Blogs

Stereoscopy Day is an international celebration of the birth of stereoscopic 3-D. It celebrates the inventor of stereoscopy, British polymath Sir Charles Wheatstone, its pioneers and their successors up to the present day, its long history from its first Golden Age and subsequent periods of popularity, its rich diversity and multiple uses in various fields, as well as the sheer immersive magic it brings to any photograph and other applications.

Stereoscopy Day will be celebrated across the world every year on June 21st, which is the anniversary of the day in 1838 when Sir Charles Wheatstone officially presented his stereoscope to the Royal Society of London and demonstrated his theory of binocular vision. A more portable version of the stereoscope was later popularised by Sir David Brewster.

The idea of Stereoscopy Day was sparked on the official 180th birthday of stereoscopy, June 21st 2018, at King’s College London, with the talk “Professor Wheatstone, the inventor of the Stereoscope, was also there“. Sir Charles Wheatstone was the first appointed Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King’s College London, and the University holds the Wheatstone Collection.

Stereoscopy Day can be honoured in many ways to promote the history and present uses of stereoscopy. These can include sharing stereoscopic 3-D related posts on social media, such as stereo photos you’ve taken yourself or highlighting stereoscopic treasures within collections (don’t forget to add #StereoscopyDay), talks, presentations, meetings, interactive displays, workshops, exhibitions or special discounts.

Read more here: www.stereoscopyday.com

The Martin Parr Foundation is holding a seminar day to launch a new major publication from Gerry Badger,  Another Country, British Documentary Photography since 1945  (thames & Hudson) which showcases the social and cultural history of Britain since the Second World War. Organised chronologically, each chapter spans a period of social and cultural history, focusing on the major photographers, figures, institutions, publications and galleries that shaped the photographic climate of that time.

The seminar day will consist of a series of talks from photographers who are represented in the book, followed by a panel discussion. The day includes: 

• Introduction, with Martin Parr and Gerry Badger
• John Bulmer
• Hannah Starkey
• Sunil Gupta
• Elaine Constantine
• Panel discussion with Olivia Arthur (photographer and president at Magnum Photos), Gerry Badger (writer), Sunil Gupta (photographer), David Hurn (photographer), Alona Pardo (curator, Barbican) and Martin Parr (photographer).

For details and to book click here: https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/events/another-country/

Image:  Manchester by John Bulmer / Popperfoto. Featured in The North, published by Bluecoat Press.

The latest number of the Science Museum Group Journal (Spring 2022) includes a paper by Efram Sera-Shriar titled Photographic plates and spirit fakes: remembering Harry Price’s investigation of William Hope’s spirit photography at its centenary. 

Access is free here: http://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/browse/issue-17/photographic-plates-and-spirit-fakes

After 15 years of campaigning The Cinema Museum’s future looks bright. At last we have a chance to secure a permanent home for the Museum and save a well-loved, unique heritage building (The Lambeth Workhouse, once home of Charlie Chaplin). We are thrilled; we can’t wait to buy it, mend it and share it with those who love cinema, film, creativity, architecture, stories, memories and all the good that comes from positive social change, pro-environmental behaviour and caring communities.

BACKGROUND
Since 2007 The Cinema Museum has campaigned to secure a permanent home at The Master’s House, London SE11, Lambeth, just over the Southwark border. With no rights to renew, changing landlords, short annual leases that restricted access to grants and ongoing threats that our home was to be sold to the highest bidder – it was a long, hard, stressful slog. But its over…well, almost!

THE FUTURE
We just signed a 4-year lease with our landlords, Anthology (part of the Lifestory Group) – with an option to purchase the Master’s House buildings for £1 million at any time over the next four years. That might not seem much to raise in 4 years, but the buildings need MANY millions spending on them – so we have 4 years to raise a LOT of money – but we are reenergised, reinvigorated and with your help, we will do it. So - to the essence of this statement – our deep, respectful thanks.

We are grateful to Anthology (part of Lifestory Group) for giving us the legal certainty we need to save both The Cinema Museum and The Master’s House buildings. We are grateful to the Mayor of London and the GLA who were supportive of the Museum throughout. We are grateful to both officers and politicians at Lambeth Council, who provided over a decade of kind help and support in getting the Museum to this stage. We are grateful to officers and politicians at Southwark Council who also took us under their wing. We are grateful to Art Fund for emergency funding during Covid. Thank you to all our local partners in Lambeth and Southwark for everything you do for us. And - Museum Development London (funded by Arts Council England and Art Fund) who have expertly advised and supported us for over a decade, THANK YOU!

BUT they are organisations, not people, so thank you all, so much, every one of you who has stood up for us, signed our 62,000+petition and donated to our £100k+ crowdfunders. Thank you to our visitors, neighbours, friends and most importantly - our amazing, giant-hearted and hard-working volunteers - past and present. Thank you all for your pro bono advice; your work; your time; your money. Thank you for your generosity, kindness, encouragement, trust and belief. Thank You EVERYONE - this success has got your name written all over it - we will never forget.

Want to help us make this happen? You can make a donation at https://tinyurl.com/5wttnepe
We’d love to hear from you info@cinemamuseum.org.uk

Visit the museum website: http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/

Flints Auctions are to offer a 'pre-production' Compass camera 1936/37, with the serial number 1015. The camera, also known as the Compass I, was withdrawn after its initial public offering and buyers offered the redesigned Compass II camera.   The Compass camera was the brainchild of the maverick designer and politician Noel Pemberton-Billing and manufactured by Le Coultre et Cie. According to the auctioneers this is the first time a Compass I has been offered at auction and it is estimated at £12,000-18,000. The sale takes place on 23 April 2022. 

The Compass I differed from the Compass II in the following respects:  

• This camera is 3mm shorter and 3mm less thick than the version II
• The lens has no name or data
• The lens cap is separate and not attached The 'Le Coultre' name does not appear on the outside of the camera
• No lens cap depth of field calculator
• More flush spirit level
• There is no hinged magnifier
• The swivel mount is for a small screw
• No option for cable release
• The wheel on the front is engraved 'Shutter Winder'
• Inside the back is engraved 'World Patents Pending' Back engraved 'Compass Cameras, London. Pemberton Billing, Patents/ Manufactured for the Licencees' - No mention of LeCoultre

The differences and best description of the Compass camera was given by Dave Todd in a series of articles in Photographica World. 

See the full description here: https://www.flintsauctions.com/auction/lot/lot-99---a-pre-production-lecoultre--cie-compass-camera/?lot=14329&so=0&st=Compass&sto=0&au=38&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=50&pn=1&g=-1

The Optilogue is a blog that explores historical visual media, especially those with an ‘optical’ element – including magic lanterns, early cinema, dimensional picture books, stereoscopic images, zoetropes, early flip books, anamorphics, peepshows and transparent dioramas. Art, Science, Technology and Sociology. Included are historiographic musings, original research, investigations into visual perception, intermedial studies, and scrutiny of received wisdom in these fields. It is written by Stephen Herbert who describes it as an 'independent and free source of new research in the fields of historic optical media: for academics, collectors, media archaeologists, private researchers, and anyone else interested in these engaging subjects'.   

Sign up for updates and to see more here: https://theoptilogue.wordpress.com/about-this-blog/

The 13th edition of PhotoIreland Festival proposes a conversation ‘On the History and Practice of Photography in Ireland’ through a programme of exhibitions and events running from 7July to 28 August. In this context, a series of Think Tanks are being hosted to tease out the complexities of the History as much as of the discipline. 

Proposals are invited for a day workshop on photographic histories of Ireland in the twentieth century. The workshop proposes to explore histories of photographic practices, technologies, exhibitions and archives from 1910 to 1990. There is no prescribed theme and the scope of proposals are open to any aspect of photographic culture, and proposals for focused case studies of specific photographers and/or images are welcomed along with broader thematic papers that may critically asses methods and methodologies of the historiography of photography in Ireland across the period of partition and its aftermath or take a comparative approach to the photography and its histories.

Proposed papers do not have to follow any formal approach or methodology and can be focused on the historical or sociological aspects of photography and its uses, photographic forms and aesthetics, institutional uses of the photographic image and their archivisation. Proposals are welcomed that address the cultural politics of the photographic image in state formation from the period of partition alongside papers that explore hidden or unexplored histories of photography throughout the twentieth century. Proposals may not focus solely on Irish photographers and proposals that explore international photographers working in Ireland or Irish photographers working in any geographical location are encouraged.

This workshop is convened by Justin Carville in collaboration with PhotoIreland and proposals of 300 words with a short bio should be submitted via email attachment to photoireland.call.2022@gmail.com no later than 20 May 2022.

Full details and possible themes are here: https://edu.photoireland.org/research/think-tank-on-histories-i/

Three-colour photography is the basis for most colour photographic technologies nowadays, so why does its multifaceted history, especially at the turn of the last century, remain ignored by historians?

This online symposium complimenting PhotoResearcher No.37 delves into key technological, cultural and political questions pertaining to this medium in its various historical manifestations. Speakers will address issues of the scientific use of three-colour photography, its iconic protagonists, and its most representative imperial and colonial expeditions. They explore the multitude of photographic processes the term “three-colour photography” encompasses, ranging from Color Paget, Sanger-Shepherd, Miethe's System, Bleach-Out methods etc. along with the material and epistemological conditions which engendered them.

This Symposium seeks to remedy the historical and theoretical vacuum around three-colour photography, opening exciting avenues for subsequent research and enabling more sensitivity towards the presence of colour photography in museum archives.

This conference is free of charge for attendees and all presenters have been offered an honorarium. This is made possible thanks to the financial generosity of the Photographic Historical Society of Canada.

An international Symposium of the European Society for the History of Photography (ESHPh), in cooperation with the Photographic Historical Society of Canada (PHSC), and Dr. Hanin Hannouch (Weltmuseum Wien) accompanying the publication of PhotoResearcher No. 37: "Three-Colour Photography around 1900" (guest-edited by Hanin Hannouch).

Technologies, Expeditions, Empires: Three-Color Photography around 1900
Online, Friday 29th April 2022, 1300 (EST) | 1800 (BST) | 1900 (CET)

Details and register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/technologies-expeditions-empires-three-colour-photography-around-1900-registration-256104404167?aff=erelexpmlt

Charles Miller Ltd is offering two lots linked to Herbert Ponting. First up is lot 247 a Beck No. 3 Universal Telephoto lens no. 102233 in a leather case which is embossed H.G. PONTING, F.R.G.S. The second lot, 248 is a photograph [Chris] A sledge dog listening to the gramophone with an official edition label numbered 109/400.  The Gramophone Co. gave Scott a Monarch Senior machine, the top model of the day, along with several hundred mainly single-sided shellac records. In this image, Ponting revisits the famous Dog and Gramophone trademark which had been adopted in 1909 by the Gramophone Co. which was then renamed His Master's Voice.

Both are offered in a specialist Maritime and Scientific Instrument auction on 26 April 2022. 

See:https://www.charlesmillerltd.com/auction/search/?st=ponting&sto=0&au=57&w=False&pn=1

An important collection of early colour photography has been donated to the V&A Museum where it will join significant bodies of similar material, notably within the RPS Collection, held at the museum. The V&A has recently announced a PhD studentship in partnership with the University of Liverpool to examine early colour and contexts in Britain from the 1890s to 1935.

The collection was formed by Colin Axon and covers the period c1895 to 1940. It consists of some 1000 items and includes colour work from such luminaries as the Lumière brothers, Otto Pfenninger, Helen Messinger Murdoch, Olive Edis, Arthur Grenier, Hugh C. Knowles, Vero Charles Driffield, Arthur E. Morton,  Arthur Clive Banfield and others. Many of these add to bodies of work already held within the RPS Collection, making the V&A one of the most important centres for the study of early colour photography. 

The collection has examples of many colour processes including Dufay Dioptichrome, Dufay, Lippmann, Paget, Baker Duplex, Thames, Ducos du Hauron Mélanochromoscope and Sanger Shepherd.

Of special note is the photographic archive Dr Kurt von Holleben, the head of Agfa's colour screen development for the Agfa-Farbenplatte, Agfacolor and Agfacolor Ultra processes. This consists of some six hundred 9 x12cm Agfa glass plates from 1924 to 1938 covering the whole of Germany and his travels in Europe and Scandinavia.

Speaking to BPH, Colin Axon explained that "I started out collecting daguerreotypes but switched to early colour about 15 to 20 years ago. Before I started I read Brian Coe’s book Colour Photography: The First Hundred Years, 1840-1940 from cover to cover. I used it as the guide for my collection and I tried to find as many of the different colour processes as I could. I believe that the items I found will sit well alongside the V&A’s other holdings."

The catalyst for the donation was to find a home for the collection where it would be properly stored, in the right conditions, and made available. His initial contact was with the former V&A curator Catlin Langford who was working on a book of autochromes in the V&A collection.  The collection finally arrived at the museum in February. 

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Holleben and https://www.photocollections.org.uk/collections/colin-axon-collection-early-colour-photography

Catlin Langford, Color Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome (Thames and Hudson, due December 2022) 

With thanks to Colin Axon and Ron Callender. 

Images; 

Top: Otto Pfenninger, Children in the water', Brighton, 6 August 1906. Davidson & Jumeaux Colour Process, lantern slide. 

Left: Autochrome, 13x18cm. Sold as 'one of the little daughters of the Lumière brothers'. Both images courtesy of Colin Axon. 

As first reported on BPH on 21 February the V&A has now announced that Fiona Rogers has joined it as the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography. Fiona joins the V&A from Webber, a photographic agency and gallery with offices in London, New York, and Los Angeles, where she was Director of Photography & Operations.

In her new role, Fiona will lead activities for The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, a major new curatorial programme to support women in photography. The Project, funded by Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and the Parasol Foundation Trust, encompasses the new curatorial post, endowed for 25 years, alongside acquisitions, research, education and public displays.  It aims to foreground and sustain women’s practice in contemporary photography and highlight the role women have played throughout the history of the medium.  Fiona will also develop a significant online presence for the Project, including a dedicated Instagram account to highlight works by women artists, which launched this week.

 Fiona Rogers is the founder of Firecracker, a digital platform established in 2011 and network that champions women photographers. In 2012 Firecracker launched a Photographic Grant and has since awarded £20,000 in funding to international artists.  In 2017, Fiona published Firecrackers: Female Photographers Now (Thames & Hudson) with co-author Max Houghton.

Fiona has curated exhibitions with a range of artists including Theo Simpson, Marvel Harris, and Zora J Murff and has contributed to books and magazines including Photoworks and the British Journal of Photography. She holds a BA from the Surrey Institute of Art & Design and is an Associate Lecturer in Photography at the London College of Communication. She is a member of the RPS Awards Committee and a Trustee of the Martin Parr Foundation and the Peter Marlow Foundation. Prior to joining the V&A and Webber, Fiona worked for Magnum Photos in a variety of roles, rising to Chief Operations Officer where she was responsible for running the agency and designing and implementing strategies in collaboration with the CEO.  

 The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project furthers the V&A’s mission to nurture contemporary artists and share the museum’s collections, knowledge, and expertise in photography. Through commissioning women to create new work, acquiring photography by women artists, devising women-led displays, and organising talks, educational programmes and events, the Project’s ambition is to support contemporary women artists, develop programming, and investigate the roles of women photographers within the V&A collection. International in scope, there will be a particular emphasis on digital art, and the digital distribution of resources and information via social media.

 he Project is made possible through a major gift from Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and the Parasol Foundation Trust, a philanthropic trust established in 2004 that supports educational, health, culture and heritage initiatives. In addition to the Trust’s support of the Project, Gallery 97 at the V&A will be named The Parasol Foundation Gallery. This gallery, a space for displaying contemporary photography, is part of the V&A Photography Centre Phase Two development.

 Fiona Rogers, The Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography at the V&A, said: “It’s an honour to join the V&A at such an important and exciting phase in its evolution and continued engagement with photography.  I’m grateful to the Parasol Foundation Trust for their support for the project and look forward to contributing and leading a dynamic program of activities that will support international contemporary practitioners, further the V&A’s commitment to women artists and share the work with a wide and diverse audience.”

 Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol said: “Fiona's appointment as the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography curator is a significant step for the project. Together we're aiming to celebrate the achievements of women, open up new opportunities for female photographers and connect and inspire new audiences around the world through our emphasis on digital activities and art.” 

 The V&A was the first museum in the world to collect photographs, beginning with its founding in 1852, and continues to collect and commission new work today. Phase One of the V&A Photography Centre opened to critical acclaim in 2018, sharing the breadth of the V&A’s world-leading photography collection, and Phase Two – with four new gallery spaces – will open in 2023.

The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project Instagram is here: @vamparasolwomenphoto

Image: © Joana Choumali

This Symposium brings together an international group of artists, writers and thinkers and is part of Four Corners exhibition, Photographing Protest: Resistance Through a Feminist Lens.

Talks include:

• Professor Anna Rocca in conversation with Senior Lecturer Dora Carpenter-Latiri about her exhibition on Tunisian women, Tunisian Women of the Book
• Julia Winckler, photographer and academic, on the work of Marilyn Stafford, whose street photographs of children in post-war Paris constitute precious fragments of an underrepresented working-class neighbourhood before being demolished in 1961
• PhD student Gabriella McGrogan on resistance to the war on drugs in the Phillipines
• Historian of photography, researcher and writer, Taous Dahmani on the visual culture of the 1976 Grunwick dispute in the UK
• Tessa Lewin, creative practitioner and researcher, in conversation with South African photographer Dean Hutton
• Associate Professor of Art History, Heather Diack on the work of Civil Rights photographer Doris Derby
• Feminist research artist, Rosario Montero on documentary photography in Chile
• Tara Pixley speaking about her, film Rebel Vision, on the work of Black female and non binary photographers associated with Authority Collective

This event is produced in collaboration with Kylie Thomas of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, editor of a special issue of MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture journal published in Spring 2022.

Feminism, Photography & Resistance Symposium
Thursday 28 April 2022, 3 - 7.30pm GMT, Online
See more and register here: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/feminism-photography-and-resistance-symposium

Image: © ROSARIO MONTERO PRIETO, Protester with a sign that reads: 'we are not ok', October 2019. 

Photographica 2022 is fast approaching after a two year break, it is a camera collectors and users fair, it will take place at the regular venue The Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Hall, 80 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PB on the 22 May 2022. Public entry is from 10am-4.00pm and admission is £8 on the door from 10am to 12 noon and £5 noon to the close. This year there will be up to 120 stalls selling user and collectable cameras, consumables, lenses, literature and images. It is not a trade show for new equipment. If you fancy a table to clear that build up of photographic equipment phone 01684 594526 . Early buyers tickets can be obtained from the same phone number.

 Any late updates and more information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/photographicafair ; 

Thanks

 Nigel

In September 2022, we are launching a fully online distance learning Photographic History MA Programme at De Montfort University; anyone can apply no matter where you are in the world.

Our Photographic History MA will allow you to investigate societal and cultural photographic practices alongside the cultural and social significance of the medium throughout its history. As well as engaging you with digital and analogue photographic image-objects, histories, and theories, it will equip you with key research and professional skills to prepare you for further study and for a wide range of possible careers in the culture sector.

The flexible module choice of the Programme is one of its main features:

• Both full-time and part-time students will be able to focus their studies on the subjects they are most interested in, while the Programme’s asynchronous model of delivery will allow you to pursue your studies at your own pace.
• Part-time students will be able to complete their studies in two years or more, making it easier for you to study around your job, family, and other commitments.
• Archivists, librarians, curators, and other field professionals are welcome to take only a few modules as a part of your professional development.

We will run one mandatory module that has been designed to provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to fully benefit from the online learning mode.

All Module Leaders on the Programme are members of the internationally renowned Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) at De Montfort University. Through their modules you will gain knowledge about a wide scope of subjects. Some of the modules on offer include Photographic Historiography; Photography, Science and Technology; Photography, Ethics and Emotions; Material Histories; and Photography and Digital Politics.

Visit the Programme webpage over here for more information, and follow the Programme Twitter account @PhotoHistoryMA for news and updates.

If you have any questions, feel equally free to get in touch with me directly via my email address which you can find by following this link.

James Hyman has announced the opening of its two new galleries at 48 and 50 Maddox Street in Mayfair, London.  At 48 Maddox Street, it is staging the exhibition Telling Stories. Picture Post and its Legacy. The exhibition presents some of the key photographers of Picture Post magazine as well as a curated selection of some later British photographers who built on this storytelling or documentary tradition.

The exhibition features work by Shirley Baker, Bill Brandt, Anna Fox, Ken Grant, Brian Griffin, Bert Hardy, Nigel Henderson, Paul Hill, Thurston Hopkins, David Hurn, Kurt Hutton, Colin Jones, Dafydd Jones, Chris Killip, Karen Knorr, Marketa Luskacova, Roger Mayne, Daniel Meadows, Jim Mortram, Martin Parr, Charlie Phillips, Tony Ray-Jones, Paul Reas, Grace Robertson, Jo Spence, Wolfgang Suschitzky, Homer Sykes, Jon Tonks.

See: https://www.jameshymangallery.com/

I have a long-standing research interest in the material lives and cultural meaning of glass artifacts in the history of science and the history of photography, from vacuum tubes and chemical glassware to lenses and glass plate negatives. Glass is one of the dominant materials of experimental science.  Its optical and physical properties mediate scientists’ interaction with the natural world. Embodied, artisanal practices around glass-making shape the hardware of experimental science, particularly in chemistry and physics, where test tubes, vacuum tubes, and other laboratory glassware have become iconic symbols of the scientific endeavor. As a photographic material, glass has had a powerful role in both forging and endangering the rhetorical “transparency” of the photographic medium–especially the fragile but powerful glass plate, the primary material for photographic negatives from around 1850 to 1925 (and in the practice of astronomy, until the 1990s). My presentation will range across these various ways that glass artifacts and glass surfaces have been implicated in debates over how we know what we know about the natural world.

GEEX talk
Dr Chitra Ramalingam
4 April 2022, 6:15pm CDT | 0015 5 April (BST) 
Public access: 4 Apri- 2 May 2022
Details: https://geex.glass/programming/geextalks/dr-chitra-ramalingam/

The next Counter Image International Conference taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 13--15 July. The event will focus on ways of decolonizing visuality but a range of topics on photographic culture relating to colonial and postcolonial contexts are possible. The conference will be in persona and will also accepts online participants.

This edition of Counter Image International Conference (CIIC22) proceeds the work of unveiling the ways in which images operate within the power and knowledge structures and systems of truth which tend to constitute hegemonic historical narratives and marginalize or erase those that are conflicting or minoritarian. This originates not only “centres” and “margins” but also tends to silence voices and invisible people, making certain ideias unpronounced. Being a historical process, it demands continuous criticism in line with the many scholars and artists working in Visual Culture, Gender Studies and Cultural Studies traditions in the various disciplines. Establishing counter narratives, counter archives and counter images is then a challenge to hegemonic social, cultural and political systems and a contribution to a much needed dialogue around themes that are difficult and complex, in view of a pluralist, diverse and balanced society.

In a world still deeply marked by colonial images and worldviews, in which the production and mass distribution of visual technologies has contributed to the naturalization of oppressive systems, making the underlying visual codes almost unnoticed, this edition wishes to debate colonial visual heritage and how it impacts the world today.

Photography historian and visual anthropologist, Professor Elizabeth Edwards, will present a keynote. 

at the next Counter Image International Conference taking place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 13th to 15th July. The event will focus on ways of decolonizing visuality but a range of topics on photographic culture relating to colonial and postcolonial contexts are possible. The conference also accepts online participants.

Deadline for proposals 20 April 2022. See: https://counter-image.netlify.app/#call-link

See more : https://counter-image.netlify.app/