

This new publication by Robin Ansell, Allan Collier and Phil Nichols is not just a dating guide to old photographs, but is also a celebration of Somerset’s photographic history, as seen through the lives and work of nearly 800 photographers. It will appeal to family, local, social and photographic historians, including collectors, as a reliable and indispensable reference source on the subject.

The accompanying DVD contains more than 1,500 images and mini-biographies of each of the photographers. All three authors have experience in local history research and are keen photography collectors.

Secure the Shadow. Somerset Photographers 1839-1939
Robin Ansell, Allan Collier and Phil Nichols
105 pages.  soft covers (297 x 210 mm).  DVD:  4,495 pages, of which 2,746 contain images.
Somerset and Dorset Family History Society, 2018

Available for £12 (plus p&p) from the Somerset & Dorset Family History Society, at its Yeovil offices at Broadway House, Peter Street, Yeovil BA20 1PN (tel: 01935-429609) or via its online shop at shop.sdfhs.org/publications/somerset-books