September 2021 Blog Posts (35)

More than thirty people gathered in Edinburgh on 29 September to celebrate the installation of a commemorative plaque to John Thomson (1837-1921) on the exterior of his childhood home at 6 Brighton Street. The building in Thomson's day housed 77 people and is now immediately behind the National Museums Scotland in Chambers Street and close to the University…

Alex Boyd is a Scottish-German visual artist, writer and curator who has debuted a new body of work at Stills, Edinburgh, which explores the unseen uses of the Scottish landscape by the military. The exhibition runs from 30 September to 13 November 2021.…

The Royal Collection Trust's Prince Albert project has come to an end and is now fully live and accessible. Prince Albert: His Life and Legacy makes freely available a total of 22,000 archival documents, prints and photographs from the Royal Archives, the Royal Collection and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. 

The latest additions…

Ryerson Image Centre is hosting a noon time collection talk with Steven Evans who will discuss the Francis Bedford Research Collection. Steven Evans is a Toronto-based photographer and collector who has focused on architecture and the urban environment for over 40 years. Evans graduated from Ryerson University’s Media Studies program in 1982 and as a…

Grant Scott, who has done so much with his film Do not bend: The photographic Life of Bill Jay to remind us of the seminal role played by Jay in British photography from the late 1960s to mid-1970s, has made a new discovery. He has located Jay's contact sheets from a trip he made with Tony Ray-Jones to New York in 1968 hidden in a plastic box in a…

Peter C. Bunnell, whose passionate and inspired teaching profoundly changed the field of photographic history, passed away at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on Monday, 20 September 2021. As the inaugural David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University, a position he accepted in 1972 and held for 30 years…

Photographic Digital Heritage: Institutions, Communities and The Political intends to explore how uses of digital technology, and digitisation in particular, have transformed the ways in which historical photographs of value to perceived inherited cultural legacies are collected, deployed and identified as such. It will specifically investigate what has…

Forum Auctions, London, is offering a copy of John Thomson's Illustrations of China and its People which dates from 1873-74. The volumes include 96 photographic plates. The lot is estimated at £15,000-20,000. …

Colour Fever is a two-week celebration of colour photography. Through a series of online talks and ‘in conversations’, it will consider a range of processes, exhibitions, inventors and artists, spanning the nineteenth century to the present day. Hear from photographers, artists, academics, curators and researchers working with colour photography, historically…

In its development the panoramic photograph was to exceed the limits of the human field of vision to encompass what we can only see by turning on our heads; could it make art? In addition to a blog post discussing the creative and documentary scope of…

Have you encountered the passionate photography of Edith Tudor-Hart and her remarkable life story? Let me introduce you to her here…

Rhonda Wilson MBE (17 August 1953 - 6 November 2014) was a women's activist, photographer, writer, editor, and educator in British contemporary photography, best known for her initiation of the Rhubarb-Rhubarb International Festival of the Image.

I've just recently been researching the energetic promoter of photography Rhonda Wilson of Birmingham, and have created a Wikipedia…

Hello, I am looking for information about this late1850's photo of a British Boy's School. What is that strange metal contraption on the stump? Any guesses most appreciated.…

The study of women photographers continues to attract new research and the V&A's Parasol and new curatorial post is the latest example from the UK (see BPH last week). Different ways of looking…

The Lindsays of Balcarres began with the rediscovery of some dusty photograph albums at the home of the author’s late father in Fife. The wealth of images within, unexplored for over eighty years, provided the perfect way to present the fascinating untold stories of the family and their lives. From a photography perspective it starts with…

This book tells the story of Stephen Markson who rose from messenger boy at The Times to the top of his profession as senior staff photojournalist for that paper. The book tells the stories behind the pictures, images and anecdotes that give a tantalising glimpse of the danger and glamour, tragedy and celebrity, seen through the lens of a talented…

Peter Domankiewicz has written a blog in which he suggests, and cites evidence, that William Friese-Greene was a supporter of women's rights. Friese-Greene was active when such issues were very topical and the subject of wide debate and in a lecture he gave to Bath Photographic Society in 1890 he stated: '‘Now the next subject I shall connect with this…

The 33rd Annual Daguerreian Society symposium will take place from 15-17 October. The event will include a virtual fair featuring 19th and 20th century photographs, books, and ephemera including images from the highest levels of the art to vernacular snapshots, collectible books, historical images, and a broad range of historical photographic material.…

For more than 60 years the Department of Photography and Film at Salisbury provided education for professional photographers and cinematographers. Starting in 1956 with part-time courses at The College of Art it developed to become one of the country’s leading provincial centres.

With over 200 pages of illustrations, stories and a chronological…