July 2013 Blog Posts (28)

Purpose of the Job: To research, develop and deliver content for an innovative programme of exhibitions, displays, multimedia and events.  This will include internationally significant, innovative exhibitions delivered for Media Space, working with colleagues at the Science Museum.

To ensure all processes & documentation is adhered to, liaising…

The Bodleian Libraries' public appeal to secure the Talbot archive has led to forty-two previously unknown photogenic drawings being discovered. They have been given to the Bodleian Library.

After hearing about the Bodleian’s campaign, Noel Chanan, biographer of John Dillwyn Llewelyn, was approached by Sir John Venables-Llewelyn, great-great grandson of the…

Oxford, 31 July 2013 -- The Bodleian’s appeal was launched in December 2012 with an initial deadline of the end of February 2013 to raise £2.2 million pounds needed for purchasing the Archive. A significant grant of £1.2 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) late last year gave the appeal a vital boost. Thanks to the most recent gift from the…

In July 2013, the Musée Maison Nicéphore Niépce in St Loup de Varennes - founded and exclusively financed by the Speos International Photography School since 1999 -- was nominated Maisons des illustres by the French Ministry of Culture in the presence of high-ranked French government representatives. The house where the world's first photo was…

20 July: One of the oldest, extant, dedicated photographic archives in the world, the Barnardo's photographic archive, currently housed in Barkingside, East London is under threat. Following its digitisation the archive will be transferred to another organisation or will be destroyed.

Over the next few months, Barnardo's will be having its entire photographic archive…

An oil portrait of Benjamin Brecknell Turner is being offered by a British seller on eBay. The auction closes on 28 July. According to the auction entry Turner was was one of Britain's first photographers and a founding member in 1853 of the Photographic Society of London. 

See the auction entry here: …

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) was a British pioneer in photography, yet he also embraced the wider preoccupations of the Victorian Age—a time that saw many political, social, intellectual, technical, and industrial changes. His manuscripts, now in the archive of the British Library, reveal the connections and contrasts between his…

In the 19th Century, the vast majority of photos were shot with the extremely popular Petzval lens. The lens was invented by Joseph Petzval in Vienna in 1840 and had a huge impact on the development of photography. Photos shot with a Petzval lens are immediately recognisable for their sharpness and crispness, strong colour saturation, wonderful swirly bokeh effect,…

A website has been set up to showcase photographer Andrew Paterson, whose studio was based in Inverness between 1895-1980. He was an internationally renowned, multi-award winning artist-photographer. His services were sought over several decades by many leading political and commercial figures of the day. In 1935 the Glasgow Daily…

To coincide with the imminent 350^th anniversary of Philosophical Transactions, the world’s oldest scientific journal, The Royal Society and the AHRC research project “Publishing the Philosophical Transactions” are organising a conference, to be held at the Royal Society in March 2015, on the history of science journal publishing.  Phil.Trans. has a long association with the early history of photography.  

Publish or Perish? Scientific…

In the latest issue of Ancient Egypt magazine  (No.78, June-July 2013) I have an article entitled “Egyptology and Photography: Two Founding Fathers”  which traces the correspondence between W H F Talbot and Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius in the 1840s. Lepsius was then preparing for his pioneering expedition to Egypt, and wanted to learn the art of photography from Talbot so that his team could use cameras to record inscriptions and…

Bernard Quaritch Ltd has confirmed the acquisition by the Hong Kong based Moonchu Foundation of the Terry Bennett Collection of Early Chinese Photography, now to be known as The Moonchu Collection of Early Photography of China.  Comprising approximately 10,000 photographs from 1844…

We are looking for a Curator to take responsibility for the BFI National Archive’s collection of posters, designs and museum objects as part of a fixed-term maternity cover post, commencing late September/early October 2013. Working as part of the BFI curatorial team you will be required to document, develop, research and interpret the poster and designs…

Photography was invented by William Fox Talbot in the world of the English country house. The leisured and affluent upper classes went on to make an art form of their new toy, creating intimate portraits of stunning beauty. Their work stands as poignant testament to a way of life that has all but vanished.

With a Preface by Michael Pritchard, Director-General of the…

I have just won 1st prize for my cyanotype print on watercolour paper called Vintage Blouse & awarded a one woman show at the Pallant House Gallery in 2014 (dates to be confirmed).

The Sussex Artists Award is a collaboration between St Wilfrid's Hospice & Pallant House Gallery Chichester aiming to raise funds for the two charities & championing the work of…

I thought it might cause some amusement to post this picture from an the event held last weekend in Bath by the RPS Historical Group.

My picture touches four periods of photography: The sitter is David Burder, Daguerreotype aficionado, being photographed by Dr Guy Brown using a freshly made collodion wet plate in the camera while being captured on a digital camera by…

During his lifetime, the path-breaking and prolific lensman Raja Deen Dayal (1884 1844-1905) was one of the most widely recognized photographers from the Indian subcontinent. Today he remains among the most celebrated figures from this earlier era. This book brings together for the first time extensive archival…

A non-profit research project named Daguerreobase launched by the Nederland’s Fotomuseum, and joined in 2009 by the Fotomuseum of Antwerp with the aim of generating as much as knowledge as possible, by identifying preserving and disclosing detailed information on daguerreotypes held in Dutch and Flemish collections. A dedicated website…

The Getty Conservation Institute has joined with the Arab Image Foundation, the Art Conservation Department of the University of Delaware and the Photograph Conservation Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art to form the Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative (MEPPI).…

Dr Gil Pasternak has been appointed Senior Research Fellow in Photographic History at De Montfort University. He was previously at the University of Huddersfield. 

Dr Gil Pasternak studied for his Ph.D. in the History of Art Department at University College London (UCL), specialising in the theory and history of photography in the context of fine art, visual and…