Edinburgh's Stills Gallery is seeking a director, to further develop the work of Stills so that it meets strategic objectives agreed with the Board, and that the organisation retains and advances a high national and international reputation achieved through quality programming, excellent stakeholder relationships, optimum income generation and effective management. The Director will be expected to work across the following areas:

A bold new study of Julia Margaret Cameron’s Victorian photographs charts the legacy of colonialism following the 1857 Indian Uprising. Julia Margaret Cameron, the celebrated Victorian photographer, was a child of the colonies. Born in 1815 in Calcutta, she was the daughter of a governing official of the East India Company. After relocating to London in 1848, Cameron was embraced by other British expatriates and a celebrated cultural network. This circle included literary personalities like Thackeray and Tennyson, painters and critics associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and political figures like Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lord Lansdowne.
 
In 1857, Indians rebelled against British rule, and in London, Cameron became absorbed by news of the Uprising. In the aftermath of the revolt, national and imperial politics transfixed England, some seven years before Cameron took up photography. The impact of those forces, and the inspiration of the literary, artistic, and political works produced by her circle, influenced her earliest imagery. Through close readings of these photographs, which she assembled in photographic albums, this book exposes how Cameron embedded in her work a visual rhetoric of imperial power.

Jeff Rosen is a former academic dean at Loyola University Chicago and professor of art history at Columbia College Chicago. He is now a scholar-in-residence at the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Julia Margaret Cameron. The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography
Jeff Rosen
Paul Mellon Centre
£45, 292 Pages, 215 x 269 mm, 101 colour + b-w illus.
https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9781913107420/julia-margaret-cameron/

Anderson & Graland, the Newvastle-based auction house is auctioning an extensive collection of press photographs from the South Sheilds Gazette. The eighty-six lots cover a range of subjects from royalty, football, sports, actors and popular music, bands, film, as well as pictures of local subjects, and come from the Press Association and elsewhere.

The Collectors' Auction
Anderson & Garland
4 July 2024
Details:  https://www.andersonandgarland.com/auction/search/?st=Gazette&sto=0&au=718&sf=%5B%5D&w=False&pn=1

Join Nick Wright all the way from America on a journey back in time to experience ultra-high-resolution views of Gold Rush San Francisco. Nick Wright has painstakingly recreated Muybridge's early panorama of the city by assembling multi-plate photographs. This will truly be an amazing chance to see old San Francisco, like never before.

Nick Wright is the founder of the History Alliance, with 2-million members, including San Francisco History and US History. He has given lectures at many institutions. His speciality is early San Francisco panoramic photography by Watkins, Muybridge, and W. H. Jackson. He grew up in Palo Alto near the Stanford Farm that sparked his interest in Muybridge.

Online Talk with Nick Wright
Thursday, 11 July 11 · 1900-2000 (BST)
Details: https://www.kingstonheritage.org.uk/homepage/126/san-francisco-in-kingston-muybridge-and-panoramas-inspired-events

Rachel Segal Hamilton, a journalist who specialsies in photography, has written an extended essay for the Birmingham Despatch on the photography collections at the Library of Birmingham and the legacy of Pete James (pictured right). It looks at the history of Birmingham's photography collections and the current situation. 

Read the full piece here: https://www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk/p/the-library-of-birmingham-hosts-a

Images: Michael Pritchard

Paula Fleming writes... In honor of International Stereoscopy Day I’m formally launching my photo history webpage (flemingphotohistory.com) which covers over fifty years of research given for free to whomever can use it. In addition to copies of all of my papers and one entire book, it covers:

• 19th century British photography. This includes journal notices, reviews of exhibits and images, legal notices, ads for new views from the Times, etc., a detailed bibliography, and full transcriptions of the most important articles. These are accompanied with an extensive name index with many life dates and bio. info. Also special lists referencing articles on astronomy, reviews of photographs, and travel/expedition stories.
• 19th century photography of Washington, D.C. which contains hundreds of names accompanied by life dates, addresses, and frequently biographical information well beyond normal works of this genre. You won’t believe what some of them got up to! These stories make the individuals real people with real stories not just data items. Some entries have portraits of the photographers.
• Newspaper coverage of 19th century Native American delegations to Washington, D.C. These documents help to identify, date and provide background for photos taken during that period.
• French surprise tissue views selected from my collection. Just for fun. You can mouse over a stereo image to get a real stereo surprise.

Uploading my research is ongoing so there will be new additions.  Feel free to contact me by email at britishstereos@hotmail.com

Newcastle's Side Gallery has several jobs available. Amber Film & Photography Collective CIC and Side Gallery have a rich and intertwined history rooted in the vibrant arts and culture scene of the Northeast. The collective and gallery were established in the late 1960s and early 1970s by a group of visionary photographers and filmmakers driven by a shared passion for documentary storytelling and cultural preservation.

• Curatorial Assistant / https://www.amber-online.com/job-opportunity-curatorial-assistant/
• Creative Director/Side Gallery Curator / https://www.amber-online.com/job-opportunity-creative-director-curator/

and previously announced

• Project archivisit / https://www.amber-online.com/job-opportunity/

Image: Interiors, 1981 ©Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, AmberSide Collection

This conference explores the multifaceted history and cultural significance of flash photography. Flash, introduced in the 1860s, has played a crucial role in photography, making previously unseen scenes visible, from the nocturnal lives of animals to the bustling nights of New York City. There is a keynote presentation from Dr Sara Dominici. 

This conference aims to move beyond a purely technical narrative of flash as merely a tool for overcoming darkness. Instead, it seeks to understand flash as a socio-technical device that shapes photographic practice and cultural perceptions. Flash photography, from early magnesium bursts to modern electric strobes, not only illuminates scenes but also influences the photographic event itself. The noise, smoke, and sudden light of early flashes contributed to the dynamic nature of photo shoots, impacting both photographers and subjects.

This conference will investigate the diverse dimensions of flash, including its aesthetic, cultural, and media implications. The performative nature of flash and its role in capturing rapid motion, filling in light, and creating new visualities will be discussed. Flash has been both embraced and rejected by photographers, creating boundaries between art and non-art. Its use has marked significant moments in the history of photography, contributing to genres like celebrity and wildlife photography.

Moreover, flash photography has served as a metaphor in literature and theory, symbolizing revelation and memory. It has been linked to powerful narratives, such as those documenting social injustices. Despite technological advancements reducing the need for flash, its historical and cultural impacts remain significant. The conference invites discussions on the flash’s role in photographic history, its cultural and social uses, and its ongoing relevance in contemporary visual regimes.

Blind by Light: Just to see: Flashes and Revelations
17-18 October 2024
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Richelieu
See the programme and register here

The Lens Media Lab at Yale's Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage invites you to its symposium DARKROOM TO DATA, to be held in New Haven on August 12, 2024. The program will feature the lab's research into the material history of black and white photography and will highlight our principal collaborations among leading collections. The theme of this work is 'seeing at scale' through the creation and interpretation of datasets that surface patterns latent in photograph collections. These patterns inform our thinking of preservation, artistic intention, regional practices, and the influence of materials and methods shared by photographers across time.  The intended audience is art historians, conservators, conservation scientists, collectors, curators, dealers and anyone interested in data science and data visualization applied to the study of cultural material. 

Program details and a link for registration are here. Advance registration is required and is free of charge. 

Opening next month, I Am Who I Am Now: Selections from the Bengali Photo Archive offers a unique insight into the everyday life of the Bengali East End of London.  The exhibition focuses on vernacular photographs taken of and by Bengali people over the past 50 years. Accompanied by oral histories and collaboratively produced archival interpretations, it offers a powerful and intimate perspective on the community's histories. From the microcosms of the family to the transformative power of community spaces, it illuminates the intricate interplay between individual experiences and the broader socio-political landscape in the East End.

The images are drawn from the Bengali Photo Archive, a new collection featuring personal and family images donated by local people. The exhibition also features work by
photographers Raju Vaidyanathan, Mayar Akash, Anthony Lam, Paul Halliday, Sarah Ainslie, David Hoffman, Paul Trevor and others, which documents the community's working lives,
activism, and anti-racist struggles.

The title of the show is inspired by photographer Mayar Akash, who reflected, “I am who I am now” because of transformative experiences in East End youth work settings. The central importance of such community spaces is shown in images of the Federation of Bangladeshi Youth Organisations, and musicians such as Joi Bangla, State of Bangal and Osmani Knights. These groups brought together politics, activism, arts and music to create a new Bengali youth culture in the 1980s.

I Am Who I Am Now: Selections from the Bengali Photo Archive is co-curated by Julian Ehsan, Four Corners and the Bengali Photo Archive volunteers with the generous support of Swadhinata Trust. It is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the Art Fund and Historic England.

Julie Begum, of Swadhinata Trust says: “When we engage with art that reflects diverse perspectives, we see new ideas, cultures, and ways of thinking. . . The Bengali photo archive challenges racist stereotypes about us and who people think we are, including ourselves.”

Julian Ehsan, exhibition curator says: “I Am Who I Am Now reveals the power of community history and telling the stories of everyday people. Working collaboratively with project
volunteers and people who appear in the archive itself, this exhibition re-centres the curatorial process — and the curatorial power — to emphasise voices that are often hidden or ignored. As a person of Bengali heritage myself, it has been poignant to work with intimate and evocative images of, and by, the diaspora.”

Akila Asad, an archive volunteer says: “The archive captures the resilience and the everyday lives Bengalis built in Britain. By highlighting their heritage, the Bengali Photo Archive encourages viewers, especially the Bengali community, to take pride in their pioneering forefathers who journeyed to the UK, solidifying their presence in East London and proving that Britain is indeed their home as well.”

Tanbir Mirza-Baeg, archive donor and volunteer says: “The Bengali Photo Archive will be a great insight for those who want to look at their heritage to see that there was simple mundanity outside of the struggles that were faced by the generations before them. I hope that it inspires others to start their own archive, and gather the different pieces before they are lost and there isn't a chance to see or hear them again.”

I Am Who I Am Now: Selections from the Bengali Photo Archive
5 July-4 August 2024
London, Four Corner
See more here

Image: Two boys dancing at Spitalfields City Farm, 1990s. © Julie Begum. Courtesy of Bengali Photo Archive.

Project Placement opportunity to help with getting Leeds Historic Photographs online. ​The project will involve preparing Leeds Museums’ historic photograph and local history image collections for export to the Leodis website (https://www.leodis.net/). ​

This will include research and identifying content, and cross-checking with images on Leodis to identify images which would be suitable. The project provides valuable experience working with historic collections, digitisation and cataloguing skills, research experience and an opportunity to learn more about Leeds history. This will make more of the museum collections accessible online and help to crowd-source information from the public.​

About You:​

Our Project Placements are a training and development opportunity. We are looking for people who are:​

• Starting out in heritage, culture or the arts​
• Looking for a change of career and exploring options in the arts and cultural sector ​
• From a diverse range of backgrounds underrepresented in the arts and cultural sector ​

What matters most is your passion for the project.​

About the role:​

This is one of four Project Placements at Leeds Museums and Galleries in 2024. The funding for Project Placements comes from Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation funding to give people paid experience of working in a heritage/cultural setting, training and support. ​

Project Placements are a maximum of 30 days to be completed before the end of March 2025. We are open to it being fewer days to help people access the opportunity. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds. We are a family friendly organisation and support our employees to work flexibly to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Working days and times are flexible and are agreed between the individual and the supervisor. ​ Pay £12/hour. 

To find out more, we have a video describing each of the Project Placements and giving tip tops for applications. This can be accessed here: Project Placement film LMG - YouTube

Details and apply here: https://jobs.leeds.gov.uk/jobs/project-placement-casual-req25015

This is an externally funded Fellowship sitting in the Photography Section of AAPD.  The purpose of the Curatorial Fellowship is to further develop expertise in the history of photography by researching the collections of the V&A, while gaining vital curatorial experience working in a museum.  The Curatorial Fellow will divide their time between key curatorial duties (including cataloguing, collections care, display, exhibition and publication preparation and researching potential acquisitions) and pursuing an independent research project based on the V&A’s photography collection, which will culminate in a tangible output such as a conference, publication and/or web project.

The research project will be based on the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Collection, which was transferred to the V&A in 2017, and may relate to portraiture, colour photography or photographic processes, all areas of interest to the American photographer Bern Schwartz and The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. The topic and scope of the project will be agreed at the start of the Curatorial Fellowship, depending on the Fellow’s expertise and the priorities of the Photography Section.

In the first year, the Curatorial Fellow will be based in the Photography Section as an active member of the curatorial team. In the second year, the Fellow will have the opportunity to spend three months in the V&A Research Institute (VARI) to focus on completing the research project. Throughout the Fellowship, there will be opportunities to present research to internal audiences, students, donors and the general public through lectures and gallery talks. Using an accompanying travel fund, the Fellow will have the opportunity to travel nationally and internationally to visit other photography collections as part of their curatorial and research work.

As a member of the AAPD, the Curatorial Fellow will also play a role in the wider work of the V&A, contributing to policy, projects and public programmes, supporting fundraising and income generation.

Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation
Two-year role
Closes 3 July 2024
See more and apply here

The Royal Society has digitsied and made available over 10,000 letters of the astronomer and photographic pioneer Sir John Frederick William Herschel FRS (1792-1871) for the first time on the Royal Society’s Science in the Making archives portal. This collection of nearly 10,900 letters, drafts, copies and notes is the largest repository of scientific correspondence from and to Sir John Herschel, leading figure of Victorian science and is based on 

Digital audiences can now travel through time to read about Herschel’s work in his own words and those of his correspondents. They can delve into first-hand accounts of Herschel’s mapping of the southern hemisphere skies and his contribution to the development of photography, including inventing the blueprint. They will also find his early mathematical work, and even his contested translation of Homer's epic poem, The Iliad.

The V&A has recently acquired a collection of over 2,000 photographs by Bert Hardy (1913-95). Hardy was chief photographer for Picture Post magazine from 1941 to 1957 and the photographs in the acquisition span his entire career and consists mostly of vintage prints and some Kodachrome slides. His work represents a highpoint of twentieth-century British photography and international photojournalism. Hardy was the subject of a recent retrospective exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery, London. 

The School of Journalism at Cardiff University holds the Bert Hardy archive containing material from 1936-2018. See: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/0766a454-c2f6-3f9d-ad1c-5497bd17e07f

The V&A is currently advertising a PhD student placement to work on the collection. 

To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access. Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research.

The RPS Medical Group was founded in 1946. While the Group continues to exist, its collection of an estimated 4,000 photographs and archival papers, dating from the 1910 until the 1990s, now forms part of the V&A RPS collection.

The collection appears to have been formed as a resource for teaching and research, a record of technical advances, a platform for the recognition of photographers and hospital photography units, and as a visual record of surgical procedures, medical conditions and pathology.

The collection has a UK focus, with works by key practitioners such as the Group’s founder, Rosalind Maingot (1894-1947) and radiographer John Arthur Fairfax Fozzard (1905-93). It also contains the work of photographic departments including St Bartholomew's, Royal Free, St Thomas’ and Guy’s hospitals in London.
The collection contains some sensitive and graphic imagery. Ethical considerations will be a key factor in considering approaches to its cataloguing, research and dissemination. The student would be expected to seek advice from the V&A terminology group and experts outside of the museum sector.

The main tasks are to survey the material and its physical condition, categorization and organization, to organize and rehouse items in appropriate storage, research and write a summary and to catalogue a selection of the holdings.

This is an unpaid doctoral placement that is financially supported by the successful applicant’s PhD stipend in line with UKRI guidance.

See: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3519937?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access. Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research.

The project will investigate holdings related to Latin America in the V&A Photography Collection. It will focus on objects acquired between 1850 and 1950, to situate findings in the context of early global networks and institutional connections to Latin America that can be mapped through photography. Many relevant holdings feature in bound photographic albums from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which are largely uncatalogued and undigitised. Other relevant holdings include topographical imagery, travel photographs and photographs of Latin American artefacts, as well as work by well-known photographers from the 20th century.

The placement will produce a survey of holdings related to Latin America in the Photography Collection, outlining historical context, scope and content. It will create a findings list for uncatalogued objects; and undertake more detailed provenance and object-level research for a defined group of material, resulting in new or enhanced catalogue records. The student will be encouraged and supported to write a blog post and lead a Print Room event relating to their work.

The project builds on momentum across the V&A to engage with Latin America. It will contribute new ways of thinking through institutional histories, and ripen collections for use in the Photography Section’s contemporary commissioning programme.

This is an unpaid doctoral placement that is financially supported by the successful applicant’s PhD stipend in line with UKRI guidance.

See: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3515597?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

To provide opportunities for early-career training for PhD students, the V&A has made available a range of doctoral placements based in collections departments, archives, the National Art Library, research, and collections care and access. Each placement is a discrete project designed by members of V&A staff (who will also act as the placement’s supervisor), involving collaborative as well as independent research.

The V&A has recently acquired a collection of over 2,000 photographs by Bert Hardy (1913-95). Hardy was chief photographer for Picture Post magazine from 1941 to 1957. His work represents a highpoint of 20th century British photography and international photojournalism. The photographs in the acquisition span his entire career and consists mostly of vintage prints and some Kodachrome slides. The V&A seeks a student to work with Photography Curators on cataloguing the collection on a database and to organise, number, sleeve and box the photographs. The student will also be expected research a specific aspect of the collection that links with their interests.

This is an unpaid doctoral placement that is financially supported by the successful applicant’s PhD stipend in line with UKRI guidance. full time

Details: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3519915?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

Side Gallery which had temporarily closed last year and was under threat of permanent closure (see here) having lost its Arts Council National Portfolio status and funding has provided an update of its position. In 2023 is secured over £50,000 as part of a Crowdfunding exercsie and it has just been awarded a £236,000 grant by The heritage Fund which 'secures our building for the next year, which will allow us to host pop-up exhibitions and do comprehensive cataloguing.'

Side's statement sent to those who had supported its Crowdfunder says: 

When we last emailed you in March we had several exciting updates to share about the collection, however, the future of Side Gallery was still uncertain… 
We had one final funding application under review, which if not won would mean the permanent closure of the Side Gallery. 
I am pleased to announce that we have been awarded a £236,000 grant by The Heritage Fund thanks to National Lottery players. 
This grant secures our building for the next year, which will allow us to host pop-up exhibitions and do comprehensive cataloguing.
But this grant isn’t just about the gallery, it’s much bigger.
This means exploring new partnerships and ensuring we are more connected to working photographers and the North East arts community. 

This grant will enable us to run a 12-month project that includes:

• Expanding our team (new roles to be announced soon)
• Business & Resilience Development
• Creating new exhibitions representing many viewpoints, nurturing an inclusive culture
• Exploring new ways to collaborate with new artists, audiences and lifelong supporters. 
• A comprehensive, publicly accessible catalogue of the AmberSide Collection

The grant puts us on the path to reopening the gallery, but we not going back to business as usual; instead, we are forging a new direction that is mindful of our original principles.

We have a long way to go, but we would not have made it this far without you
Your donation to #SaveSide allowed us to protect the collection and gallery space and spend time creating the highest-quality funding applications. 
Thanks to you and the 2,000 others who care deeply about telling North Eash stories we #SavedSide. 

We’ll share updates and stories from the project along the way, and can’t wait to see what this next chapter brings for the collection and photography in the North East. 

All the best, 

Laura Laffler

Amber Film & Photography Collective

See: https://www.amber-online.com/side-gallery/

Acclaimed British photographer Roger Mayne (1929–2014) was famous for his evocative documentary images of young people growing-up in Britain in the mid-1950s and 1960s. This exhibition, of around sixty almost exclusively vintage photographs, includes many of his iconic street images of children and teenagers, alongside an almost entirely unknown selection of intimate and moving later images of his own family at home in Dorset, as well as those taken on his honeymoon in Spain in 1962.

Self-taught and influential in the acceptance of photography as an art form, Mayne was passionate about photographing human life as he found it. This is the first exhibition of his work since 2017.

Roger Mayne: Youth
14 June-1 September 2024
Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries
London, The Courtauld
See: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-roger-mayne-youth/

The photographs in this exhibition do not depict rare or special things. They show toothpaste, tombstones, and hats. But these familiar trappings of everyday life will be, at times, unrecognizable—so altered by the camera as to constitute something entirely new. Enticing consumers with increasingly experimental approaches to the still life genre, the photographs featured transform everyday objects into covetable commodities. The camera abstracts them from functional use, at times distorting them through dizzying perspectives and modulations of scale. Spanning the first century of photographic advertising, the exhibition will illustrate how commercial camerawork contributed to the visual language of modernism, suggesting new links between the promotional strategies of vernacular studios and the tactics of the interwar avant-garde. Corporate commissions by celebrated innovators, including Paul Outerbridge, August Sander, and Piet Zwart, will appear alongside obscure catalogues and trade publications, united by a common cause: to snatch the ordinary out of context, and sell it back at full price.

The Real Thing: Unpackaging Product Photography
until 4 August 2024
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
See: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/the-real-thing-unpackaging-product-photography

Image: Anton Bruehl (American (born Australia), Hawker 1900–1982 San Francisco, California)