June 2016 Blog Posts (22)

BBC Radio 4's In Our Time programme will look at the invention of photography on 7 July 2016. Melvyn Bragg and guests, Elizabeth Edwards, Alison Morrison-Low and Simon Schaffer, will discuss the development of photography in the 1830s, when techniques for 'drawing with light' evolved to the stage where, in 1839, both Daguerre and Fox Talbot made claims for its …

Special Auction Services of Newbury is to auction a group of material relating to Arthur E Morton FRPS, a pioneer of early colour photography, both still and moving. He was an exponent of Autochrome and Paget colour process and Kinemacolour.  

The full catalogue which also includes the exceptional Mike Simkin magic lantern and pre-cinema collection is available…

I have just found out that the Bourne and Shepard Photo studio in Kolkata has closed. For more information:…

Several months ago, I acquired a number of very old British photo books at auction.  Plan to donate them to the library at Southern Methodist University.  Problem is that I have no way of ascertaining their value as can find no listings anywhere.  Any help or suggestions on how to proceed would be appreciated.  They include:

Yearbook of Photography 1867; G. Warton Simpson, editor; Office of Photographic News, publisher.

Yearbook of Photography 1881; H. Barden Pritchard, editor;…

Due to a health related withdrawal I have again one space available for this fantastic 5-day Lacock Intensive Collodion Workshop (6-10 July 2016, Manger Barn, Lacock).

It goes down to the basics of collodion photography. You'll learn how to make strong collodion negatives and how to print them on albumen paper. This includes of course how to make albumen as well as…

'Pictorialism' as a loosely constituted, international movement advocating photography’s assimilation into the traditional fine arts, succeeded to the extent that it fostered widespread acceptance of the medium as 'art' prior to World War I, but failed in the post-War period as its aesthetic agenda was condemned as 'anti-modernist', agrarian, bourgeois, and imitative of an…

Our friends at the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné project have announced the news that Brian Liddy, formerly curator of collections access at the National Media Museum, Bradford, has been appointed the project's first research assistant.

BPH will bring news of former NMeM staff in due course. 

Read more about Brian's appointment here: …

Two jobs are being advertised by the National Media Museum, Bradford. Curator of Photography and Photographic Technology, to manage, develop, research, interpret and present the collections of the National Media Museum, To work with a wide range of different partners – academics, enthusiasts, communities – to foster knowledge of the…

Autograph APB is to present the first major exhibition of photographs by Raphael Albert (1935-2009), cultural promoter and photographer of black beauty pageants in west London from the late 1960s to the 1980s. The exhibition runs from 8 July-24 September 2016 and admission is free.

For more than three decades, Albert documented hundreds of popular dance, music and…

A petition, which will be presented to the mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône has been launched to support musée Nicéphore Niépce. Nearly 5000 people have already signed. The highly regarded museum has suffered 60 per cent budget cuts over the past two years and the petition asks the mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône to guarantee the financial resources necessary for the…

The advent of photography in 1839 catapulted Victorian society into a new age of science, art and leisure. Previously only the wealthy could possess a painted portrait, but photography was cheaper and democratised the privilege of owning a likeness. A variety of forms soon emerged including the carte-de-visite, the daguerreotype, albumen prints, family photograph albums and…

The Moscow Multimedia Art Museum has announced the launch of a new portal, History of Russia in Photographs, which exhibits around 80,000 photos dating from 1860 to 2000. The museum's director, Olga Sviblovo, said the portal's goal was to unite all museum and private photo collections in order to create a 'visual…

While St Andrews is world-renowned as the home of golf, BPH readers will know the important role the town has played nationally and internationally in photography from the 1840s to today. A new photography festival, which launches in August, will celebrate the role and importance of St Andrews in the world of photography and engage with those who live, work in and visit the…

I am asking members here for help in identifying this nude albumen photo. 20 x 16.5 cm oval print laid onto stiff card, with an ink inscription lower right: Octavie.

This came from a British album recently purchased in Derbyshire, containing hundreds of erotic albumen prints of paintings and sculptures, all female nudes. This was the only "from life' print, save for…

You may not have seen, but last week Manohar Aich , the Indian bodybuilder died at the remarkable age of 104. He was known as the 'Pocket Hercules', as he was under 5 feet tall, but his feats were legendary and he won Mr Universe in 1952.

I mention this because when he came to London in 1952 he stayed with my Grandfather S.D.Jouhar, who took a series of pictures of…

I finally got around to scanning some more of my black and white archive, this time further photographs from a trip to England in 1993 forming a new sequence. The photographs picture my now ageing mother (these were taken over 20 years ago), an English fair, medieval tiles and Highgate Cemetery, among other subjects. They become especially poignant after the recent passing…

On 30 June there is a party to celebrate Studies in Photography the journal of the Scottish Society for the History of Photography SSHoP) at the Scottosh National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. From the relaunch of the journal will appear as a twice yearly publication with this Anniversary Edition that takes as its inspiration the 1996 edition which featured the work…

Two more titles have appeared in the RAI Anthropology and Photography on-line pamphlet series. Catherine de Lorenzo and Juno Gemes, From Resistance Towards Invisibility and Shireen Walton, Photographic Truth in Motion: The Case of Iranian Photoblogs. 

Both are available without charge to download at: …

At the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Demachy (1859-1936) was one of the most famous photographers in the world. As the leader of the French school of pictorial photography, he fought tirelessly for the recognition of photography as a means of artistic creation. Demachy remains particularly important for his masterly use of pigment processes which enabled pictorial…

Philippe Garner, who held the first photography auction in the United Kingdom in 1971 at Sotheby's and then moved, via Phillips, to Christie's in 2004, retired from the auction world on 31 May 2016.

Garner joined Sotheby's training scheme in 1970. In March 1971, he took charge of the fledgling department devoted to Art Nouveau and Art Deco and was also…