Blogs

Hemera, a London based curatorial collective specialising in photography, has just launched the London Photography Diary,  a website dedicated to listing photography exhibitions, events, and conferences in London: www.london-photography-diary.com.  The website also features photography related videos, reviews,  and an image sharing portal. Please check it out and join our mailing list to receive our weekly newsletters. The two curators who are editing the site are Sarah Allens and Rachael Graves.

This work in the area of History of Photography seeks scientific analysis of the impact of photography in science, and the role of science in the development of instrumentation and photographic processes.

In depth scientific analysis of the instrumentation and chemical/physical processes involved in the 19th-early 20th centuries of Scientific Photography has not received much attention. This is even more accurate for the related Portuguese activities in the different scientific areas that used photography and its contribution in the European context.
In Portugal the very few books on the history of Portuguese Photography addressed mainly the studies of early pioneers who practiced portraiture and landscape photography as a form of art. These publications and other ones like research papers and thesis hardly incorporate early scientific applications of photography developed by Portuguese scientists during that period in several fields such as Cartography, Oceanography, Astronomy, Meteorology, Geology and Medicine among others. Moreover, there is not a systematic study of the evolution of the chemical and physical processes used in photography as well as of the instrumentation for the above mentioned period.
The participants of this book intend to focus their study in the interpretation of the chemical/physical processes and the related instrumentation developed for scientific photography by instrument makers during the period of the 19th-early 20th century in different fields of Science. It will also be given an emphasis on the Portuguese case and its relation with the research developed in other European countries at the same period, as well as the contribution of the Portuguese scientists given to international and universal exhibitions and publications and their relations with scientific an professional societies that dealt with photography and Science.

I thought it appropriate to notify you of my exhibition of memorial/postmortem photographs- Memorializing Infant Loss in 19th Century Photography. The exhibit is being shown at a conference at the University of Hertfordshire and opens July 16th.  The conference title is Perceptions of  Pregnancy…

Attitudes to photography have undergone a radical shift in recent times. Partly in response to these contemporary changes, historians, curators and photographic practitioners have begun to re-examine older forms of photography: exploring the wide variety of historical technologies and techniques, finding surprising ways in which images were manipulated and determining how an ideology of photographic realism was maintained. Yet there remains a need for scholars to explore questions of early photographic ‘authorship’, singularity and objectivity in much greater detail.

Scholarly studies of nineteenth-century photography have been heavily influenced by later theoretical constructions. As an alternative, Daniel Novak has posited a ‘Victorian theory of photography’. Yet this theory remains unelaborated. Similarly, Elizabeth Edwards and others have called for a move away from the traditional Art History model of analysing photography. This interdisciplinary conference will explore the question of what such an analysis, and such a theory, might look like. 

Possible questions and areas of interest for the conference include:

•           How do technological narratives influence our understanding of photography?

•           Photography as a business; photographers as workers.

•           The hegemony of nineteenth-century photographic realism, and resistances to it.

•           Can/should we do away with the Art History model of photography?

•           Alternatives to the photographer-as-author model of photographic exhibition and analysis.

•           To what extent can we think of photography as being separate to other print and visual media?

•           The role of photography in the creation of nineteenth-century celebrity.

•           Early photography as represented in literature, art and film.

•           Photographs as networks; photographs as objects.

•           When does ‘early’ photography end?

•           Does digital photography allow us to ‘read back’ the performativity of images from earlier periods? How might the revival of Victorian photographic techniques by current practitioners influence historians?

Keynotes: Kate Flint, Lindsay Smith, Kelley Wilder

Organisers: Owen Clayton, Jim Cheshire, and Hannah Field.

To submit proposals for 20 minute papers, please send an abstract of 200-250 words to rethinkingphotography@gmail.com. The deadline is 12^th Jan 2015, 5pm (GMT).

Australian photos sent to c19th world fairs which stayed in European/American collections. I am researching an exhibition on the history of the photograph in Australia 1840s - now, for 2015. Most of the photographs Australia sent to world fairs in the 19th c stayed overseas. We are trying to track these down.

If anyone has 19th century Australian photos in their collection please do get in touch on my work email judy.annear@ag.nsw.gov.au

Best wishes and I hope to hear from you

Judy

Hi everybody! I am looking for further stereos from the “New Series Welch Views” which is most probably by William England. I have attached two images (No. 11 and No. 13).  Does anybody have further information on this series or more scans for me?  Thanks and best regards.

Gerlind

Dear All,

I have included a couple of links that might be of interest. 

http://photohistory.jeffcurto.com/about

It is quite American but very interesting. You can access them form itunes or the website. I have listened to a lot of them and leaned a great deal.

http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/8403 

This link is useful for research purposes if trying to date pictures or trace a photographer.

I hope this helps 

Nick 

http://teachyourselfphotography.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-get-most-out-of-your-black-white.html

One of the great paradigm shifts in contemporary art over the past 20 years has been the movement of photography into the realm of fine art. The critical and commercial success of artists such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky, who are represented by contemporary art galleries, and the appointment of photography curators to top public galleries such as Tate Modern and Guggenheim, has ensured that the medium is increasingly regarded as a vital part of contemporary artistic practice. With digital techniques of manipulation becoming more and more advanced, photography stands to continually develop and change as a tool for artists.

Given that the first photograph was produced in 1826, why did it take so long for photography to be accepted by the art world? How reliable is a photograph as evidence of the real world? What makes a documentary photograph different from a 'fine art' photograph? How will the increasing impact of digital manipulation impact upon the medium? What might the future developments in photography be?

These are some of the questions that curator Charlotte Cotton, photographers Anne Hardy and Clarisse D'Arcimoles and artist and writer David Campany will discuss as they explore the most pressing questions regarding photography today.

Click here to book: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/photo/

New Directions in Contemporary Photography
Charlotte Cotton, Anne Hardy, Clarisse D'Arcimoles and David Campany in conversation
7.30pm, Monday 17 January 2011

Tickets are £10 / £6 students and each ticket admits one person. There are only 300 seats available so please book early.

Call For Papers.

(De)constructing the Archive in a Digital Age.

September 10^th 2010, School of the Arts Loughborough University, UK.

Organised by Iris www.irisphoto.org.

Paper Submission Deadline; Friday 30^th July 2010

One-day debate on the possibilities of the archive.

This event aims to provide an environment for sharing information whilst stimulating debates about the role of the
archive within art, culture and design.

Possible topics of enquiry may include but are not limited to;

· The discussion about how the archive should respond to the digital age continues. How does the physical archive change and adapt in the face of new
technologies?

· When is the archive not an archive? What is the difference between the archive and the collection?

· How should we respond to the growing number of images available to us in the digital archive, as increasingly we are exposed to photographs for which
there are no original viewing contexts available? What is the value of these
decontextualised and dematerialised documents to the researcher as historical
evidence?

·How is the institutional archive to respond to questions about the democratization of the archive, not only through the process of digitisation
and online access but also the growing use of more interactive forms of viewing/sharing
with web 2.0?

Paper presentations, abstracts of 200-300 words may be submitted for a 30-minute paper presentation.

Panel submissions abstracts for a 90-minute colloquium, which is to consist of 5 participants (1 chair and 4 presenters; each presenter taking no more than 15 minutes) may be
submitted. Abstract length should be 250-350 words.

Poster presentations, 200 word abstracts for a themed poster to be shown at the conference will be accepted.

Artworks, submissions for artworks related to the topics will be considered, please send a 200 word abstract. Include details of medium, size and installation requirements on a separate
sheet.

Please send abstracts (clearly marked as to which category you are interested in) and a brief C.V. to;

iris@lboro.ac.uk

OR

Mort Marsh, IRIS.

Loughborough University

School of the Arts

Edward Barnsley Building

Epinal way

LE11 3TU.

Iris is an internationally focused research resource dedicated to promoting the work of women artists using photographic-based media.

I finally got around to scanning some more of my black and white archive, this time further photographs from a trip to England in 1994 forming a new sequence.

The photographs picture my now ageing mother (these were taken over 20 years ago), an English fair, medieval tiles and Highgate Cemetery, among other subjects. They become especially poignant after the recent passing of my father.

The image of  my mother plays off against a land that is noting an absence - maybe an absence of a certain type of yang force... even the "strong draught horse" seems to come from another time. My mentor said of the sequence: "Wow - that is really good Marcus". Praise I value highly indeed.

The photographs form a sequence and should be viewed horizontally. Please click on the long small image to see them in this format when viewing on Art Blart. See the full sequence at http://wp.me/pn2J2-842

Dr Marcus Bunyan

I am scanning my negatives made during the years 1991 - 1997 to preserve them in the form of an online archive as a process of active memory, so that the images are not lost forever. These photographs were images of my life and imagination at the time of their making, the ideas I was thinking about and the people and things that surrounded me.

All images © Marcus Bunyan but can be used freely anywhere with the proper acknowledgement. Please click the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Marcus Bunyan
An English fair
1994

Marcus Bunyan
Medieval tiles
1994

Marcus Bunyan
Covered figure with flowers
1994

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