Blogs

St Andrews University Special Collections has spent some time recently working on replacing its ageing photographic collections site. The new and improved site is now available and aims to improve the discoverability, usability and shareability of its internationally important collection of photographs in all formats and of all ages. There are now over 300,000 high resolution images available online.

A blog post discussion the new content and functionality is here: https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/author/standrewsrarebooks/

The collection can be seen here: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/special-collections/photographs/.

Hans P Kraus Jr, the New York based dealer and galler,  had been looking forward to welcoming Paris Photo to New York, in partnership with AIPAD, for the first time.  In light of the postponed event it is presenting it first E-list, a selection of images by British artists to entice, to inspire or merely to distract. They vary in subject matter and introduce the viewer to some of the photographic processes, invented nearly two centuries ago: salt print, cyanotype, albumen, carbon, and photogravure. The magic of the negative is represented in their paper, mica and glass forms. There is a fine stereoscopic diapositive on glass of the moon⁠—someplace we might all rather be just now. 

Ten per cent of the revenue from these sales will be donated to NYC Health + Hospitals in support of our healthcare workers as they battle the COVID-19 pandemic. 

See the list here.

Image: 

Anna ATKINS (English, 1799-1871)
"Pteris Sagittaria", circa 1851-1854
Cyanotype photogram
25.9 x 20.2 cm
Handwritten title within the plate. Watermark "J Whatman Turkey Mill 1851"

Applications are invited for an AHRC-funded PhD at Cardiff University. Titled: Diversifying and decolonising conflict photography: an exploration of how accompanying textual information can influence the reading and understanding of photographs it is offered under the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership programme. The partner institutions are Cardiff University and IWM.

The studentship will be supervised by Dr Tom Allbeson (School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University) and Helen Mavin (IWM) and co-supervised by Professor Claire Gorrara (School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University). The studentship begins on 1 October 2020 and is funded at standard AHRC rates for 45 months full time (or part-time equivalent) with the potential to be extended for a further 3 months for professional development opportunities.

Closing date for applications: 15 May 2020

Anticipated start date: 1 October 2020

Full details: https://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/2020-04/IWM%20Cardiff%20CDP%20Advert%20final.pdf

The Studentship

The IWM Photograph Archive is an internationally significant collection that supports understanding of the causes, course, and consequences of modern conflict from multi-national perspectives. It includes material illustrating the experiences of both civilians and military participants. Using material from across the IWM collection, this project will critically examine the language used to describe and contextualise collections. It will focus on the portrayal of diverse experiences within the context of war and conflict during the 20^th century and how original captions and museum-ascribed descriptions have consciously or unconsciously supported colonial narratives and influenced audience understandings. The studentship offers flexibility, allowing the student to define the scope of the research within the broad aims of the project. Further details regarding these aims are outlined here:

https://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/2020-04/IWM%20Cardiff%20CDP%20Advert%20final.pdf

Funding

Subject to AHRC eligibility criteria, the scholarship covers tuition fees and a grant towards living expenses for 45 months full time or part-time equivalent, and may be extended for a further 3 months

The award pays tuition fees up to the value of the full-time home/EU UKRI rate for PhD degrees. The award pays full maintenance for UK citizens and residents only. For more information visit: https://www.ukri.org/skills/funding-for-research-training/.

How To Apply  

Applicants will need to satisfy AHRC eligibility requirements. For more information visit: https://ahrc.ukri.org/funding/research/researchfundingguide/

Applicants should submit the following via email:

• Covering letter outlining their suitability for the studentship (max. one page)
• Curriculum vitae (max. two pages)
• Sample of writing from either academic assignment/publication OR museum interpretation/publication (1,500 to 8,000 words)
• Proposal outlining how they would approach the research project (max. 1000 words)
• Transcripts of undergraduate and masters qualifications (or evidence of equivalent)
• Details of two academic referees

Complete applications should be submitted by email to the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University (JOMECStudentsupport@cardiff.ac.uk) by 5pm on Friday 15 May 2020. All documents should be submitted in either a MS Word or PDF format.

Interviews are scheduled to be held on Friday 29 May 2020. Owing to current public health measures to tackle coronavirus, interviews will be held online.

Further Enquiries

For further enquiries, feel free to contact Dr Tom Allbeson (allbesont@cardiff.ac.uk) or Helen Mavin (hmavin@iwm.org.uk).

A new video about the Family Photo Talks workshop, organized by CRDI and driven by Susanna Muriel within the framework of the European Kaleidoscope project is now available. Family Photo Talks is a participatory workshop about collective memory, to share and disseminate the story of family photography. The workshop was organised by the Center for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) in Girona, in October 2019. It was part of the European Kaleidoscope project, which was focused on European photography of the 50s.

The activity was driven by Susanna Muriel, a specialist in this subject. The workshop received a very good feedback from participants. They worked on the description and conservation of photography, and mainly on the narratives, that were created from an oral history exercise. For this specific workshop we created an audiovisual in order to explain the methodology used for this activity. The audiovisual aims to provide content that anyone could consider when organizing a memories workshop using photography as a resource. It is an audiovisual that can inspire and help other institutions when organizing a workshop. For the audiovisual, we use the images recorded during the event in Girona and we mainly use the images recorded in a private house from one of the participants.

Click the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjeaBISGTJI or below

The Guardian newspaper has reported that the Getty Archive is using remote working to preserve its archival photographs. The Getty Images archive in Canning Town, east London, holds 80 million photographs and negatives, some of which are more than 100 years old and need careful preservation and protection to stop them quickly degrading.

Matthew Butson, the archive’s vice-president, said a mix of a small on-site team and the use of remote temperature and humidity controls were being used to protect the rare negatives and prints. “We’re not just a commercial archive, we’re looking after our cultural heritage,” he said. “We have remote controls to make sure the building has the correct temperature and humidity. Too much humidity is obviously bad for imagery; a lot of our negatives are glass and go back to the 19th century.”

Read the full piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/apr/02/getty-uses-remote-working-effort-preserve-photo-archive

Photograph: Rob Western