Photoworks seeks to appoint a Curator. This post is an exciting opportunity for an experienced individual to work with the new Director to help shape the curatorial programme. Within the first six months of taking up the post, the successful candidate will help deliver Brighton Photo Biennial and Photoworks Annual. An ambitious Curator will be able to use this opportunity to build on and develop their existing experience and skill-set.

Download/complete the application documents using the following links:

• Curator Recruitment Pack
• Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form

Photoworks is an equal opportunities employer and committed to encouraging applications from diverse candidates.

See more here: https://photoworks.org.uk/project-news/job-opportunity-curator-june-2018/

For the last year or so a group of volunteers have been doing a stock-take of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science (PSNS) library held in Perth Museum. This is prior to the closure of the museum and removal of its contents to a new collection store to be built as part of Perth and Kinross Council’s proposed cultural programme with the redevelopment of the City Hall. 

Among the library’s collections volunteer David Perry has discovered a copy of Ackermann's Photogenic Drawing Apparatus: Directions for Use. This 8-page pamphlet was published in April 1839 and it was the first photographic instruction book to be printed. It accompanied a box of paper, a printing frame and chemicals for making ‘photogenic drawings’. The pamphlet explained how to use the apparatus to produce photographs according to Henry Talbot’s pioneering paper negative process. Talbot had been experimenting since 1834 and publicised his experiments in January 1839 to the Royal Society in London after hearing about Louis Daguerre’s parallel experiments in photography in France.

The discovery of the pamphlet in the library doubles the number of known copies in existence from one to two. The only other known copy is in the library of the Royal Photographic Society, now held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, from which a reprint was produced by the Society's Historical Group in 1977.

The pamphlet was unknown because it was bound together with another photographic pamphlet Photographic Printing, in Carbon and other Pigments, by Perth photographer, William Blair, published in 1869. The title in the binding referring only to Blair’s pamphlet. Both pamphlets and the bound book were presented by Thomas Bourke, a Perth photographer, to the Photographic Section of the PSNS shortly after its formation in 1889, although Ackermann’s pamphlet has the inscription that it was presented to the Photographic Section by James Jackson, presumably a relative of Magnus Jackson, the Perth photographer who was a member of the PSNS and its Vice-President.

A report of the discovery was in the PSNS newsletter for June 2018 which can be read here which is panning to exhibit the find in the  near future. 

With thanks to Paul Adair, Collections Officer, Culture Perth and Kinross, Perth Museum & Art Gallery for alerting BPH to this find and for the images.

With the support of Arts Council England and the Artist Information Company, a-n, Almudena Romero has made a step by step film explaining the chlorophyll printing process.

The process also features in the Photofusion exhibition Growing Concerns. This unique body of work focuses on the subject of migration, making the link between the deregulation of goods and capital and the increasing barriers for movement of people. The images in this series are printed directly onto plants from Asia and the Caribbean Islands by means of the organic process of chlorophyll printing.

See more about the exhibition here: https://www.photofusion.org/exhibitions/almudena-romero-growing-concerns/

Watch the film here: https://vimeo.com/277634133

The Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg and the Hasselblad Foundation have a long-term partnership for the purpose of supporting the development of critical study and research on photography. As part of this shared programme of work, we are now seeking applications from photo-based artists, photo historians, art historians and practioners in cognate disciplines, with doctoral degrees, to apply for a 2-year postdoctoral scholarship starting from January 2019.

This position is attached to a new joint project between the Hasselblad Foundation and the Academy Valand which seeks to create an experimental photo history centered on photographic practitioners in the interwar period (WWI-WWII), starting from (but not limited to) Sweden, in both art and vernacular photography, as well as advertising and scientific photography. The applications for this post may be focused on, for example: new perspectives on archival material; local and social history and photography as alternative historical source and mediation; and cultural parallels between the 20s and 30s and today.

More information about the Academy Valand is available at www.akademinvaland.gu.se. More information about the Hasselblads Foundation can be found at www.hasselbladfoundation.se.

Applications by 17 August 2018. 

See more here: https://www.gu.se/english/about_the_university/job-opportunities/vacancies-details/?id=2445

With support from Art Fund, the Victoria and Albert Museum runs a programme to help the development of curatorial expertise in the art and culture of photography, working with regional museum partners. The programme has been in place since 2014, and has resulted in collaborations with Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery and Museums Sheffield. The curatorial training post provides practical training in photographs curatorship and equips a Curator with specialist knowledge of photography and the ability to care for and develop photography collections. 

This is a 12 month fixed term contract. You will spend six months in the Photographs Section of the Word and Image Department at the V&A with a V&A Curator as mentor. This will be followed by a six months’ placement at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter working on an agreed project. The post-holder will report to the Curator, Photographs at the V&A.

Interviews will be held on 13 September 2018

More details here.

Over the last 4 years the National Library of Wales has worked with Wikimedia to provide open access to more than 10,000 public domain images. These include the Welsh Landscape Collection, photographs, maps and manuscripts. This partnership has led to more than 455 million views of Wikipedia articles containing National Library images to date.

Images Now the Library is pleased to announce that nearly 5000 portrait prints, photographs and paintings have been placed in the public domain on Wikimedia Commons. Along with the images, the Library’s National Wikimedian has also shared rich metedata for every image as linked open data on Wikidata.

The Library’s main goal in releasing such content is to increase access to our collections and to contribute to the creation and sharing of knowledge about Wales and its people. It is now hopped that the Wikimedia community will begin to use these images to illustrate Wikipedia articles.

The National Library also plans to run a project to increase engagement with this collection, and hopes that volunteers will be encouraged to create Wikipedia articles about the Welsh sitters, artists, printers and photographers involved in the collection. Because all these images are freely downloadable and in the public domain, we also encourage others to reuse them for any purpose they see fit, from education to the creative industries this is a free resource for everybody.

Read the full blog post here which also shows examples of data visualisation: https://blog.library.wales/?p=17811

BPH reported on two auctions which took place late last year.and included material relating to the early photographer and experimenter Alfred Swaine Taylor.  A further, and final group of material is being offered by Lacy Scott & Knight on 5 October as the Alfred Swaine Taylor family collection. The auction is split in to three general areas: personal, science and medicine and photography. 

The auction lots can be seen here: https://www.lskauctioncentre.co.uk/auction/search?au=612

London's Photofusion is running a four-day alternative process summer week where you can learn how to:

Day 1: Make Digital Negatives suitable for Alternative/Historical Processes.
Richard Wills – Tuesday August 21, 11:00 – 17:00.

Day 2: Make Salt Prints (and Gold toning).
Paul Ellis – Wednesday August 22, 12:00 – 18:00.

Day 3: Make Kallitypes (poor man’s Platinum) & Platinum Prints.
Paul Ellis – Thursday August 23, 12:00 – 18:00.

Day 4: Make Wet-Plate collodion positive images with Large Format Cameras.
Daniel Barter – Friday August 24, 10:30 – 17:30.

Photofusion provides all chemicals, paper, equipment ‘etc’. You need to bring images on hard-drive which will be made into Digital Negatives on Day 1.

Find out more and book: http://www.photofusion.org/course/alternative-processes-summer-week/

This event accompanies the Radical Visions exhibition at Four Corners Gallery, and the launch of its new digital archive. It will consider Camerawork's engagement, role and influence with community-practice, feminism and representation, and ask how its broader legacy can be understood within the context of today’s cultural politics.

Thursday 28 June, 2:00-6:00pm

Birkbeck, University of London, Bloomsbury. Room to be confirmed.

Radical Visions: the cultural politics of Camerawork 1972-1985

A Collaborative Symposium

Four Corners with History and Theory of Photography Research Centre, Birkbeck

Speakers include:

Mathilde Bertrand, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne

Patrizia Di Bello, Birkbeck, University of London

Steve Edwards, Birkbeck, University of London

David Evans, writer & photo-montage artist

Carla Mitchell, Four Corners

Don Slater, London School of Economics

Amy Tobin, University of Cambridge

The event is free, but we ask you to register: 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/radical-visions-symposium-tickets-47057084005

Image:  Claire Schwob, from Women exhibition, Half Moon Gallery 1974

Canada in the Frame explores a photographic collection held at the British Library that offers a unique view of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Canada. The collection, which contains more than 4,500 images, taken between 1895 and 1923, covers a dynamic period in Canada’s national history and provides a variety of views of its landscapes, developing urban areas and peoples. Colonial Copyright Law was the driver by which these photographs were acquired; unmediated by curators, but rather by the eye of the photographer who created the image, they showcase a grass-roots view of Canada during its early history as a Confederation.  

Canada in the Frame describes this little-known collection and includes over 100 images from the collection. The author asks key questions about what it shows contemporary viewers of Canada and its photographic history, and about the peculiar view these photographs offer of a former part of the British Empire in a post-colonial age, viewed from the old ‘Heart of Empire’. Case studies are included on subjects such as urban centres, railroads and migration, which analyse the complex ways in which photographers approached their subjects, in the context of the relationship between Canada, the British Empire and photography.

Canada in the Frame
Philip J. Hatfield 
June 2018
Open Access PDF
ISBN: 978‑1‑78735‑299‑5
FREE

Hardback
ISBN: 978‑1‑78735‑301‑5
£40.00
Paperback
ISBN: 978‑1‑78735‑300‑8
£22.99
Pages: 260

UCL Press

Download free: https://goo.gl/HxSBrW

The Photographers' Gallery is the UK’s leading centre for the presentation and exploration of photography in all its forms and a dedicated home for an international photographic community. Established in London in 1971, the Gallery has been instrumental in reflecting photography’s pivotal role in culture and society and championing its position as a leading art form through a rich programme of exhibitions, talks, events, workshops, courses and other activities

Team

The Development Team is primarily responsible for fundraising for the annual revenue needs of the Gallery’s programme of activities, beyond what is already generated by the Gallery’s enterprises (Print Sales, Bookshop and Café). The funding relationship with our major stakeholder, Arts Council England (ACE) is primarily handled by the Director and Deputy Director

Role Summary: 

This is an exciting opportunity to join a small, resourceful and dynamic team at The Photographers’ Gallery. The Development Coordinator will have the opportunity to learn about arts fundraising working across all income sources: Individuals, Corporates and Trusts and Foundations. All team members are offered external and internal training for fundraising skill development. The Development Co-ordinator will play a central role in the team, assisting with the day to day administration, patronage fulfilment and administration, coordination of departmental mailings for upcoming events and communications and research projects as instructed by other members of the team. 

To apply please download an application form from https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/about-us/vacancies and email completed applications to  development@tpg.org.uk

Deadline for applications 5 July 2018

A new exhibitions which examines pictorialism has opened at the museée Nicéphore Niépce and runs until 16 September 2018. Curated by Dr Julien Faure-Conorton Artists' Visions offers a new, broader, view of European pictorialist photography. The exhibition presents recent research and discoveries and is the first exhibition dedicated to pictorial photography in France for over a decade. 

Sourced in the collections of the musée Nicéphore Niépce that preserves works by Robert Demachy and Charles Lhermitte, as well as prints by Constant Puyo, José Ortiz-Echagüe and Alfred Fauvarque-Omez, the exhibition brings together over two-hundred vintage prints. They are the work of various authors, some well-known, others less so. Most of the prints are being shown for the very first time. They were created over a seventy-year period, from the early 1890s to the late 1950s, showing that pictorial photography did not disappear after the First World War, contrary to the established histories of photography would lead us to believe.

Offering an updated, broader vision of the pictorialist endeavour on a European scale, Artists’ Visions results from recent research and discoveries and is the first exhibition dedicated to pictorial photography for over a decade in France. This exhibition challenges the established narrative and offers a new history acknowledging the permanence of the pictorialist ideals. These ideals were built on a shared ambition: to create photographs that wanted to do more than simply reproduce the real, photographs that truly interpreted it, like an artist’s vision.

Pictorial photographers, in their quest to free photography from the simple function of documentary reproduction to which it had been reduced since its invention, strove to create images where personal feelings took precedence, images that expressed something poetic or dreamlike, that suggested more than they showed, producing, above all, an impression, aiming to provoke a feeling, an emotion in the viewer. To do so, pictorial photographers resorted to interpretation, meaning the intervention of the artist in the photographic process using various technical tools aimed at transforming the aesthetics of the image so that the original photograph (the negative) gave birth to an artistic picture (the exhibition print). At the turn of the 20th century, pictorial photography was extremely popular worldwide with thousands of followers who spread their works in ambitious international exhibitions and luxurious publications.

The exhibition is curated by photography historian Dr Julien Faure-Conorton in connection with Sylvain Besson at the musée Nicéphore Niépce.

A catalogue is available and can be had by emailing: jfc.photohistory@gmail.com

Musée Nicéphore Niépce
28 quai des messageries
71100 Chalon-sur-Saône
+33 [0]3 85 48 41 98

www.museeniepce.com

The DGPh History of Photography Research Award 2018 will be open for all elements of research into photography's many aspects. Besides aspects of traditional history and theory of photography, topics will be considered that deal with photography's social meaning, or the impact that the medium has had on society. The applicant's work should represent an autonomous, innovative, and original contribution to these areas. The award is particularly aimed at young scholars.

The award is open to researchers from all fields. Applications and manuscripts for the DGPh History of Photography Research Award may be submitted in either English or German. Applications should consist of a published or unpublished manuscript produced during the last two years before the deadline. Project outlines, or yet unfinished manuscripts etc. will not be accepted. Allocation will be the decision of an expert jury. The award is endowed with a total of 3,000 Euro. The jury holds the right to split the prize between two applicants in equal parts. The award will be handed over at a public event organized by the DGPh.

Submission requirements are the following pdf-files:

- A complete manuscript as electronic file form
- An abstract of the submitted work (approx. 300-500 words)
- A curriculum vitae
- A list of publications

The final date for submissions is the 30 September, 2018.

Submissions should be send online under: https://www.dgph.de/sektionen/geschichte_archive/ausschreibung-dgph-forschungspreis-photographiegeschichte-2018

More information about the German Photographic Society: www.dgph.de

The National Portrait Gallery has acquired eleven portraits, including one self portrait, shown right) by Philippe Garner. Garner will be known to many as an auctioneer who started the first auctions of photography in the United Kingdom in 1971 at Sotheby's before he moved to Christie's, where he is remains a consultant. 

Garner had kept his interest as a phootgrapher discretely hidden during his auction career but his subjects reflect his involvement with photography, and include curators, photographers and critics. He felt the time was now right to make his own photography public. 

Read an interview with Garner here where he talks about his own photography.

See his 11 images here: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp124605/philippe-garner?search=sas&sText=garner&role=art

We are recruiting for a full time Curatorial Project Manager, a key role in our newly expanded curatorial and archive team of four.

You will provide the project management and logistical support necessary to develop and deliver our dynamic curatorial programme of exhibitions on and off site, publications, artist commissions, residencies, special projects & associated archive, collection and editions related activity.

You will also have the opportunity to make curatorial proposals for possible inclusion our programme.

Application deadline: Monday 9 July 2018 by 5pm.

Download the job pack and application form below. If you have any questions about the role or application process, please contact info@autograph-abp.co.uk or phone 020 7729 9200.

Read more here: http://autograph-abp.co.uk/news/curatorial-project-manager?mc_cid=e6e0483bcb&mc_eid=dee88b2478

Kent Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) is a not-for-profit museum that explores the deep history of the moving image — from the days of candle-lit magic lantern performances and hand-painted slides, through Victorian visual experimentation, to the advent and heyday of the cinema.

The museum is situated in the heart of the picturesque Kent seaside town of Deal, two minutes' walk from Deal Railway Station and Deal Pier and Seafront.

The Kent MOMI website is live at kentmomi.org. 

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/may/28/museum-film-moving-image-deal-kent-cinema

We are looking for a specialist to set up and lead a new photographs department within a thriving and expanding  Auction House.  Our client is aiming  to establish themselves in the middle market for the sale of photographs that span the history of the medium but which may initially focus on modern, post-war and contemporary photography.

The successful candidate will have an excellent understanding of photographs and the marketplace, and have the skills and aptitude to establish the department.

Areas of Responsibility

Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

Strategic and business development

• Develop business contacts and strategic opportunities, including developing auction and private sales strategies

• Identify and maintain relationships with all client categories (collectors, dealers, galleries etc), and particularly the ability to work with major clients in the consignments and sale of high value property

• Liaise on material in the field with other internal departments: pre-press, marketing, public relations etc.

• Proactively research and gather information into the marketplace/trends/buying & selling patterns

Valuations, cataloguing, pre and post-sale responsibilities

• Analyse and respond to incoming written, phone and photo enquiries to determine sale potential

• Work alone and with colleagues to determine provenance, authenticity, value, condition, and marketability of property

• Write and prepare catalogue essays, work on catalogue production and layout, as appropriate

• Coordinate pre-sale exhibition set-up

• Work with buyers during sales, including weekend exhibitions, to market and sell the sale

• Work with the Marketing team, to help develop a coordinated marketing plan to achieve budgeted sale totals

• Participate in telephone bidding with clients during the auction

• Participate in the full after-sales analysis, and implement any agreed changes

General

• Ensure compliance with all internal policies and procedures and any relevant external bodies or processes

• Participate in organization-wide meetings, activities and processes, and develop internal contacts, networks and interactions as appropriate

• Actively participate in events, valuation days, and other functions to represent the client

• Carry out other duties as required 

Person Specification

Essential skills and experience

• Extensive experience in the field, either at auction, within the trade or at another relevant institution e.g. gallery or own business

• Proven ability to develop relationships with the major collectors, dealers and galleries

• Excellent writing skills in English, and ability to combine an understanding of the material with a commercial sense of marketing and promoting value

• Excellent verbal communication and interpersonal skills, including first class spoken English

• Ability to work to tight auction deadlines, balancing photography, cataloguing, sale organisation, marketing and promotional details

• Experience working with on projects of all sizes, long- and short-term; demonstrated ability to prioritise a variety of concurrent projects

• Excellent knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Outlook etc)
• Superior client service skills
• Strong follow-up skills with attention to detail
• Ability to thrive within a fast-paced team environment

Desirable qualifications

A qualification relevant to the field e.g. degree in photography, contemporary art, fine art

Closes 10 July 2018

Apply here: https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6742450/auction-house-specialist-photographs/

Richard Ovenden's lecture will explore the life and work of one of the greatest innovators in the history of the photography. John Thomson was the first to photograph the ruins of Angkor Wat, the first Western photographer to travel extensively in the interior of China, and the first photojournalist to document the lives of everyday people on the streets of Victorian London. His life and work will be set in context and will focus on the major contributions he made to the establishment of photography as one of the great modern means of communication.

Richard Ovenden is Bodley’s Librarian at the University of Oxford. His book John Thomson (1837–1921) Photographer, published two decades ago, remains one of the most authoritative works on John Thomson.

There will be an opportunity to visit the exhibition at the Brunei Gallery - China and Siam: Through the Lens of John Thomson after the lecture.

The Icon Photographic Materials Group, Tru Vue and The National Archives are delighted to announce an evening lecture by Professor Debra Hess Norris, titled: I’ve Just Seen a Face: The Preservation of our Global Photographic Heritage. 

Photograph and film collections are held in museums, libraries, archives and private homes all over the world: they document our global heritage. These materials are deteriorating owing to exposure to poor environmental conditions, inadequate storage, and natural disasters. During this presentation, Debra will introduce the fundamental properties and care of photographic print and negative collections and address why their preservation is vital and relevant.

The lecture is aimed at conservators, historians, curators, photographers, artists and collection managers as well as interested non-specialists. The talk will be followed by a drinks reception.

Debra Hess Norris is Professor of photograph conservation at the University of Delaware, and an internationally renowned author, teacher and lecturer.

In the nineteenth century, Scotland was a pioneer of photography. A leading practitioner was George Washington Wilson, whose innovations in stereoscopic photography created some of the most captivating 3D images. Join photographic historians Dr Brian May and Professor Roger Taylor as they trace Wilson’s career, show key examples of his work using a stunning new 3D projection system and present their accompanying book, George Washington Wilson, Artist and Photographer, published by the London Stereoscopic Company.

To book: https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/brian-may-roger-taylor-12047

For those unable to attend the book is available from 20 July, published by the London Stereoscopic Co. It is a heavily revised and updated version of Taylor's original 1981 publication.