June 2021 Blog Posts (23)

This short discussion, convened on Zoom, will examine the shifts affecting the programming, commissioning and collection of photography by art and photography museums, in the UK and internationally. On the occasion of the publication of Alexandra Moschovi’s monograph A Gust of Photo-Philia: Photography in the Art Museum and in the context of NEPN’s…

We are living an ‘archival moment’ (Daston 2017). Applied to photography, this moment is characterised by limitless production and circulation and, at the same time, by deep concerns about the loss of information in both analogue and digital resources and the fragility of aggregated image clusters and fleeting collections. Given that digitisation and digital…

In 2020 the Don’t Press Print conference organized by the RPS and CFPR brought together nineteen speakers from across the world to discuss historical perspectives on the collodion photographic process and how contemporary artists use the collodion process in their practice. The process was the dominant through the nineteenth century and has seen a resurgence…

Spiritualism, Photography, and the Search for Ectoplasm. In this talk, award-winning photographer Shannon Taggart discusses the history of spirit photography and its influence on her own documentary work with the Lily Dale Spiritualist Assembly, recently published in her Fulgur Press book Séance. An artist based in…

The Photographic Historical Society of Canada is presenting a talk which examines doctor of medicine and anthropologist Richard Neuhauss' (1855-1915) use of a stuffed superb parrot as the test object of the Lippmann process; the photographic technology relying on standing waves for the rendition of colour, first disclosed in 1891 by Luxembourgian-French…

A lecturer in history of photography, full-time fixed term, is sought by Birkbeck’s History of Art Department during Professor Steve…

This opportunity is for a curatorial / academic researcher to project-manage the first dedicated publication to explore the legacy of Black women in photography active in Britain between the 1980s – 90s. This publication is based on an illustrated…

Christie's is to offer The Herschel family collection of 69 offprints, extracts and separate publications by Sir John F. Herschel, 1813-1850. It is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

The collection of 69 original works by Sir John Herschel, assembled by his son, William James Herschel (1833-1917) collection includes offprints…

I'm looking for information on my biological father Hugh Scott. I have two pieces of information, from the British Journal of Photography, on his photographic career - see below:

10 Sept 1937.  In a report on the Professional Photographers’ Association exhibition of portraits in London:  ‘Hugh Scott has some good large heads, mostly of sitters in theatrical character, though the make-ups, and particularly the wigs, are in some cases not so successful as the…

The Photo Morgue, The New York Times’ legendary photo archive, is so well known that ‘morgue’ has become a synonym for ‘press archive’. However, press photos in archives are far from dead. In this symposium we focus on the importance and use of press photo archives in researching the history of photojournalism.

The symposium will focus on the new field…

Four Corners and Birkbeck invite applications for a part-time Archive Researcher, to document and undertake research at the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive at Birkbeck and…

Hello! I am looking for any kind of information relating to a wacky turn of the century trend, which involved tourists in Egypt posing inside mummy sarcophagi (see photograph). Although the practice seems to have waxed and waned for a period of about 14 years, few of these images are readily available online. I am wondering if anyone knows of any…

Photo albums as a subject of historical and theoretical discourse are usually considered an instrument of nostalgic reminiscing or, on the contrary, as a vehicle for the traumatic memories of the creators or their descendants, who were directly confronted with these memories and "postmemories" (Marianne Hirsch). But what about albums divested of the original…

Since the advent of film in the late nineteenth century, moving images have been integral to making and communicating science. A rich interdisciplinary literature has examined such representations of science in the cinema and on television and investigated how scientists have used moving images to conduct research and communicate knowledge. Responding to…

Taking James Clerk Maxwell’s experiments as a launching point, this event seeks to expand the field of knowledge surrounding the experimentation, invention, reception and exhibition of colour photography from 1855 to the present day. The event will take an interdisciplinary approach to the topic of colour photography, considering its historical development,…

Light Years is a special four-part exhibition series in celebration of The Photographers' Gallery's 50th anniversary.  Arranged around four thematic displays each ‘chapter’ draws on rarely seen materials from the Gallery’s archive to explore key moments or movements in both the Gallery’s history and the photography landscape more widely. 

The…

When early photographic pioneers Robert Adamson (1821 – 1848) and David Octavius Hill (1802 – 1870) were busy producing their pathbreaking calotypes in 1840s Edinburgh, a rallying call was heard on the streets of the…

The future of a highly important collection of images by William Henry Fox Talbot, some of the earliest photographs ever made, has been secured. Through the generosity of a private individual, they are being placed on long-term loan at the Bodleian Libraries, allowing them to be studied, exhibited and made available digitally. This generous act has prevented…

On 14 January 1971, The Photographers’ Gallery opened its doors with The Concerned Photographer, an exhibition which had previously been shown in the United States, Switzerland and Japan, and which presented photography as the optimum medium to document social conditions. This online conference will situate the gallery’s fifty-year…

Students at The Glasgow School of Art have demonstrated the importance of bringing creativity and innovation to the most pressing issues facing society in Graduate Showcase 2021 which was launched today, 9 June. Tackling issues ranging from the need for a more sustainable way of living, to gender, racism, health and well-being,…