June 2011 Blog Posts (40)

It was the Belle Époque, a time before air travel or radio, at the brink of a revolution in photography and filmmaking, when Burton Holmes (1870–1958) began a lifelong journey to bring the world home. From the grand boulevards of Paris to China's Great Wall, from the construction of the Panama canal to the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Holmes delighted in finding "the…

Further to Brewer's blog on collecting photography, I came across a useful article written by Sophie Wright who works form Magnum in London, which I hope will be of use to those BPH individuals thinking of venturing into this 'lucrative' market! Well, it seems that way to me after the record-breaking tintype of…

In a new 3D documentary commissioned for Sky 3D, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D takes the viewer on a fascinating journey from the gentle 3D of the Victorian era to the extreme out-of-the-screen 3D of the 1980s. The documentary will be screened on Sky 3D on 7 July 2011.

3D has endured a long bumpy journey. From William Friese Greene simply walking along a Hyde Park…

Dear All,

I have a recent interest in collecting photography.  'How to buy photographs' by Stuart Bennett is a good source of historical knowledge. Understanding how photography collections are considered and refused has provided a point of great interest. What prints are valuable and the reasons behind this? The book I have just noticed is from Christies collectors library.I collect books(in a v small way) on a regular basis. The photography books are used by me for lesson planning…

London's Victoria and Albert Museum is to open a new photography gallery expected to be in 2012. The outgoing Director Mark Jones has comitted the museum to creating the new and enlarged space for photography in what is now a furniture study room on the first floor. The current gallery in room 38A on the ground floor opened in 2003.

The V&A with its long association with photography since the 1850s has been criticised for failing to allow its dynamic photography curators to deal…

This role is a job share opportunity, working 13 weeks of the year during school holidays only. You will provide high-quality administrative support to the Museum’s Collections & Knowledge and Programme teams.

It’s a rewarding role in a fascinating environment. Award winning, visionary and truly unique, the National Media Museum embraces photography, film, television, radio and the web. Part of the NMSI family of museums, it aims to engage, inspire and educate through…

A new biennial photographic festival, aimed at promoting some of the world's top talent behind the lens, is coming to Northern Ireland, its first major photographic event.  The importance of photography in Northern Ireland's visual culture and history is something that will be highlighted, while also embracing and showcasing the nations upcoming photographic talent both at…

No austerity measures here as The Benaki Museum prepares to display a collection of early photography by James Robertson (1813-1888) who was one of the first prominent traveller-photographers to depict scenes of mid-nineteenth century Greece.

Of Scottish descent, he has been identified as the engraver James Robertson, who worked in London around 1830. He first settled in…

Photograph conservator, Qatar Museums Authority, Media Museum Project, Doha, Qatar. The Media Museum collection consists of over 80,000 19th and 20th century photographs, cameras and cinema equipment. Photographs

range from early daguerreotypes through albums and photographically-illustrated books to contemporary colour photographs.

Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) has acquired masterpieces through the years, which QMA is committed to preserve and showcase to the…

It seems as if it was just yesterday that a new record was set for a 19th century photograph. Oh wait, it was just a few days ago that a Le Gray sold for USD $1,305,000. That didn't last long. Yesterday, William Koch, a brother of billionaires Charles and David Koch, of the politically active members of an oil-and-gas family purchased the only known image of Billy the Kid for a staggering 2.3 million (USD) or 2.6 million with commission. More information here:…

No! - it's not about this year's Eurovision Song Contest. And I know it's not quite British too. But what early photography archives do not include anything British?

This online, non-commercial, photo library has over 5,000 photographs, most of them from four main collections: the archives of Narmin Tahirzade, the photo archive of Adalat Tahirzade, the Institute of…

After the record-breaking price paid in Vienna just a few weeks ago for a rare Leica no. 7, the auction world has announced that yet another world record has been broken. This time it is for a 19th-century photograph of a beautifully composed seascape by Gustave Le…

University of St Andrews - School of Art History. We are seeking to appoint a temporary Teaching Fellow with expertise in any area of the History of Photography to contribute to the School's undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. You should have or be about to complete your Ph.D. and will have some teaching experience at university level. The post will be for 9 months from 5 September 2011 to 15 June 2012.



You will be required to teach two Honours modules and one…

Recently published to accompany the exhibition, this catalogue, in three languages, has been written by leading experts on the work of Eugène Atget. Following a short text in which the curators set out the exhibition’s aims, Guillaume Le Gall of the Sorbonne will analyse…

Just came across this V&A course which might be of interest to all you BPH members out there.

The course looks at original prints in the V&A collection and investigates the work of British photographers from the nineteenth century to the present. It also discusses key ideas and questions shaping the history of photography as a medium for creative expression.…

An 1873 image showing north Londoners on a double-decker coach and horses heading towards Holloway. What about a 1906 snap of an early 18th century coaching inn at the top of Highgate West Hill, which proudly bears the sign “The Flask Tavern”. Another photograph, one of 1,000 in the collection dating from the 1880s, is by JF Hows which shows the middle classes gathering on…

 This past weekend an exhibition of arctic photographs by Alexander Rodger and David Dickson, 1894-7, opened in St Andrews to complement an international conference entitled Polar Visual Culture.  The exhibition is at the School of Art History, open Mon-Fri, 9am-4.45pm until 30 September.

The conference blurb:  

The polar environment, and its potential destruction, is now…

If climbing, photography and the Alps are your cup of tea, then you're in luck!

This is the first time that the life’s work of this important photographer (who is usually a footnote in the history of photography), a total of 1,200 photographs, is being exhibited. Born in Biel, Switzerland, Jules Beck worked in his family's textile business in Strasbourg, France before…