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BPH has learnt with much sadness of the peaceful death on sunday evening of the museum director, historian and broadcaster Colin Ford, aged 91 years. Colin was the founding Head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, in 1983 and led the museum for its first decade. He was actively involved in photography from 1972 until his death.  

Colin's career started in the world of theatre, following a MA at University College, Oxford. He joined Kidderminster Playhouse as manager/producer bringing 150 productions to the public before he moved on to the Western Theatre Ballet. Two years later he was visiting lecturer in English and drama at California State University. He emerged into the world of visual imagery at the British Film Institute joining in 1965 as Deputy Curator.

Then, as the National Portrait Gallery's first Keeper of Film and Photography from 1972, he was tasked with building up its collection of photography and initating a collection of film. Although the Gallery had photography in its collections Colin's appointment was a deliberate move to actively collect photographs in their own right - the first by any national institution. Within a few months of joining the NPG Colin was caught up in the Royal Academy's ill-thought out decision to sell at auction three volumes containing 250 calotypes by Hill and Adamson presented to a former RA president. The intervention of Roy Strong and Colin along with a groundswell of public opinion led to the sale being abandoned and the albums were eventually secured for the NPG by an anonymous donor for £32,000. The auction did much to raise awareness of the importance of photography and the need to tighten up the export of historical photographs. Colin was still involved with the export of historic photography into the 1990s as the government advisor on the subject. The albums formed (with Roy Strong) one of his many books An Early Victorian Album: The Hill Adamson Collection (1975).

Colin's scholarship on Julia Margaret Cameron began in the mid-1970s and occupied much of his career and he was due to be guest of honour at a symposium being held at Dimbola in June 2026. He secured Cameron's 'Herschel Album' for £52,000 for the NPG and it followed him to the NMPFT, now the National Science and Media Museum, where it is still housed. With Julian Cox he authored a catalogue raisoneé of Cameron's photographs in 2003.  

During the 1970s Colin was involved, often chairing, networks of photography collections and was part of a group advocating for a national museum of photography. When the Science Museum sought to deliver such a museum Colin was appointed in February 1982 as Keeper, later Head, of the nascent National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford. The story of the NMPFT has been widely told, not least by Colin, and there is more to say about its gestation and history on another occasion.

Colin brought with him a passion and enthusiasm for the project, along with a similarly-minded group of colleagues able to deliver on his vision, all the more necessary in the face of concerted opposition to locating a national museum in Bradford. It opened to the public in June 1983.  Under Colin's tenure as Head the museum acquired the Kodak Museum collection in 1985 which it used as the basis for a major new gallery telling the story of popular photography which opened in 1989. The project was led by one of his significant curatorial appointments, Roger Taylor. The museum made a number of important acquisitions including Graham Smith and Chris Killip's Another Country, the Andor Kraszna-Krausz/Focal Press archive, the Zoltan Glass archive, the purchase and gift of photographs by Lewis Carroll, and saw collaborations with many photographers including David Hockney. 

The NMPFT received the Museum of the Year Award in 1988 and had been visited by 3½ million visitors by its fifth birthday. In 1989 the museum's contribution to photography's 150th anniversay was the Makers of Photographic History conference which brought together many of the great names of twentieth century photography. That year Colin noted we 'have turned a very entertaining showplace into a centre for research and understanding.' The museum became the most popular outside of London with 750,000 annual visitors at its peak. Colin noted that his one regret of his time in Bradford was that he had not been able to set up a chair in the history of photography at the University of Bradford. 

In 1993 Colin left the NMPFT to become director of the National Museum of Wales in October. At the time he stated that after ten years it was time to let a second generation of leadership take over. The background for his move is perhaps also best left for another occasion, but Colin continued to remain actively committed to photography. The British Journal of Photography which had regularly challenged the setting up of a museum in Bradford noted that he had 'left behind a formidible legacy' and wished him well. Left unsaid was a frustration, that remained with Colin until his death, that the museum was always subserviant to, and reliant on, the Science Museum, and he had never realised his early ambitions for a national museum of photography.  

Although there is much more to say about his life, his many publications and exhibitions, it is worth highlighting his long-standing interest in, and advocacy for, Hungarian photography. He wrote the catalogue that accompanied the first exhibition in Britain of André Kertész which opened at the Serpentine Gallery in 1979, followed by The Hungarian Connection at the NMPFT in 1987. In 2011 the exhibition Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th century at the Royal Academy drew together many of the key Hungarian photographers from the twentieth century several of whom Colin knew personally. He always cited André Kertész as one of the greatest photographers in the world. 

Outside of the museum world in the 1980s and 1990s Colin was a host and broadcaster on the BBC arts programme Kaleidoscope and regularly appeared on BBC Radios 3 and 4 discusing the wider arts and as an interviewer.

Colin was involved with the formation of the European Society for the History of Photography from its inception in 1977 and the NMPFT hosted the Society's 1985 symposia. He was involved as a trustee of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and in 2005 undertook a review of the Foundation's activities and aims; he was a vice chair of the Julia Maragaret Cameron Trust for twenty-five years, and was chair of the Committee of National Photographic Collections from its outset in 1988. He served on the Advisory Board of History of Photography journal from 1989 to 2009. Away from photography he chaired the Peel Entertainment Group, a global entertainment specialist and talent agency based in Skipton, for sixteen years. 

Colin was awarded a CBE in 1993. He received the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1999 and for a number of years from 2003 he supported the Colin Ford Award for curatorship given by the RPS. The Society's Historical group continues to host a Colin Ford lecture, the next of which is scheduled for 2026. He received the Hungarian Order of merit for his contributions to photography in 2013. 

Colin leaves a brother Martyn, his partner, Sue Grayson Ford, son, Tom, and grandchildren. His archive is to be desposited with the Bodleian Library and his collection of photography books given to the National Museum Cardiff.  

© Michael Pritchard

See: An interview with Colin Ford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDIU437VzV8 Colin was also interviewed as part of the British Library's Oral History of British Photography and other interviews with him exist. 

Images: (top): Colin Ford with his collodion portrait in the style of Cameron at his 90th birthday event at the Weston Library, Oxford, May 2024 / © Michael Pritchard; Colin Ford with the Herschel album, 7 January 1975, unknown photographer, NPG x135971; the National Museum of Photography, as it was originally known before 'Film and Television' were added to the exterior signage, NMPFT;  (l-r)) Colin Ford, Graham Smith, Chris Killip and Gustav Ahrens, MD of Agfa Gevaert at the presentation of Another Country, unknown photographer; 

By/For: Photography & Democracy is a collaborative partnership between three photographic historians, Dr. Tom Allbeson, Dr. Colleen O’Reilly, and Helen Trompeteler. We are delighted to announce that our second season of programs will begin in February 2026. Please join leading thinkers Anne Cross & Matthew Fox-Amato, Vindhya Buthpitiya, Leigh Raiford, Jeehey Kim, Zahid R. Chaudhary, and Tiffany Fairey for a year of thought-provoking conversations on photography and democracy. Explore season two and register for all events.

We’d also like to announce that at the end of our inaugural 2024/2025 season, we convened a reflective roundtable conversation with Shawn Michelle Smith, Brenna Wynn Greer, Thy Phu, Darren Newbury, Ileana L. Selejan, and Patricia Hayes. Together, they examined the stakes of photography in our contemporary moment and explored its complex entanglements with power structures and systemic injustice. Read the transcript of the conversation.

See: https://www.byforcollective.com/

This is the first book dedicated to Cornelia Bentley Sage Quinton (1876-1936). The text retraces the visionary career of the first woman director of a major art museum in the United States. From her appointment as director of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo in 1910, Cornelia Sage left her mark on American institutional history, as well as on the history of photography, notably by organizing the International Exhibition of Pictorialist Photography with Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession group. A pioneer, through her original approach and bold choices, she paved the way for women aspiring to key positions in American museums.

The author, Camille Mona Paysant, is an art historian specializing in photography. Her doctoral thesis, defended in 2018, focused on the international relations and diverse practices of artists associated with the Photo-Secession movement. In 2016, she published The Travel Photographs of Baron Adolph de Meyer: The Eye at Rest: A Break with the Tradition of Studio Photography (Éditions Hermann), followed in 2019 by Japan: Adolphe de Meyer (Éditions Louis Vuitton). She also contributes as a specialist to exhibition catalogues, including Picasso: Masterpieces! (Musée national Picasso – Paris, Gallimard, 2018), André Ostier: Portraits of Artists (Musée Matisse, Nice, 2019), and Whistler: The Butterfly Effect (Silvana, 2024).

Cornelia B. Sage Quinton – Une pionnière de l’art américain
Camille Mona Paysant
Editions Naima, 2025
238 pages, PDF, EPUB 
€24 (printed edition) or €4,99 (subscription download)
See: https://www.naimaeditions.com/biblio/cornelia-b-sage-quinton-une-pionniere-de-lart-americain-numerique/?referer=l58du4

The Lycée Champollion, in collaboration with Grenoble Alpes University and the Maison de l’Image in Grenoble, continues its series of international study days on various themes and techniques related to the photography of Michael Kenna (1953-...), a British photographer whose work has been exhibited around the world.

This second study day aims to highlight another major source of inspiration for his work: the representation of trees. Since the late 1970s, Kenna has been photographing trees assiduously: a first exhibition in 2011, organised by the KONG gallery that presents his work in Seoul, showed a selection of his photographs of trees, accompanied by the publication of a catalogue entitled Philosopher's Tree. The choice of the title to present his photographic practice on trees is characteristic of Kenna's approach. This name becomes the symbol of an entire body of work: trees allow the photographer to encounter nature in a way that is physical, sensitive, intellectual, aesthetic, but also metaphysical. 

Kenna explores the structuring power of trees in the landscape. The frequent wintry nature of his settings reveals the exceptional beauty of his subjects, the balance of their forms, and the harmonious, geometric development of their branches and trunks. Thanks to very long exposure times, which can last up to ten hours, his images reveal elements that the human eye usually ignores or cannot perceive. To quote Chantal Colleu-Dumond, who wrote the preface to Arbres in 2022, “as if through a synaesthetic effect, his images of trees are filled with a particular mystery and absolute silence that give them a sense of obviousness and universality” (2022, 4). Chantal Colleu-Dumond goes even further, making our experience with Kenna's tree photography a revelation of our relationship with time: “The time of trees is not that of humans; Michael Kenna emphasises their permanence as much as our finitude” (2022, 4). But Kenna's practice also brings us back to the notion of temporality, duration, and series. Kenna loves to photograph oak trees: he fell in love with a large oak tree in the town of Beaverton, near Portland, Oregon. In June 2021, Kenna began a series of portraits of the Beaverton oak. A year later, he had already assembled a selection of 83 photographs, taking advantage of the lockdown, which allowed him to stage this tree in a space emptied of its inhabitants. Kenna's photographs of this oak tree take us back to the early days of photography, with William Henry Fox Talbot's mid-19th century shots of oak trees, which made trees the ideal subjects at a time when photography required long exposure times that caused blurring for any non-static elements. 

We invite you to see these majestic beings in a new light, to listen to the lessons of these non-humans at a time marked by a necessary return to The Land, the title of Bill Brandt's exhibition that revealed Michael Kenna's vocation as a landscape photographer in 1976. 

The main themes covered:

1) Trees in the work of Michael Kenna

2) Trees in art history: possible links with 18th-century painters and 19th-century photographers

3) Trees on screen

4) Trees in literary creation

5) Trees as subjects of law, agency, or discourse

6) Trees as abstraction and natural minimalist architecture

7) Trees as political and ecological symbols

8) Trees as vertical axes/spiritual bridges between the visible and the invisible

9) Trees and their relationship to time: the concept of long exposure, series, and repetition

10) Trees and memory: local or universal symbols?

Papers may be published.

Call for papers: TREES IN THE ARTS AND LITERATURE. AROUND MICHAEL KENNA’S PHOTOGRAPHY

Date and venue: Friday, November 27 2026 at Lycée Champollion, Grenoble (France)
Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2026

https://www.lycee-champollion.fr/

Proposals should consist of a single file headed by the name of the lecturer; they should include a short biography (maximum one page) and the paper proposal (maximum 3,000 characters including spaces). They may be written in French or English.

Deadline for submission to jearbrekenna@gmail.com : May, 1st 2026.

The project is supported by Grenoble-Alpes University, axe transversal Création culturelle et territoire(s), ILCEA4 scientific laboratory EA 7356. 

 1Institut des langues et cultures d'Europe, Amérique, Afrique, Asie et Australie

Frank Watson examines the relationship between photography and sound. Today: Frank's guest is James Hyman, Director of the Centre for British Photography, talking about his early interest in photography, meeting Henri Cartier Bresson and collecting British photographers’ work. He reflects upon setting up the Centre in Jermyn Street, London and discusses the exhibitions, grants and mentoring that has been part of the intentions for the Centre. 

Hear James talk about his interest in photography, career as a dealer, setting up a charity, the Centre for British Photography in London housed on a zero lease, views of the Arts Council of Great Britain and the politics of funding, a new grants programmes for photographers launching in January 2026, and hopes for future permanent space for the Centre. 

The Sound Of Photography – 28 November 2025 (James Hyman)
Resonance FM
For more information visit http://thesoundofphotography.com/ and listen to James here:  https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/frank-watson-the-sound-of-photography-28th-november-2025/

This conference investigates theories, histories and methodologies relating to photographic images that are, for different reasons, unseen or unseeable. In the past twenty years, theorists and scholars across disciplines have raised the idea of the invisible image in various ways: discussing “operational” images intended for machine-reading rather than human viewing, and “invisual’ images that appear in aggregation and in which the visual qualities of the image are less significant than the metadata they carry; the legal and political processes that have restricted the viewing and distribution of certain types of images; the images that provide the ‘training’ for AI image production; latent photographic images that have been exposed and may never be developed, and the traces of erased, damaged and faded images. Writers concerned with archival photographs of racialized subjects appeal to senses other than the visual: to the rhythms and tactility of pictures. And for a long time now, photographers and artists have found creative ways to visualise absence, and especially, to make present subjects “disappeared” by dictatorships and through war.

The conference will address how we might study and account for images that are inaccessible, whether through censorship, destruction or other interventions. What methods can be used to account for images in their absence? Historically, lecturers used ekphrasis to discuss images that they could not show. What techniques and approaches now might help us to analyse invisible, inaccessible or undiscovered images? Conversely, how might photographic techniques be used to represent or express the invisible? How have photographers attempted to use the medium to visualise the unseen? What can this teach us about the nature of the photographic media or about ocularcentric cultures? What are the institutions and their internal processes that restrict certain types of images? How might we respond when archival research yields nothing but absence? When should researchers refuse to show images and why? How and why might we bring unseen images to light and what are the ethical and theoretical dilemmas surrounding this? How are unseen images produced and stored, for what purposes and by whom?

Other possible topics include:

• Photographic latency

• What photography can ‘sense’ which is invisible to human eyes

• Operational and “invisual” images

• The “invisible” labour behind digital images

• The judicial status of images 

• The ethics and aesthetics of unseen images

• Censorship and political interference in image production, consumption, and circulation

• The use of visual technologies by law enforcement, military, and the surveillance industrial complex 

• Photographs of absence/invisibility/missing referents/spectres

• Institutions and image oversight

• Accessing and assessing absent images

• The affective power of inaccessible images

• Methodological inventions into unseen images

• The manipulation, redaction and destruction of images

The Invisible Image: Photography and the Unseen
A 2 day International Conference hosted by the Centre for Culture and Everyday Life, School of the Arts, University of Liverpool.
18-19 June 2026
Instagram: @ccel_uliverpool
Bsky: cceluliverpool.bsky.social

Keynote speakers:
Prof. Jordan Bear (University of Toronto)
Prof. Estelle Blaschke (University of Basel)

We welcome abstracts for 20 minute presentations that address any of the issues above, or that relate to questions of invisibility and photography in ways we have not anticipated. Please send abstracts of 250 words (max) with an indicative bibliography of up to 5 texts and a short bio of up to 100 words, to CCEL@liverpool.ac.uk by 30 January 2026.

Newcastle's Side Gallery has published an update on its future which includes confirmation that the gallery will not re-open. This has prompted a backlash on social media from those who had supported the gallery's appeal for support, previously noted on BPH (see here), and had expected the gallery space to return.  

Managing Director, Laura Laffler, posted a statement on the gallery's website summarising its journey from 2023 when it closed the galery and looking ahead to a partner and community-base future: 'When Side closed its building in 2023, the response was overwhelming. #SaveSide grew faster than any of us expected. People shared memories, sent messages and stepped in to keep the organisation alive. Your support covered basic costs we could not avoid, ensured the AmberSide Collection continued to be cared for responsibly, and brought us the time we needed to secure grants from Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, The National Archives, Community Foundation and to commence the next phase of our education programme funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Quite simply, Side would not still exist without you. 

That time allowed us to deliver Transforming Amber, our National Lottery Heritage Fund programme. It rebuilt the organisation from  the inside out. We catalogued the AmberSide collection into a new accessible digital content management system, launched a new website, opened up access for schools and communities, shared our work nationally, and supported people to make and show their own work. It was a year of consolidation, allowing Side to move forward with focus and purpose. This project has now come to an end and we move forward into 2026 stronger and more resilient. 

What comes next is grounded in our renewed commitment to our region. The North East has always been our centre of gravity. Its communities, photographers, cultural life and irreplaceable heritage continue to shape who we are. From our home here, we are expanding our cross-region remit that lets us support more people while staying rooted in the place that made us. At the same time we remain committed to linking the North East to the rest of the world through documentary projects and sharing working class solidarity across borders. 

After consultation and expert guidance from across the arts and heritage sector, from December 2025, Side will no longer be a solely gallery based model and will not be reopening our Quayside location. Instead we have become a vibrant and multi-faceted organisation: working with high-profile exhibition partners and local community and heritage centres, building digital access, continuing our established education programme, and supporting incredible creativity in lens-based documentary arts.' 

What seems to have upset supporters who had donated to Side's appeal was the burying of news of the gallery's closure deep in the statement with one claiming 'a dirty trick' and others unimpressed with the decison. Many had expected their support would lead to the public gallery space being part of the future. Laffler notes, in repeated standard responses to individual comments, that 'Amber Film & Photography CIC has never owned the Side Gallery buildings' and the location was sold to a new landlord in 2024. Side was offered a longterm lease but 'the cost of the rent along with other operational costs meant that it was not a sustianable base for our future.'  

The closure of Side Gallery highlights the lack of permanent gallery space for photography in the north east. 

See: https://sidegallery.co.uk/blog/a-year-of-transformation and https://www.instagram.com/

Back in May BPH reported on the auction by Bonhams of the only known portraits of Ada Lovelace, comprising two daguerreotype portraits by Claudet from c1843 and a daguerreotype copy of a painting of Lovelace. The lot was withdrawn from sale and the National Portrait Gallery was able to announce on Ada's birthday, yesterday, that it had acquired the portraits in 'a once in a lifetime opportunity'. The NPG notes that the acquisiiton 'will enable the Gallery to celebrate her pioneering work and inspire future generations'. 

The purchase was supported by Tim Lindholm and Lucy Gaylord Lindholm through the American Friends of the National Portrait Gallery. The NPG will make a further announcement in the new year.

BPH played a small part in helping faciliate the purchase. 

See: https://www.instagram.com/p/DSFlRfRCJEG/?igsh=MTB5dTNlMDliNXo4eQ==

A blue plaque was unveiled by Perth Civic Trust at 62 Princes Street in Perth, Scotland to honour the local photographer, Magnus Jackson (1831-1891), at his former studio and shop, built in 1884. The plaque represents a growing recognition of Scotland’s rich contributions to the global history of photography. Magnus’s collection of 2,500 glass wet plate collodion negatives is cared for by Culture Perth and Kinross Museum and Art Galleries, representing the earliest collection of photographs that capture life in Victorian Perthshire. 

Magnus was born in Perth in 1831 to Thomas Jackson and Helen Miller, one of six children. His father’s business, established in 1826, at 70 George Street, operating as a picture-frame maker, looking-glass manufacturer, restorer of oil paintings and a print seller. Magnus was trained by his father as a carver and gilder, a trade he maintainened throughout his working life.

In the local newspaper of 1845, an article describes an engraving of his Grace, the Duke of Wellington from an Antoine Claudet daguerreotype being displayed in the window of his father’s shop. Antoine Claudet an early practitioner in photography excelled in producing daguerreotypes. It is possible that the picture on display inspired Magnus, aged fourteen at the time, to take up photography. He travelled to London in the early 1850s to be trained in the art of photography. He returned as a practiced photographer and a few years later in 1860 set up a modest wooden shed studio in Marshall Place.

Magnus Jackson’s first wooden shed studio in Marshall Place, Perth.

Magnus’s photographic subject matter was diverse, beyond the normal role of a studio photographer and included the earliest photographic records of Perth streets, buildings, people, and included events of fires, floods and the laying of foundation stones of major buildings. He also travelled widely around Perthshire capturing photographs of grand country houses and estates, shopkeepers, factories and workers.

Laying the foundation stone of Perth City Chambers 1878.

Animal photography was another source of income. Magnus submitted articles to The Photographic News and The British Journal of Photography in early 1881, titled Photography outside the studio. When referencing cattle photography, he notes his results. ‘My first attempt in this line was in the year 1856, and in two days I made somewhere about twenty fine, rich looking negatives’.

Shorthorn bull and handler

Magnus excelled in tree portraiture, and was awarded a silver medal at the
International Forestry Exhibition, Edinburgh in 1884. That year he also became the official photographer for the Scottish Arboricultural Society. In 1886, he was awarded the bronze medal and diploma of merit at the International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art in Edinburgh for fern and foxglove photographs.

Elm tree at Strathallan, Perthshire.

Magnus was actively involved in Perth’s public life and was a member of the
The Guildry Incorporation of Perth, Perthshire Society of Natural Science (PSNS), and The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He became a town councillor in 1878 and was appointed Perth’s Police Commissioner in 1885 overseeing the police department, fire services and street lighting. He also served as convenor of the local committees and the abattoir and was instrumental in the construction of Perth’s first public swimming baths.

The Guildry Incorporation at Craigmakerran House, 1864

Magnus Jackson, Photographer, Carver and Gilder and Perth Town Councillor died on 27 April 1891, aged 59. His business did continue for several years by his sons Thomas and Magnus Junior, then by Burrows Bros. When the photographic business finally closed in 1903 the contents of the studio were auctioned off, subsequently a selection of the glass plates were donated to the Sandeman Public Library in 1904.

Photographs Courtesy of Culture Perth & Kinross Museums & Galleries

https://collectionsearch.pkc.gov.uk/search.aspx

The Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association (CSTHA) has awarded its Jarrell Prize for the period 2022-2024 to Shannon Perry for “Perfect Dry Plates for Canada”: Gelatine Dry-Plate Manufacturing in Canada in the Late Nineteenth Century published in Volume 44, number 1, 2022, the special issue Photography: Science, Technology and Practice, edited by Joan M. Schwartz. It is a available on open access. 

The abstract notes that the article seeks to identify the commercial efforts of Canadian photographers to manufacture and distribute gelatin dry-plates in the 19th century. Using archival material and published advertisements, several companies including the Stanley Dry Plate Company of Montreal are identified and positioned within the photographic manufacturing landscape in Canada. In doing so, the commercial efforts of Canadian manufacturers are contrasted with the parallel developments in dry-plate manufacturing in the United States and England, further situating Canada’s photographic manufacturing history within a broader context.

The full issue with other papers of interest can be seen and downloaded here

Shannon Perry teaches history of photography, and archival theory and practice at Carleton University. She has worked at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, for over a decade as a private and government archivist, specializing in photography. Her research focuses on Kodak, and the photographic industry in Canada more broadly, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and was the focus of her PhD thesis The Eastman Kodak Co. and the Canadian Kodak Co. Ltd: Re-structuring the Canadian photographic industry, c.1885-1910 (De Montfort University, 2016), and a forthcoming monograph,When Kodak Came to Town (U of T Press).

The Prize was established in 2015 in honour of CSTHA founding member, Dr. Richard Jarrell, who passed away in 2013. The biennial prize recognizes the best article published in Scientia Canadensis over the previous two years and comes with an award of $500.

BPH was saddened to learn this morning of the unexpected death of Martin Parr. Once described as 'Britain's best known photographer' Martin studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic in the 1970s and came into public consciousness with his seminal publication of colour photography The Last Resort concisting photographs made in New Brighton between 1983 and 1985. He joined Magnum as a full member in 1994, in the face of sustained opposition from traditionalists. Martin produced over 100 photobooks and was working up to his death on new photography and publications. 

Martin sold one of his collections of photobooks to the Tate, some 12,000 titles, in 2017 and the funds were used to set up the Martin Foundation which opened in Bristol the same year, although it had been incorporated in 2014. Its aims were to support British and Irish documentary photographers and their works. The Foundation developed a significant exhibition programme, initiated the Bristol Photo Festival, as well as housing an important collection of photobooks, other photographers' collections, along with Martin's own archive. It is now one of the most significant archives of postwar British photography. 

He is survived by his wife, Susie, daughter Ellen, his sister Vivien

Martin was awarded a CBE for servvices to photography in 2021 and the Royal Photographic Society's Honorary Fellowship in 2005 and Centenary Medal in 2008.   

More to follow... 

See: https://martinparrfoundation.org/about/

and https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/martin-parr-1952-2025/

Photo: Michael Pritchard. Martin Parr at BOP 2023, Bristol. 

Lizzie Caswall Smith is the subject of a new blog post by Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms, as part of a series looking at stories about the history of Kilburn, Willesden, West Hampstead and other parts of London. Rooted in genealogical and local history research the blog adds new information to her story and corrects factual errors.

Read it here: https://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2025/12/lizzie-caswall-smith-famous-photographer.html

Image: Lizzie with harp, by her brother John Caswall Smith (Ancestry, John Smith, Scunthorpe).

Throughout the year, NICAS organizes a bi-weekly Colloquium featuring short lunch lectures where researchers share updates, present new ideas, or discuss the outcomes of their work. The Colloquium aims to keep the field informed about the latest developments, foster the exchange of knowledge, and encourage collaboration.

Conservation scientists have studied daguerreotypes extensively, but surface metrology has only been used experimentally to examine their surfaces so far. Non-contact optical confocal microscopes provide Z-axis data points within a scanned X-Y area, which can be used to calculate heights, depths, widths and roughness, as well as to generate 3D surface maps with sub-micron resolution. In the context of my PhD research on the history and techniques of early printing methods for daguerreotypes, this talk explores the use of confocal microscopy to compare the microtopography of traditional intaglio copper plates with daguerreotypes that were acid-etched to convert them into printing matrices. By combining the topographical maps with data from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), we can deepen our understanding of the materials, functionality and sensitivities of etched daguerreotypes. It is hoped that the applications described here may benefit other cultural heritage studies.

Biography
Martin Jürgens is conservator of photographs at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Before coming to the Netherlands, he worked as a conservator in private practice in Hamburg. His education includes a German diploma in photography and design, an M.S. from Rochester Institute of Technology and an M.A. in Conservation from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. Following his scholarship at the Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute published his book The Digital Print. Identification and Preservation in 2009. He is currently a part-time PhD student at the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK.

Explorative surface metrology of intaglio printing plates and etched daguerreotypes with optical confocal microscopy
Martin Jurgens, haired by Margriet van Eikema Hommes
organised by the Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science
11 December 2025, 1200-1300 (CET); 1100-1200 (GMT/UTC)
Free but register here: https://www.nicas-research.nl/event/nicas-colloquium-online-11-december-2025/

Piece against the forthcoming RSM sale... The Royal Society of Medicine is putting some of its rarest books and photographs up for sale at Christie’s this month. Is this a case of medical negligence?

https://apollo-magazine.com/royal-society-medicine-christies-auction-rare-books-photographs/

BPH notes: the sale was reported here: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/auction-hugh-welch-diamond-and-early-photography-london-10-decemb In a follow up the RSM supplied a comment which was taken from the sale press release: 

“Proceeds will be directly invested into strengthening the RSM's offer, delivering clear benefits for their members: modernised spaces, enhanced digital platforms, and expanded learning opportunities. Items not yet online will be professionally digitised, ensuring lasting access to educate and inspire generations to come.” 

It referred subsequent enquries to Christie's. Specific questions to the RSM were not asnwered directly beyond the statement noted, and the same questions, below, have also been put to Christie's: 

• What criteria was used to determine what is to be sold?
• What is the reason behind the sale?
• What will the money raised be used for?
• In view of Christie’s buyer’s premium, can you confirm that the RSM negotiated no commission/charges on the sale to maximise the income to the Society?

 In the event the photographs are sold to a buyer outside of the UK then RSM may have to wait for its money as they will be likely subject to an export licence.  

Discover the untold story of seven remarkable sisters who helped shape the 19th-century cultural spirit. Step into the vivid, unconventional world of Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters, an exhibition at Watts Gallery in Surrey.

This exhibition brings to life the legacy of seven extraordinary Anglo-Indian sisters whose influence rippled through the worlds of art, literature, photography, and society. Nicknamed “Pattledom” by the writer William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), the sisters’ world was one of rich cross-cultural exchange, where Anglo-Indian heritage, European influence, and artistic experimentation converged in a vibrant social sphere that defied Victorian convention.

Whilst the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) is today the most celebrated of the seven Pattle sisters, this exhibition uncovers their collective impact through artistic experimentation, intellectual exchange, and the creation of an extraordinary cultural salon at Little Holland House in Kensington. Here, artists, writers, scientists, musicians, and politicians gathered each week, drawn into the orbit of the dynamic Pattle women and the visionary painter G F Watts, who lived and worked amongst them.

Through rarely seen portraits, evocative photographs, treasured possessions, and new research, visitors will meet the wider sisterhood and discover how their influence extended from Calcutta, India (now Kolkata) to Kensington, and from the salons of Little Holland House to the Bloomsbury Group.

A new book accompanies the exhibition Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters at Watts Gallery, which is the first to explore the lives, influence, and legacy of the seven Pattle sisters: Adeline, Julia, Sara, Mia, Louisa, Virginia and Sophia. Born and raised in India and educated in France, the sisters became renowned for their wit, talent, style and the influential artistic salons they hosted at Little Holland House in London.

Drawing on new research, and featuring essays by Emily Burns, Caroline Dakers, Gursimran Oberoi, William Dalrymple, Jeff Rosen and Marion Dell, this book reveals how the Pattle sisters helped shape nineteenth-century art, ideas and society in ways that continue to reverberate today.

Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters
until 4 May 2026
Watts Gallery, Down Lane, Compton, Surrey, GU3 1DQ
See: https://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/women-of-influence-the-pattle-sisters

The newly relaunched journal Visual Culture in Britain is offering two prizes. The Pete James Collection Prize 2026, is in collaboration with Birmingham City University which houses Pete's archive. Applicants are invited to spend time with the Pete James Collection at Birmingham City University.

The Peter James Collection Prize aims to support researchers at any career stage with access to the collection, staff mentorship and a prize of £1000 co-supported by the institution and the Journal of Visual Culture in Britain on behalf of Taylor & Francis. The successful applicant will be expected to submit a Visual Culture in Focus article (2,000-4,000-word) (see guidance here: Learn about Visual Culture in Britain) by Tuesday 1st September 2026. The money will be awarded on submission and acceptance of the article. This will then be published in the final issue of the year (December 2026). Applications for the 2026 prize is open until Monday 05th January 2026. The collection will be accessible between February and July 2026.

To celebrate the relaunch the JVCB has announced an essay prize for original research articles that build on the editorial vision of the journal. It encourages critical approaches that propose novel or expansive ways of rethinking the journal’s title - what does ‘visual culture in Britain’ look like today? - by engaging with visual culture’s past, present or future histories.

The competition aims to highlight and celebrate original research on any aspect of visual culture and is open to scholars at all career levels. Submissions are welcome from all regions but must be written in English. The essay, unpublished, will be between 6,000 and 8,000 words in length and follow the guidelines outlined on the journal webpage here.

The winner will receive:

• Publication in Visual Culture in Britain following the peer-review process. Please note that any image costs will need to be covered by the prize winner.

• £500 cash prize.

All entries will be considered for submission to the journal. Runners up will receive expert feedback and editorial support towards peer review and publication.

Entries must be submitted by Monday 27th April 2026 to vcbessayprize@gmail.com All entries will be reviewed and shortlisted by the editors against criteria of academic rigour, originality and advancement of visual culture methodologies. The shortlisted essays will then be submitted to a panel composed of members of our Advisory Board who will select the winner. Decisions will be communicated in June 2026. The winner will be published in our December 2026 issue.

Appearing three times a year, Visual Culture in Britain is dedicated to exploring the generative interrelations between visual culture, individuals, and societies in Britain, both historically and today. The journal publishes new peer-reviewed scholarship that investigates the forms, spaces, processes, and politics through which visual worlds/materials are made meaningful, and examines their effects within an expanded and unsettled concept of ‘Britishness’. Visual Culture in Britain is inclusive and interdisciplinary, welcoming submissions at any time, for original articles, features, special issues, and reviews. The editors are: Gary Bratchford, Birmingham City University, Sara Dominici, University of Westminster, and Victoria Horne, Northumbria University.

See more: Pete James Collection Prize 2026 and Eassy Prize and past articles and open access articles here

The UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport has published museum visitor numbers to September 2025. This set is of particular interest as it includes the period when the museum had fully open with its Sound and Vision galleries from July 2025. The graph below shows the equivalent period (July-September) from 2019 and includes the covid lockdowns and period when the museum was closed for refurbishment.  

We invite proposals for conference papers, performances and workshops examining darkness and its intersections with photography, exploring all facets including but not limited to: technology and the black box; the darkroom and laboratory; artificial darkness; dark skies and landscape; mining and minerals; archaeology, the subterranean or underground, technologies of vision; race and identity, including the politics of visibility and invisibility; psyche and wellbeing; the body, interiority and its shadow; architecture after Tanizaki; contemporary politics and totalitarianism; incarceration and punishment; technological limit and failure; blackouts; scientific imaging and black holes. 

Darkness: A Photography Conference 
Organised by the Photography programme of the School of Digital Arts, Manchester School of Art.
19-20 March 2026
Call for papers, performances and workshops: Deadline 12 December 2025

Please send paper abstracts (of a maximum of 300 words), performance proposals (of 200 words plus 2-3 images or 2 minutes of footage) and workshop proposals (200 words, 2-3 images and a list of materials or media requirements) to Duncan Wooldridge at d.wooldridge@mmu.ac.uk by 5pm, 12th December 2025

The annual Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards celebrate excellence in photography and moving image publishing. They recognise individuals who have made an outstanding or original contribution to the literature, art or practice of photography or the moving image. Two winning titles are selected: one in the field of photography and one in the field of the moving image. The author/s or editor/s of each winning book receive a £5,000 cash prize.

Submissions are welcome from publishers, authors, collectives and individuals self-publishing their work. There is no entry fee.

• Books must be published between 1 January and 31 December 2025
• Books must be published, distributed or available to buy (including online) in the UK

Further details, terms and conditions, and the entry form for the 2026 Awards can be found here.

Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light celebrates the wide-ranging photographic practices of more than eighty women artists working between 1900 and 1975. Featuring prints, postcards, photobooks and magazines, the exhibition explores the role of photographers as image-makers, and the ways in which women artists create an image of themselves, of others, of the times – from images of the women’s suffrage movement at the turn of the twentieth century, through to the women’s liberation movement and beyond. From Melbourne to Tokyo, Paris to Buenos Aires, the exhibition showcases the works of trailblazing artists such as Berenice Abbott, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Imogen Cunningham, Mikki Ferrill, Sue Ford, Christine Godden, Ponch Hawkes, Annemarie Heinrich, Ruth Hollick, Florence Henri, Kati Horna, Germaine Krull, Tina Modotti, Lucia Moholy, Toyoko Tokiwa, Yamazawa Eiko and many more.

The exhibition reflects a recent collecting focus on celebrating the contributions of women artists of the early twentieth century in the NGV Photography Collection. Featuring portraiture, photojournalism, landscape photography, photomontage, experimental avant-garde imagery and more, Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light presents the diverse work of women photographers against the backdrop of significant social, political and cultural events.

Opening in November 2025, the exhibition coincides with the fifty-year anniversary of International Women’s Year 1975, which established the United Nations’ annual celebration of International Women’s Day.

Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light
until 3 May 2026
NGV, Melbourne, Australia
See: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/women-photographers-1900-1975/

See: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/nov/30/women-photographers-1900-to-1975-a-legacy-of-light-in-pictures

Image: Gertrude KASEBIER, The gargoyle (c. 1900), platinum photograph, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the Herald & Weekly Times Limited, Fellow, 1979. PH27-1979