February 2012 Blog Posts (47)

I've read with interest the Guardian article of last Thursday on the incredible story of the photographic collections of Tate and V&A, and also your comment on British Photographic History (http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/tate-s-scandalous-rubbish).

As…

The New York Times didn’t always use photographs to its best advantage, as it only first published an illustrated Sunday magazine in 1896. But since then it has built up a true treasure house of photographs with a staggering five million to six million prints and contact sheets (each sheet, of course, representing many discrete images) and 300,000 sacks of…

We have a number of new opportunities to join The Photographers' Gallery. The post-holders will be joining us at a pivotal time in our history, as on 19 May 2012 we will unveil a new £8.9m Gallery for international and British photography in London.   Please look on our website   …

This looks like a battle of the rock groups. Queen needs to step aside for another head thumping band, and this time it is Radiohead.

You may not know this but their bassist, Colin Greenwood, has an interest in analogue processes and 19th century photography. Radiohead approached Sebastian Edge, a UCA Maidstone graduate with a distinction in MA Fine Art, to work…

Applications are invited for a three year full time PhD, working within the Irish Photobook research project in the School of Art and Design. The project focus is the representation of Ireland through photographic publishing. The project team; Paul Seawright, Donovan Wylie and Martin Parr will supervise the research. The Irish PhotoBook project develops Parr and Badger's internationally acclaimed work on the history of the Photobook, using their methodology to evaluate the development of…

Art versus Industry? Is An international conference at Leeds City Museum, being held 23-24 March 2012. Of particular interest are two papers Nicole Bush (Northumbria University) Mechanical Patterns: The Role of Brewster’s Kaleidoscope in the Age of Morris and the Machine and Patrizia Di Bello (Birkbeck) ‘Camera-Medusa’: Stereoscopic Photographs of Statuettes. The full…

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Shpilman Institute for Photography announce the opening of the 2012 edition of the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography and welcome nominations and submissions.

Awarded every second year, the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography aims to catalyze groundbreaking work in the field by providing scholars and photographers with financial support in the amount of $ 45,000.- in order to pursue original work and…

Hi everybody! I am looking for further stereos from the “New Series Welch Views” which is most probably by William England. I have attached two images (No. 11 and No. 13).  Does anybody have further information on this series or more scans…

Archives full of photographs of artworks from their collections and beyond, including sensitive documents relating to government committees and export applications have been saved from being thrown out. Brian Allen, director of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, a UK…

This ongoing exhibition (across the pond, unfortunately) is held in conjunction with the Daguerreian Society, and features some 60 nineteenth-century daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes. It addresses several facets of the public’s insatiable appetite for portraits of loved ones and strangers alike. Flawless artistic and studio portraits will be on…

Minnie Weisz Studios in Kings Cross will be running a series of weekend workshops learning to make positive ambrotypes, images direct onto glass, tin and acrylic. Following in the footsteps of Frederick Scott Archer, the inventor of the collodion process in 1851, you will be taught by experts in the field of alternative historic photographic processes, practising and…

I took over the stewardship of the Trinity Mirror collection back in 2004. Since then I have when possible try to discover a little of the history and careers of our earliest photographers and where possible try to credit their work.

Back in 1904 when the Daily Mirror became the first UK daily newspaper to print photographs on a regular basis published images simply carried the credit Daily Mirror. Little credit was given to photographers like Ivor Castle, Tom, Bernard and…

Hello All,  I would be very interested to hear from anyone who can recognize the people in these photos.  The self portrait staring into the camera, whoI believe is the photographer is the frontispiece of the album.

Help!  Regards,

Meir…

The first Canadian photographer of international renown with subjects ranging from royalty, Governors General and the Fathers of Confederation, to Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Anna of Anna and the King of Siam fame. He would also have been responsible for most of the vintage photos of Victorian Montreal, its winter scenes and its…

The search begins...As reported back in December in BPH the current Director of the National Media Museum, Colin Philpott, is to leave in April. The search for his successor - re-designated as museum Head has now started. See: …

A small selection of the images on offer at our next event is now available online.

Please click HERE.

Event details:

Holiday Inn Bloomsbury, WC1N 1HT.

10am-4pm: £3 admission or free after 2pm with a voucher from…

It has recently been reported that the French police has opened an investigation into the possible forgery of early photographs sold at the provincial auction house Artcurial Deauville on 29 March last year.

At issue is a catalogue of 83 lots that supposedly came from the family of Charles Edouard de Crespy Le Prince (1784-1850), a minor…

John Hillelson, who owned the John Hillelson Agency and was the London agent for Magnum from 1958 until 1987 died  on 13 February following complications after a heart operation. John was born on 13 April 1923 in East Prussia and arrived in Britain in 1934 fleeing from Nazism. He was classified as an enemy alien in 1939 but secured a job as a caption writer at the Keystone picture agency. He then served with RAF as a wireless operator rejoining Keystone after the war.

He opened the…

Special places have a magical power. They inspire people with extraordinary stories, Lacock Abbey & House is no exception. Set in rural Wiltshire, Lacock is famous for its picturesque streets, historic buildings and its more recent role as a television and film location. The Abbey, located at the heart of the village within its own woodland grounds, is a quirky country…

UPDATE: You can view the video using the link on this page here or here.

In Paris 1886, the world's first media interview took place when the great photographer Felix…