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I have long been fascinated by this concept ever since I first saw an engraving in the Illustrated London News, 10 November1855, of the van that Roger Fenton took to the Crimea, with Marcus Sparling in the driver’s seat. It seemed so implausibly compact given the multitude of tasks it was said to perform ‘fitted up for living, cooking, sleeping, and darkroom work’.

Copies of the actual photo exist in various national collections and can now be found e.g. on Wikimedia, as used here.

I’ve never really studied other itinerant photographers who used them until now, however, I am currently researching Oliver Sarony and Samuel Oglesby.

The van Sarony rolled into Wisbech with in 1854 was in stark contrast to Fenton’s, being described as  a “monster carriage (measuring 32 feet in length and weighing seven tons,) with its elegant suite of rooms beautifully fitted up and admirable [sic] adapted for photographic purposes.” Another report that year talks of his van literally cracking the flagstones in the market place in Cambridge.

Consequently I would be grateful if other members could point me in the direction of any accessible background reading on such travelling vans in England, or on Oliver Sarony himself.

I have read that Sarony had links with other photographers and artists, e.g. Heathcote’s ‘Faithful Likeness’ mentions John Baume and the colourist Alfred Lancaster. However, I’ve not read of any links between Sarony and Oglesby, but there seem to be some from 1856 when they were both in Norwich.

Oglesby having moved on Bury St. Edmonds, possibly aiming to capitalise on Sarony’s reputation, said that he used the same artists as Sarony, and offered for sale at least one of Sarony’s photographs, of a General Windham. Subsequently whilst in Boston in 1857, by then Oglesby, like Sarony, had changed over to collodion paper prints, for a time he offered them at half price to people who had previously had daguerreotypes taken by Sarony and wished to exchange them. Sarony settled in Scarborough in 1857, whilst Oglesby continued his travels. They both also used the same design on their CDV mounts in the 1860s (which may, or may not, be significant, as that was not uncommon).

The output of itinerant photographers usually ranks them at the lower end of the quality spectrum, however, the photographs of this pair are anything but, if the quality of their surviving cartes de visites is anything to go by. Whilst ‘local news’ pieces in contemporary newspapers were generally effusive, especially for advertisers, the favourable reviews of the fidelity of their photographs seem more fulsome than most.

Oglesby is an interesting character, in 1833 he and his brother Henry were sentenced, age 10 and 12 respectively, to 7 years transportation for theft of items valued at 8s. 6d. Due to a backlog of prisoners awaiting transportation, they spent 2 years on the prison hulk Euryalus, moored off Chatham. There they remained until they boarded the convict ship John Barry on 31 August 1835. It set sail on 7^th September, with 320 convicts on board, bound for New South Wales arriving in Australia on 17^th January 1836. Apart from discovering that both brothers received their Certificate of Freedom on the same day, 28^th June 1841, to date I have found nothing else about them for the period 1836 – 1849.

Samuel re-emerges in the summer of 1849 as a daguerreotype photographer in Adelaide. I have tracked various references to him 1849 – Aug.1852 on Trove. He subsequently returned to the UK (before or after Beard’s patent had expired?); Heathcote has him in Peterborough in June 1854. After some itinerant years touring the country, his van rolled into Preston in the autumn of 1861, where he settled before moving to Llandudno 5 years later; he died there in 1879.

I’m hoping that there might be some antipodean members who could advise me as to how I might fill in some of the gaps in the timeline.

A series of events organised by the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre together with the Centre for British Photography and Four Corners, coinciding with the exhibition  Jo Spence: Fairy Tales and Photography at the Centre for British Photography, an exhibition of materials from the Hyman Collection and the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive at Birkbeck, curated by Patrizia Di Bello and James Hyman, with help from Eliza Neil and Marta Duarte. 

Workshop 

11 March 2023, 3-5 pm, at the Centre for British Photography, 49 Jermyn St, St. James's, London SW1Y 6LX 

Synthetic Documents: Jo Spence’s ‘self’ portraiture, from The Faces Group to the Polysnappers 

With Alexandra Symons-Sutcliffe. Please note that registration and a fee will be required to book a place on this as spaces are limited. These are not for profit but to manage space. Book here.  

The photographer Jo Spence (1934–1992) is closely associated with the radical London left of the 1970s and 1980s and particularly feminist politics. The phrase ‘the personal is political’, often deployed to summarise some of the aims of the Women’s Liberation Movement, invokes the idea of self-representation as a primary political goal, but what does ‘the personal’ mean in a context of collective political organisation and art production? This workshop invites participants to take a long view of Spence’s self-portraiture, beginning with her early collaboration with Terry Dennett, as well as her work with female-only photography collectives, including the Faces Group and The Polysnappers. Through the handling and discussion of documents from the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive, and a presentation on the history of Spence’s collaborations by curator and writer Alexandra Symons-Sutcliffe, the workshop aims to unpack the role of the personal in collective political identity both in the 1970s and 1980s, and today within our changed political and media landscape. Attendees are invited to bring images they classify as self-portraiture, of themselves or others, to use in the group discussion which includes our own relationships with photography and ideas about political representation as well as the lessons we can learn from Spence.  

Alexandra Symons-Sutcliffe is a curator and writer, usually based in London, where she is a Ph.D. candidate at Birkbeck University writing a dissertation on Jo Spence and Terry Dennett. Currently, she is in residency at AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions in Paris where she is working on a project focused on the connections between British and German radical left-wing culture of the 1970s.  

FORTHCOMING: 

Reading Group 

14 March 2023, 7-8:30pm at Four Corners, 121 Roman Rd, London E2 0QN. 

Art Form and Funding: The 9–5 and the 5—9 

Free and open to all but RSVP required due to limited capacity, please respond to this email to confirm attendance and receive PDFs of the texts.  

Please join for a reading group and discussion on the history of art form and art funding in the UK and specifically London. Focused on the shared history of Four Corners and the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive, we will discuss archival material and our own experiences of living and making work today. We will be reading in advance ‘Ten Years of the Photography Workshop’ by Jo Spence and Terry Dennett from Photographic Practices: Towards a Different Image (1986) ed Phillip Bezencenet and Stevie Corrigan and ‘The Rising Moon’ an article on Four Corners from Amateur Photographer (1978).  

In Discussion 

30 March, 6:30 to 8pm, at the Centre for British Photography, 49 Jermyn St, St. James's, London SW1Y 6LX 

‘Jo Spence: Fairy Tales and Photography’ 

Marina Warner in conversation with Patrizia Di Bello, reflecting on the themes of fairy tales and transformation in Jo Spence’s work, and its resonances in contemporary culture. Info and Booking. 

Roundtable discussion 

13 April, 6:30 to 8pm 

‘Jo Spence: The Archive Which is Not One’ 

A roundtable discussion with Charlene Heath, James Hyman and Patrizia Di Bello, discussing multiplicity, dispersal and repetitions of the ‘dispersed’ Jo Spence Memorial Archive. How do archives construct the past for the present and the future? Info and Booking.  

Image: Detail from Jo Spence Faces Group (Lyn), 1975-1977. Workbook with gelatine silver prints and masks. Ryerson Image Centre, Jo Spence Memorial Archive 

How can photographs help us to understand the history of warfare? This afternoon of talks covers the origins of war photography and its early practices, exploring how the invention of the photographic camera in the nineteenth century forged new ways of seeing conflict and its human costs.

How did the photographic image begin to shape perceptions of war? What can photographic albums reveal about the experience of conflict? And what ethical issues are raised by the practice of taking photographs of violence for public consumption?

With a range of speakers, these talks consider the value of photographic archives for shedding light on global histories of warfare, seeking to expand popular conceptions of what a ‘war photograph’ looks like, as well as how we should think (and feel) about these images.

‘The Origins of War Photography’ coincides with the Photo Oxford Festival 2023, 'The Hidden Power of the Archive' (14 April-6 May), giving you the opportunity to visit other events and activities in Oxford.

The Origins of War Photography
Sat 29 Apr 2023, from 1300-1730
£55
University of Oxford, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA
Details and book: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/the-origins-of-war-photography?code=O22P199ARJ#fees_container

Can anyone please help me interpret the content of the photographs shown eg nature of the sitters, social context and significant elements of dress etc.

This two-day event initiates a critical conversation about the largely overlooked space of the darkroom, and outlines new ways to research, theorise, and interpret the roles that it has played in our modern world. In the Photographic Darkroom will seek to do so by shifting the focus from the visual product (e.g., negatives and prints) to the setting itself within which these objects were produced, positing that the material, socio-cultural, and corporeal dimensions of the darkroom had an influence on how people conceptualised and, consequently, understood photography. This will enable us to rethink the role of photography in the development of modern visual culture, and its wider historical relations, from fresh viewpoints.

Further information – including the full programme of speakers and abstracts – is available on the conference website.

Conference: In the Photographic Darkroom (08-09 June 2023)

This is a hybrid event: Please join us online or on site at the University of Westminster, London (UK).

All tickets are free but registration is required:

Click here to reserve tickets for on site attendance.

Click here to reserve tickets to attend online.

For any queries please contact Dr Sara Dominici at s.dominici1@westminster.ac.uk

Join De Montfort University's online time-flexible distance learning programme to learn about photography’s relationship with politics, science, technology, and cultural heritage while enhancing your research skills and employability in the culture sector.

Contact Professor Gil Pasternak e: gpasternak@dmu.ac.uk or WhatsApp: +44 (0)7970 655800.

Ever thought about studying the History of Photography at St Andrews? Check out the MLitt History of Photography at https://st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/art-history/history-photography-mlitt/…

Join a virtual visiting day on March 15 to learn more.

See:  https://st-andrews.ac.uk/study/meet-us/online/pg-online/pg/…

The Warburg Institute’s Photographic Collection is seeking a fixed-term Collection Research Assistant​​​​​​​ to work on its archive of photographs of ‘The Image of the Black in Western Art’, a project initiated by the Menil Foundation in Houston, Texas.

Two different versions of the Menil archive exist; one is at the Hutchins Center in Harvard University, the other at the Warburg. Harvard’s version was originally in Houston, the Warburg’s version in Paris, France. A digital, Microsoft Excel catalogue exists of Harvard’s photographic holdings. You will be responsible for expanding this and creating a joint catalogue of both the Harvard and the Warburg Menil archives. You will be working alongside the Curator of the Photographic Collection, Dr Paul Taylor, who has begun work on the catalogue. You will also be asked to write a descriptive survey of the note cards and negatives which came to the Warburg with the Menil material. The language used throughout the Warburg’s version of the archive is French, of which you must have a reading knowledge. You will be expected to work according to a weekly production schedule.

We’re seeking a junior researcher with an interest in Black history and a good knowledge of the iconography of Western art. You will have strong skills in visual comparison and a meticulous attention to detail.

See details here: https://www.jobs.london.ac.uk/job/jobdetail?jobid=2382&source=JobtrainIndeed