Bonhams' Travel & Exploration auction includes the photography collection of Roger Ward (1945-2023). Born in New Zealand Roger lived much of his life in Europe, and began forming his remarkable collection of early photographs of Asia following his retirement from a highly successful career in book marketing – a profession that made him an internationally-known figure in publishing and bookselling. A scholarly collector, he read widely on the history of photography in Asia in general and China in particular which held a fascination for him. Condition was a key factor for him, unless the images were so rare and important that they were the only photographs that he was able to obtain.

Highlights of the collection are several panoramas of Amoy, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and elsewhere, a scarce group of 1850s salt prints of Canton and vicinity, and early stereoviews.

Travel and Exploration including the Roger Ward Photography Collection
Online, 6-15 July 2026
Bonhams
See: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/32186/travel-and-exploration-including-the-roger-ward-photography-collection/?query=Roger+Ward

Image froma group of 19 early stereoviews of China by Pierre Joseph Rossier (13), Louis Legrand (3), Radiquet et fils (1), and others c1858-186

The sixth workshop of Museum Dialogues seeks to explore how the accommodation of a continuously expanding photographic field—now encompassing computational, networked and AI‑generated imagery—demands not only new collecting strategies and enhanced epistemic literacy but also a fundamental rethinking of value systems and institutional frameworks. Central to these discussions are pressing questions of representational ethics, intellectual property, originality and ownership in relation to AI‑generated images. How do such images challenge existing definitions of photography? How are labour and agency reconfigured in the era of AI?   

Speakers:
Craig Ames, Visual Artist, Researcher and Senior Lecturer, University of Sunderland, UK
Dr Alex Connock, Media and AI Specialist, UK 
Dr Areti Galani, Professor of Digital Heritage Practices, Newcastle University, UK

Museum Dialogues aims to transcend the disciplinary boundaries of art history, visual culture, photography, new media, museum and curating studies and bridge theory and practice. Bringing together academic researchers and practitioners, the programme has supported the exchange of innovative solutions, inquiries, and practical challenges relating to the exhibition, collection and interpretation of photography.

This workshop is supported by the University of Sunderland.

Workshop 6: The Impact of AI in Photographic and Museum Practices 
Friday 10 July 2026, 1–4pm (British Summer Time) on Zoom.
See more and register here: https://northeastphoto.net/project/museum-dialogues/workshop-6/

The John Rylands Library's special collections department has acquired 110 prints form the photography Dorothy Bohm (1924-2023). The work highlights the formative period Bohm spent in Manchester, developing her professional practice, and commemorates the 2010 exhibition of her work at Manchester Art Gallery. The collection includes:

• Almost 100 black and white portrait photographs taken at Studio Alexander
• Ephemera relating to Studio Alexander and Dorothy Bohm’s life in Manchester in the 1940s
• 11 colour photographs taken in Manchester between 2008 and 2010
• Ephemera relating to the retrospective exhibition of Dorothy’s work at Manchester Art Gallery in 2010
• Original negatives of both bodies of work

Anne Anderton, Senior Special Collections Curator with responsibility for Visual Collections told BPH: 'It is a wonderful insight into Bohm’s formative period spent here in Manchester before she went on to a significant international career.  It is currently being catalogued but is open to researchers by application. Additionally, a good number of print volumes that were part of Dorothy Bohm’s personal library are now catalogued can be found in our library search.'

Born in 1924, Dorothy was sent to England in 1939 to escape the rise of Nazism. She first arrived in Sussex, later moving to Manchester, where her brother was studying. There she met Louis Bohm, a Polish student who would become her husband in 1945. Bohm studied photography at the Manchester Municipal College of Technology and after graduation, she worked for four years with photographer Samuel Cooper before opening her own portrait studio, Studio Alexander, on Market Street in Manchester in 1946. Her studio work supported her husband while he completed his PhD. In the years that followed, Bohm and her husband travelled extensively and she eventually sold the studio in 1958.

Anne also told BPH that the library had very recently acquired a magnificent set of Suffragette photographs which will be available shortly. 

See more detail here.

Image: © Estate of Dorothy Bohm.

Foxed Editions is a new imprint dedicated to the rediscovery of the photobook as a historical form. Its focus is on works that have slipped out of circulation or have remained at the margins of photographic history—books that are rare, overlooked, or insufficiently understood, yet which expand or complicate established narratives. Foxed Editions aims to make important but difficult-to-access works available again, while establishing a programme that connects collecting, scholarship, and publishing.

The programme combines two strands. The first is the facsimile republication of significant early photobooks, produced with careful attention to the material qualities of the original: format, sequencing, and print processes. The second consists of newly developed titles that map underexplored territories, often drawing on long-term research projects, archives, and private collections.

Foxed Editions is guided by an editorial approach that privileges selection and context. Each title is chosen not only for its intrinsic quality but for the way it contributes to a broader understanding of photographic publishing—whether as an early experiment, a regional tradition, or a body of work shaped by specific historical conditions.

The imprint operates within the RRB Photobooks framework, which provides design, production, marketing, and distribution. Editorial direction and production are led by Rudi Thoemmes, Björn Andersson and Jessa Fairbrother, working in collaboration with a network of researchers, writers, and institutions.

Its forthcoming books include: Thomas Wiegand's 66 Photobooks from East Germany and Fred Judge's Camera Pictures of London at Night. 

Foxed Editions
Find out more and register for future updates here

Fast Forward: Women in Photography announces the 7th edition of the Fast Forward conference, which is organized in partnership with A.J.K. Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia (Central University), New Delhi.

The research project Fast Forward: Women in Photography aims to explore the work and histories of women photographers, promote opportunities and question ideas dominating the field of photography by initiating thoughtful, new debates. Initiated in 2015 with a two-day conference at Tate Modern (UK), the project has become significant within the world of photography for examining the work of women photographers and for questioning the way that established canons have been formed. Between 2017 and 2025 the editions 2 to 6 of the Fast Forward conference took place in Lithuania, the UK, Greece, Croatia and Poland. 

The Digital era has prompted a new interest in archives, both material and virtual. Long-term preservation of analogue through digitization has been the most ubiquitous for both public and private archives. In many cases, material from family albums and personal collections now have public visibility in galleries, websites, multimedia projects and publications. Digitization has also inaugurated several online initiatives in which ordinary citizens scan photographs, documents and other ephemera and post these on the internet. 

Inspired by Arlette Farge’s pathbreaking book, The Allure of the Archives (1989) the seventh Fast Forward conference titled The Lure of the Archive: Photographs of the Home and Heart examines the burgeoning narrative sbeyond institutionalized archives through vernacular photography, family and personal collections and online archival platforms. Geoffrey Batchen has described the vernacular as “what has almost always been excluded from photography’s history: ordinary photographs, the ones made or bought (or sometimes bought and then made over) by everyday folk from 1839 until now, the photographs that preoccupy the home and the heart but rarely the museum or the academy.” (2000, 262)*

We are interested to discover how these most familiar and at times overlooked practices of photography have been used to reshape the very idea of the archive or to draw attention to its erasures and silences. We invite proposals from curators, artists, scholars, practitioners, students and others who critically engage with the vernacular to raise new questions about the past from the vantage point of the contemporary.

You are invited to submit a 500-word abstract to apply to make a presentation at the conference. 

Call For Papers: The 7th Fast Forward: Women in Photography conference 
The Lure of the Archive: Photographs of the Home and Heart
Conference dates: 3-4 February 2027
Deadline for abstract submission: 29 June 2026
Read the full call and suggested themes here: https://fastforward.photography/our-projects/call-for-papers-conference-7-in-new-delhi-india/

Images: Negative Jacket from Liberty Photo Flash, using Kodak Advertisement, Bhuj (Kutch), India c. 1950s. Source: From the personal collection of Rajendra Kuverba. Courtesy: Eastman Kodak Company / Manobina Roy: Portrait of Daughter Aparajita, Bombay, c.1960. Courtesy: Aparajita Sinha

De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre has announced the theme and dates of its 2027 conference. It will take place over the 14-15 June 2027 with a theme of Photography and Privacy. A call for papers will be made shortly.

For PHRC news and information about forthcoming events, visit and follow its Centre's website and blog. Events and seminars are delivered online and, with the exception of the annual conference, are free to attend, although advance registration is required.

Image: Aindreas Scholz, Gil Pasternak and Beatriz Pichel at the 2026 PHRC annual conference which took place on the 15-16 June 2026. © Michael Pritchard.

London's Warburg Institute has received a donation from Professor Elizabeth McGrath, in support of its Photographic Collection. The Warburg Institute's Photographic Collection was established by Aby Warburg in the late 1880s and contains around 400,000 photographs of sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, tapestries, and other forms of imagery from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also has an expanding online counterpart. 

See more here and https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/library-collections/photographic-collection

Image: Artefacts in the Warburg Institute Photographic Collection. Credit: the Warburg Institute.

One Hundred Heroines has blogged about the Australian society photographer Dorothy Welding (sic) (1894-1954) who deliberately modelled herself on the British photographer Dorothy Wilding with a simialr signature and studio logo. Welding was working in Sydney between 1931 and 1954. 

Read the blog here: https://hundredheroines.org/historical-heroines/dorothy-welding-1894-1954/

I have a photograph of Fetheresso Castle, Stonehaven, dated 1856 and which may have been exhibited in the Photographic Society of Scotland exhibition in Edinburgh that year.

Taken by Johnston Shearer and a collodion photograph.

I can't find too much about him or if this photograph might be of any value / interest to a museum or other collection.

Any information would be gratefully received

We cordially invite submissions for the conference 'Castles, Salons, and Darkrooms: Mapping the nobility’s impact on early photographic history in Central Europe (1840s–1860s),' to be held on 20 October 2026 in Prague. Submission deadline: 15 July 2026.

A significant portion of the earliest photographic heritage in Central Europe originates from aristocratic collections. Within photographic historiography, however, the role of the nobility has long been overlooked. Scholars have predominantly focused on photographic practitioners, treating the aristocracy as merely passive consumers of photographic technologies, services, and publications. Yet, as specialized studies suggest, the interest of the nobility and its extensive networks of contacts exerted a decisive influence on the expansion of the photographic field, both on institutional and personal levels, particularly within the Habsburg Monarchy.

This conference aims to invert the traditional perspective by focusing on members of the nobility as key agents who co-constituted the conditions for the development of photographic culture and the dissemination of photographic knowledge in Central Europe. The nobility’s active role took several shapes: acting as photographic collectors, patrons, and promoters of the earliest commercial photo studios; initiating specific photographic projects and publications; and participating as aristocratic amateur photographers.

Concurrently, particular attention is paid to the role of ‘go-betweens’ who enabled and enhanced the nobility’s access to this novel technology and its products. These intermediaries played a decisive role in transferring specialized knowledge between the photographic sphere and the aristocratic world in both directions. Furthermore, they instrumentally facilitated the transmission of photographic technology and expertise across national borders. This group included not only members of the aristocracy receptive to external technological innovations, but also the photographers and photographic enthusiasts granted access to the lower nobility and the strictly closed world of the high Austrian aristocracy. Alongside diplomats, these intermediaries often comprised personal physicians, estate administrators, ministerial officials, scientists and university professors, military officers, private tutors, and keepers of aristocratic collections. Leveraging personal contacts, intellectual and cultural capital, as well as robust institutional backgrounds, these individuals disrupted the rigid social boundaries of the aristocracy, thereby contributing to the reconfiguration of early photographic knowledge.

The conference seeks to explore both individual actors and the diverse contexts in which photography was deployed or distributed across Central Europe and beyond during its first decades, courtesy of the nobility. These contexts include, for example:

• Personal and familial representation
• Diplomacy, military, and maritime affairs
• Education and travel
• Estate management and economic development
• Collecting, fine art, and print culture
• The private sphere of aristocratic life

We welcome both case studies focusing on specific patrons, commissioners, or intermediaries of photographic knowledge, as well as papers tracking the trajectories, mechanisms, and communication channels fostered by the nobility that contributed to the development of early photography. Proposals may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• What were the primary motivations behind the nobility’s engagement with photography during the 1840s–1860s?
• Were economic capital and leisure time truly the primary determinants of aristocratic interest in photography during this period, as is frequently asserted in scholarly literature?
• Did photography reinforce the insularity and exclusivity of the aristocracy, or did it conversely help dismantle strict social boundaries and gradually ‘bourgeoisify’ the lifestyle of high society?
• What were the structural characteristics and formation processes of the earliest photographic collections assembled by the nobility?
• In what ways and to what extent was the prolific photographic culture of the British and French royal courts reflected in the practices of the Central European nobility?
• In what ways can the study of aristocratic networks map the transnational and cross-border circulation of photographic knowledge, despite the scarcity of preserved photographic collections?
• To what extent, and in what manner, might the nobility’s interest in photography have aligned with their political aspirations?

Submission Guidelines: We invite scholars from various fields engaging with nineteenth-century photography and aristocratic history to submit proposals for 20-minute presentations. Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words accompanied by a brief biographical note to Dr Petra Trnková at trnkova@udu.cas.cz by 15 July 2026.

Important Dates

Submission Deadline: 15 July 2026

Notification of Acceptance: 31 July 2026

Conference Date: 20 October 2026

Organizers: Dr Libor Jůn, Dr Francesca Strobino, Mgr. Denisa Tichá, Dr Petra Trnková

 For any enquiries, please contact Dr Petra Trnková at trnkova@udu.cas.cz.

We are pleased to inform you about our current summer sale list with original photographs and photobooks. Please use the following link to download the full list:  Summer sale

Kunstbroker GmbH | Gabriel S. R. Muller
Goldach - Switzerland

POST x Kraszna-Krausz Photobook Weekender

Sat 4 Jul 2026 10:00 - Sun 5 Jul 2026 16:30

POST, Second Floor, Industrial House, Conway Street, BN3 3LW

BOOKING HERE

Join us for a celebration of the photobook in collaboration with the Kraszna-Krausz Photobook Awards, where we will be showcasing the 2026 long-listed titles alongside a diverse programme of photobook related artist talks and activities.

WEEKEND SCHEDULE-

Saturday 4th July (only £10)

10am: Welcome and walk around exhibition of books longlisted for this year's Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards

10.30 - 11.00: Introduction and presentation by POST & KKF

11.00 - 11.45: Artist presentation by Jermaine Francis, photographer and judge of the 2026 KKF Photobook Award

12.00 - 13.00: A live Messy Truth with Charlotte Flint and Gem Fletcher, reflecting on Flint’s recent publication on Tee A. Corinne

13.00 - 13.45: Lunch

14.00 - 14.45: Panel discussion on prevailing trends in publishing with Rhiannon Adam, Charlotte Flint and Jermain Francis chaired by Simon Roberts.

14.45 - 15:30: Artist presentation by Amin Yousefi, discussing his debut publication with Luhz Press

15:30 - 16.00: Books signings including recent publications by Craig Easton, Eva Voutsaki, Gabrielle Motola Moy, Laura El-Tantawy, Marc Wilson, Martin Seeds, Sam Laughlin & Tom Shaw.

16.00 - 17.00: Panel discussion with the The Photobook Club Collective on the power of collective practice and issues related to contemporary photobook publishing

17.00 - 17.30: Book signings

18.30 - 21.00: Craig Easton's photography pub quiz, with POST prizes!

We will also be joined by the Brighton-based, independent publishers Jane&Jeremy and Harry Hardie, founder of Here Press, who will have copies of their publications.

Sunday 5th July (free!)

10.30 - 16.00:

The exhibition of KKF longlisted books will open to the public along with books published by individual photographers, members of The Photobook Club Collective and Jane&Jeremy.

Drop-in show & tell . Bring work that you're looking to publish as a photobook and share with fellow photographers and members of POST. 

Concurrently we’ll be hosting a hands-on 2-day photobook binding workshop, run by Stanley James Press & Eva Voutsaki.

Whether you're a photographer, publisher, or simply curious, this is a chance to engage with some of the most exciting voices and ideas shaping the photobook industry today! 

TICKETS:

Tickets provide entry to the main Photobook event on Saturday 4 July, 10.00 - 18.00. Please note that a small general admission entry fee helps POST to continue its cultural programme. Student tickets are available at a cheaper price. POST members can attend for free. 

There is no charge for entry to the exhibition on Sunday 5 July, 10.30 - 16.00

Tickets for the two-day Bookbinding Workshop on Saturday 4 - Sunday 5 July can be booked here separately.

BIOGRAPHIES:

The Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards are the UK’s leading prizes celebrating excellence in photography and moving image publishing. They recognise individuals who have made an outstanding original or lasting contribution to literature concerning photography or the moving image (including film, television and new media). kraszna-krausz.org.uk/

Gem Fletcher is a writer, cultural programmer, curator and podcaster whose work explores photography, art and contemporary culture. She hosts The Messy Truth podcast, a series of candid conversations that unpack the future of visual culture and what it means to be a photographer today. gemfletcher.com/

Charlotte Flint is a Writer, Curator and Senior Editor of Phaidon Press. She is also editor of 'Tee A. Corinne: A forest fire between us', published by MACK. She has held curatorial positions at the Hayward Gallery, the Barbican Art Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum. instagram.com/charlotteeflint/

Jermaine Francis is multi-disciplinary artist working with photography and video. He is an Associate Lecturer on the MA in Media Studies at the Royal College Art and on the MA in Documentary Photography course at London College of Communication. jermainefrancis.studio/ 

Rhiannon Adam is an Irish photographic artist and writer, living in London. Her books include Dreamlands, Wastelands and Big Fence / Pitcairn Island. Adam was one of eight crew members for the dearMoon project, a proposed lunar tourism mission and art project. She is a former longlisted artist for the KKF Awards. rhiannonadam.com/

Amin Yousefi is a writer, researcher, and image-based artist in London and Curator at Photoworks. He is about to publish his first book, 'Eyes Dazzle as They Search for the Truth' with Luhz Press. aminyousefi.com/

The Photobook Club Collective is an active community of 80 photographers whose members are engaged and united in the process of publishing, self-publishing and crowdfunding photography books. thephotobookclubcollective.com/

Jane&Jeremy are an independent publisher and design studio located in Brighton. They work with new & upcoming creatives as well as established artists to produce limited edition books with an emphasis on creating a crafted and considered object that reflects the individual artist in the parameters of the bookform. jane-jeremy.co.uk/

Harry Hardie is an educator and co-founder of Here Press, an independent publishing platform, directed by Ben Weaver since 2017. Here Press collaborates closely with artists to explore the use of photography in book form. arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-communication/people/harry-hardie

Craig Easton is an internationally renowned photographer, author of four critically acclaimed monographs and winner of multiple global awards. His most recent photobook, An Extremely Un-get-atable Place, has just been published by GOST books. craigeaston.com/

I would be interested to hear from anyone who knows of any surviving cased images, taken by Blackburn based photographers, in their own or any other collection.

Whilst John Eastham visited the town, as an itinerant daguerreotype photographer, in 1847 and 1848, it was not until July 1853, as the patent restrictions were ending, that Richard Holt opened a daguerreotype studio there.

Whilst I’ve never seen a Blackburn daguerreotype, I know of a couple of surviving ambrotypes taken by David Johnson (1827 – 1901).

One featured in the Arts Council exhibition “Masterpieces of Victorian Photography 1840 – 1900”, from the Gernsheim Collection, at the Festival of Britain 1951; it is now in the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas.

 The other is in my own collection. Johnson’s morocco leather cased images were embossed with his name in an oval (left). He used similar printed wording on the backs of the mounts of his early cartes de visite (right):

Hopefully some of you may know of other survivals. Thanks!

The International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media (IJSIM) is an open-access and peer-reviewed journal that reflects on immersive media cultures developed by historical media and/ or state-of-the-art technologies. IJSIM is a Scopus-indexed journal edited since 2017 that explores the immersive features of modern media, ranging from Panoramas and Stereoscopic Photography to Extended Reality Media. 

For its 2026 issue, the International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media welcomes papers addressing one or more of the following themes:
1- Stereoscopic Photography and Cinema;
2- Stationary and Moving Panoramas;
3- Optical Shows and Peep Media;
4- Cinema and Sound Media Archaeologies;
5- Media Art Installations;
6- Extended Reality (XR) Media;
7- Sonic Art and New Technologies;

Full paper submissions for Issue No.10 are due by 1 July. 

Find registration and submission information at http://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/information/authors 

Back numbers can be read here: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/issue/archive

Bonhams are to offer a large lot of spirit and medium photography with provenance, of photographic and other materials relating to the spirit mediumship of Jack Webber. The lot description reads: a collection of approximately 90 vintage gelatin silver print Psychic or Infra-red photographs taken of Webber during his séances (roped to a chair, with ectoplasm, trumpets and tambourines, levitating tables, his coat being removed by spirits, apporting objects from his body, voice boxes, etc.), often with other circle members (including the vendor's grandparents, see footnote), several with some white gouache amendments, one with the trumpet inked in as it was moving "so rapidly that in a 75th second exposure a precise image was not secured", 74 pasted into an album by Edwards (a few loose), with printed captions and ink annotations on mount; others mounted and framed (by "C.E. Ponsford, Fine Art Dealer, 240 Balham High Road"), typically approx. 150 x 200mm., some smaller; and approximately 60 later printings, and copper metal plates for use on Edwards' book.

It is estimated at £4000-6000. 

The auction also contains other photographs including Julia Margaret Cameron's Stella and PH Emerson's Reflections, 1899. 

Trans Asia Photography is the first and only open-access international peer-reviewed journal devoted to the interdisciplinary exploration of historic and contemporary photography from Asia and across the Asian diaspora. The journal examines all aspects of photographic history, theory, and practice by centering images in or of Asia, conceived here as a territory, network, and cultural imaginary. Bridging photography and area studies, the journal rethinks transnational and transcultural approaches and methodologies. By centering photographic practices of Asia and its diasporas, the journal foregrounds multiple ways of seeing, knowing, and being, which are distinct yet inseparable from other regional formations. The journal brings together the perspectives of scholars, critics, and artists across the humanities and social sciences to advance original and innovative research on photography and Asia, and to reflect and encourage quality, depth, and breadth in the field’s development.

Articles are published under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND) and are open immediately upon publication. Authors are not charged any fees for publication and retain copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions in their articles. Readers may use the full text of articles as described in the license.

Trans Asia Photography publishes two issues annually. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year, and authors are encouraged to submit at any time. Accepted contributions will appear in forthcoming issues following peer review and editorial processes. For consideration in the Fall 2027 issue, we recommend submitting by November 2026; submissions received by this date will receive priority review. Articles (5,000–7,000 words) that broaden understanding of Asian photography in transnational contexts; and shorter pieces (1,000–2,000 words) in formats that include interviews, curatorial or visual essays, and portfolios. 

See complete submission guidelines here. 

All inquiries can be directed to: transasiaphotography@gmail.com

See: https://read.dukeupress.edu/trans-asia-photography 

Published today, the King's Birthday Honours list recognised two photographers. Professor Sunil Gupta, photographer, activist and writer, received an MBE for services to art and to the LGBTQ+ Communities. Sir Don McCullin CBE was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to Photojournalism. 

Read more about Sunil here: https://www.a-n.co.uk/fortieth-feature/40-years-40-artists-sunil-gupta/

Image: Sunil Gupta, self-portrait in his studio at Collier Street, Kings Cross, London, 1986

Kettle’s Yard is delighted to present Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now, a new exhibition chronicling five decades of Sunil Gupta’s (b. 1953, India) pioneering contribution to photography and activism. Intimate and subversive, Gupta’s photography has been instrumental in raising awareness around the fight for queer rights internationally, particularly in India and the UK, laying bare the tensions between tradition and modernity, and public and private spheres. Featuring more than 140 works, this exhibition will reflect Gupta’s migrations between Delhi, New York, Montreal and his longstanding home in London, celebrating his love for his family, friends and partners, and his belief that everyone has the right to lead full and joyful lives, in which identity and sexuality can be celebrated.

Arranged chronologically and grouped in series bound by theme, time and location, ‘Life with a Camera’ will span street photography, portraits and both commissioned and personal projects. The exhibition will open with highlights from Gupta’s early career, including Friends and Lovers (early 1970s), Christopher Street (1976) – created while the artist was studying at the New School, New York, in the period after the Stonewall uprising – and Exiles (1986-1987), a series of constructed images of anonymous men in iconic gay cruising locations across Delhi. Created in response to the criminalisation of gay sex in India and, effectively, the public expression of gay identity, the series represents an act of defiance against the suppression of queer love.

The power of photography to make visible and confront discrimination continues in the series ‘Pretended’ Family Relationships (1985-1988), which expresses the principle underlying much of Gupta’s work – that his activism is fundamental to the creation of compelling and unique images. The series is titled after Section 28, a controversial amendment to the UK’s Local Government Act, passed in 1988 by Margaret Thatcher, which prohibited councils and schools from teaching about homosexuality as a ‘pretended family relationship’. At this time, the mere act of depicting queer love became a defiant act of protest. Here, by juxtaposing portraits of couples with photographs of demonstrations against the legislation, Gupta gestures both to the power of representation and the problematic nature of representation without equivalent political action. This idea is further explored in From Here to Eternity (1999), where Gupta pairs images of his body following his HIV diagnosis with photographs of gay nightclubs that have been shut down across south London. The series acts as an urgent call to action to protect spaces for the gay community in the fallout from the HIV pandemic.

As much as Gupta’s work is intrinsically related to his activism, it is equally concerned with experiments in digital image making. In his series Homelands (2001-2003), Gupta draws connections between photographs of life in Delhi, London and the US through a series of diptychs created with meticulously constructed compositions and shifting perspectives. Sun City (2010), meanwhile, draws on Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée to create a series of stills from a fictionalised missing film, forming a cyclical storyline of romantic love.

Life with a Camera will conclude with Gupta’s more recent works, including Mr Malhotra’s Party (2007-2012), which covers a period of intense lobbying to change anti-gay laws in India. These works depart from the furtive cruising pictured in Exiles, with the artist’s subjects looking straight into the camera as they are photographed across the city. Dissent and Desire (2015), a collaboration between Gupta and Charan Singh, will also be on view, capturing the interior lives of queer people in Delhi. In charting Gupta’s own experiences, the exhibition will more broadly track shifts across queer rights and activism from the 1970s, culminating in images from the Trans+ Pride marches in 2025.

Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now is curated by Andrew Nairne and Guy Haywood with Susie Biller. It will be accompanied by a new publication chronicling Gupta’s journey as both an artist and an activist, with new essays by Tausif Noor, Gregory Salter, Theo Gordon, Natasha Bissonauth, Gayatri Sinha and texts by Sunil Gupta.

Sunil Gupta: Life with a Camera, 1970 – Now
19 September 2026 – 31 January 2027
Kettle's Yard
See: https://www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk/

Image: Sunil Gupta, Untitled #22 from Christopher Street (1976). Images courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, Materià Gallery, SepiaEye, Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. © Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025.

Following the seminars held in 2019, 2023, and 2025, I am delighted to announce, for the fourth time, a week-long photo-historical seminar at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome in March 2027. The seminars bring together an international group of PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers working across the broad field of photo-historical studies.

With our everyday practices of viewing, making, using, and circulating photographs, we continually renew an experience that has shaped the history of photography since its inception: photography is fundamentally a collective endeavor. Even a cursory glance at nearly two centuries of photographic practice reveals countless instances in which the interplay of multiple actors has proven constitutive for the production, circulation, reception, and social efficacy of the medium. Such constellations range from the complex divisions of labor characteristic of commercial studio photography to the dense social networks formed by learned societies, amateur clubs, and photographic associations.

Contemporary photographic culture—shaped by digital platforms, participatory media, and globally networked image circulation—has only intensified the collaborative dimensions of photography. The collaborative production, distribution, interpretation, and archiving of photographs generate a distinctive social, aesthetic, and epistemic surplus that continues to define the medium in remarkable ways.

On the occasion of the photo-historical seminar Photographic Communities: How People Collaborate with Images, to be hosted at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in March 2027, we invite participants to examine these questions and dynamics.

Several perspectives may be distinguished within such debates; we particularly foreground three of them:

– First, photographic communities play a decisive role as subjects of representation, that is as photographed communities. In group portraits of families, circles of friends, school classes, professional associations, political movements, or other social formations, photography has developed a broad spectrum of iconographic conventions, oscillating between standardized formulas and highly singular visual articulations.

– Second, the history of photographic production can itself be understood as a history of manifold collaborations, whether in the commercial studio, the scientific laboratory, ethnographic and social-scientific fieldwork, journalistic production, or the making of photo books and exhibitions. Such collaborative constellations invite us to reconsider traditional notions of artistic autonomy and individual authorship that have long structured media historiography.

– Third, we seek to address the significance of photographic practices for the formation, negotiation, and representation of communities. Within manifold forms of collective life—and especially within marginalized and minority groups—photography frequently functions as a crucial medium of collective self-fashioning, historical memory, political visibility, and social cohesion, thus actively contributing to an understanding of such communities.

Call for Proposals: Photographic Communities: How People Collaborate with Images
Rome, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History
March 15–19, 2027
The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2026.
Questions and queries may be sent to: fototeca@biblhertz.it

Read more: https://biblhertz.iwww.mpg.de/3792978/260610_CfP_Photographic-Communities_-How-People-Collaborate-with-Images