November 2014 Blog Posts (22)

Reflecting the World: Museums and collections of visual and sound documentation around 1900 is an international conference organized by the Elysée Museum, the University of Lausanne and the University of Geneva, Switzerland, 5-6 November, 2015. A paper copy of the call can be…

The Real Tom Thumb: History’s Smallest Superstar, a documentary on the life of Charles Stratton, will be broadcast on BBC4 on Tuesday 25 November, at 9pm. The programme features contributions from David Burder FRPS discussing early photography (shown, below) and the demonstration of the collodion process and Dr Michael Pritchard (shown, right) on…

Following a lively panel discussion about the role of Women Photographers, both historical and current, held at the TATE Modern in April 2014, we are now inviting papers and visual presentations for a conference to be held at the Tate Modern, London in the autumn of 2015.

The original panel brought together women from across the globe to explore and identify key…

Last year BPH reported that the historic Barnardo's archive, which includes historical photography of children dating back to the 1870s, was under threat (See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/barnardo-s-archive-up-for-grabs). The plan was for…

This month has seen the fruition of a twenty-five year project for my son Edwin and myself. Having made 64,000 duplicate negatives and more recently digitised nearly 42,000 we now have made made a selection of 200 which form an exhibition currently on show at the Farmleigh Gallery in the Phoenix park, Dublin. Launched by the Irish Deputy Prime Minister it is drawing large…

Photography is central to the ways in which the past is recounted, in public institutions such as museums as much as in private settings. Yet the histories of photographs themselves, and how they are implicated in the stories as well as the telling, are often neglected.

In order to develop a richer understanding of historical photographs, this lecture uses the framing…

An exciting new opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and ambitious individual to join Candlestar as a member of the Photo London team as its Gallery and Artistic Development Manager.

The inaugural edition of Photo London at Somerset House (21-24 May, 2015) will be both a major international photography fair, featuring many of the world’s leading galleries, and…

Rock House, on Edinburgh's Calton Hill is being offered for sale by Savills for £1.2 million. Savills comments that It is notable in photographic history as the studio of Hill and Adamson, and a plaque commemorating their partnership is mounted on the front of the house.



In 1843 Rock House was owned by the scientist Robert Adamson, who in the…

The death has been reported of Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani, aged 48, in London. Although not a name that will now be familiar to many photography collectors, for a period in the late 1990s/2000s Sheikh Saud was the largest buyer of photography - photographs and cameras - in the world, securing a number of important photography collections for himself and for the state of Qatar at auction and from dealers across the UK, Europe and North America.

The blurring of lines between the…

The fourth Ryerson Image Centre Symposium highlights the most current research in the history of photography, bringing emerging scholars from universities worldwide to speak about their bodies of inquiry, their methods and their findings. This rising group of young photo-historians will engage in dialogue with renowned scholars, revealing how contemporary historical inquiry sits within—and departs from—established traditions. The hope is that participants, and the audience, may better…

In recent years, the proliferation of online resources has shifted the balance of research away from physical archives towards online searching and browsing. However, keyword searches do not make it easy to browse for interesting ideas and relevant information when one is not sure exactly what one is looking for, even though it is often easy enough to recognise the potential of such information when one sees it.

Yet arguably browsing behaviour is just as important as targeted…

The Royal Photographic Society is holding two historical process workshops led by Michael Schaaf. The first on 14 February 2015 will allow participants to make ambrotypes. On the second, on 21 February, participants will making wet-collodion negatives and prints. Both take place in Bristol's St Pauls Darkroom. Early booking is advised. 

Read more and book…

Photographic collections or 'archives' from Africa and its diasporas are increasingly en vogue among researchers and curators internationally. What is less often discussed are the sensitive issues involved in repackaging such image objects for display in new contexts and for broader audiences in terms of historical time,  geographical place, or cultural location. For…

We are delighted to announce that the 'Rethinking Early Photography' conference now has a fourth keynote speaker: Professor Larry Schaaf, Director of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

Please see the conference website (…

I am investigating the unidentified photographer of the accompanying rare stereoview of Selina Gray (with two children), the Arlington House slave with whom Mrs. Robert E. Lee entrusted the keys and care of the Custis-Lee Mansion before evacuating Arlington Plantation in May 1861. The photo was purchased recently by Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, from an ebay…

The March 2011 earthquake triggered a tsunami that ravaged coastal areas, destroying buildings and sweeping more than 19,000 people out to sea. One hard-hit community was Rikuzentakata, a city in IwatePrefecture: 80 percent of homes and more than 1,500 people were lost. The city’s museums, too, were not…

I have two photographs image size each 2.5" X 3.5" printed on a heavy semi gloss paper but irregularly cut.

They are in the style I think of Cecil Beaton and C1930s?

I am reasonably sure I have seen the girl with the basket of fruit published, perhaps in BJP?

The photos were acquired with a collection of  Dr William Delano Walker who I have mentioned in…

I'm restoring and archiving something like 2500 very old, (mostly pre 1920's) photos, and would like to try to re-focus quite a number of them. Most were taken by family members and friends probably using Kodak cameras, and inevitably many show evidence of camera shake and focussing problems. I wonder if any members have user experience of a PS plug in called "Focus Magic"? I use Elements 11 for most of my work. Any advice for this software, or indeed any other, would be very useful.

The release of Mr Turner, Mike Leigh's film about J M W Turner includes a meeting between Turner and the photographer J J E Mayall who takes Turner's daguerreotype portrait. The film scenario notes: Turner visits the London studio of J.J.E. Mayall, a…