Blogs

As a fitting conclusion to the current  LSC Book of the month promotion, photo historian Denis Pellerin, from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, will be giving a FREE 3D online talk, entitled “The Poor Man’s Picture Gallery: the Search goes on”, on Wednesday May 26th at 7.00 pm. Whether you have already got a copy of the book (we love you!) or have not purchased it yet (there is still time to visit our online shop !), there will be a lot to look at and learn in this colourful, entertaining and educational presentation.

Denis will examine the reasons that prompted the publication of the book in the first place and how all the original connections that are made in it between high art, popular art and stereoscopic photography, make it a unique volume that goes far beyond a simple survey of some of the best-selling Victorian stereo cards. Although the book was released some years ago, the search for more connections still goes on and the speaker will disclose some of the latest avenues he has explored and the numerous new links between paintings and stereo views he has discovered, and written about, since.

The images will be displayed side-by-side for parallel viewing. You can watch the whole presentation in 2D but if you want the 3D experience you need a Lite Owl, a Steampunk Owl, an Owl VR kit, or any other lorgnette-type viewer. If you haven’t got a viewer there is still time to order one from our online shop (https://shop.londonstereo.com/)

To book click here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-poor-mans-picture-gallery-the-search-goes-on-tickets-154817562497

It is my absolute pleasure to announce that from the 24 April (yes I know it is May please don’t judge me) to 19 June 2021 Llantarnam Grange will be hosting Phrame Wales newest exhibition Ode To Anna.

Ode to Anna is a celebration of the legacy of Anna Atkins, one of the first female photographers and champion of the Cyanotype process. This show exhibits work by members of Phrame that has either been inspired by Atkins or draws attention to her innovation and the themes surrounding her images. Ode to Anna not only highlights the lasting impression she has made on the photographic world and its history but showcases a range of photographic processes being practiced within South Wales today.⁠

Artists : Molly Caenwyn, Savanna Dumelow, Faye L-Griffiths, Sharon Magill, Kate Mercer, Jane Nesbitt, Tess Emily Seymour, Catherine Yemm & Patricia Ziad

Llantarnam Grange is open Tuesday to Saturday 9:30 – 3:30 (Free admission).
Currently visitors are limited to 6 people in any room at any one time.
Face masks are a requirement. 

I came across this and thought it could interest some of you. An original large glass plate negative, the glass plate with blue tint, edged in tape, a small label lower right dated `13 Oct 1915 H. Scott Orr`, in tissue wraps and original fitted card box, 258mm x 303mm; together with a postcard of the same view, stamped `H.Scott Orr Copyright`, the reverse inscribed `Published by Permission of the Official Press Bureau, Whitehall S.W.`, 

H. Scott Orr (1881-1972):
The Theatreland Raid, 13th October 1915
Unframed (ref: 6374)

https://www.lissllewellyn.com/show-6374-s_478.htm

Can anyone help me identify these anonymous (but eminently identifiable) albumen prints each approx 4-3/4 x 6-3/8 in? Tempting to read as Pre-Raphaelite, but surely not. Tableaux after Arthurian legend, presumably, but who are the participants, who is the maker, and what is the occasion?

Although this blog (see here) has had over 200 hits the main mystery remains . That is how did the most prominent London photographer of the day with his double royal warrants pitch up at a remote country house near Wrexham and produce three dags. evidence by his embossed double warrant on the leather cases. You would have to re read the blog but I remain hopeful that someone will offer a suggestion.

Chiswick Auction's auction of photographs 1840-2020 contains a number of lots of daguerreotypes and early photography. Two lots in particular are of special note, including a portrait of John Goddard and one that it is suggested may be a portrait of Frederick Scott Archer.

Lot 17. A portrait of John Frederick Goddard, the scientist and photographer, taken by Jabez Hogg. The image is reproduced in John Werge's Evolution of Photography. The description reads: AN IMPORTANT PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR JOHN FREDERICK GODDARD (1795-1866), c.1841-1850, Sixth plate daguerreotype, in French bevelled gilt mount, inscribed with a caption on the cover glass; "Dr. John Goddard dis. Bromine Inventor of Polariscope" (sic) with taped edges, and later manuscript label in ink, on verso reading; "Professor Jon Goddard, discoverer of the quickening effect of Bromine in the production of the Daguerreotype picture. Jabez Hogg 1. Bedford Square. It is estimated at £35,000-40,000. 

Lot 18. Contains a series of thirteen experimental collodion studies including what the auction house suggests is a previously unknown portrait of Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857). The lot description notes: Ambrotypes, (13), a collection of experimental outdoor portrait studies of Children (11), one image of an elderly Gentleman (1), and a previously unknown portrait, most likely of Frederick Scott Archer himself, the inventor of the wet plate collodion photographic process. Plate sizes approx. 90 x 90mm or slightly smaller, with contemporary paperbacks and taped edges, three examples with notes regarding exposure and process in an unknown hand, pencil verso; "Effect of oblique .... light, Eleven O'clock A.M", "Effect of direct sunlight Midday", "Effect of Evening light". Estimate: £5000-6000. 

See the full catalogue here: https://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/auction/details/28%20May%202021%20C-photographs-1840---2020/?au=669

Don’t Press Print is an annual conference organised by the University of West of England's Centre for Fine Print Research and the Royal Photographic Society. In 2020 the conference looked at the collodion process and its contemporary practice through the eyes of twenty artist-printmakers and photographic historians.

In 2021 Don't Press Print will take as its theme the history of photographic and photomechanical print reproduction and processes from both an historical and contemporary perspective. A call for papers has been made. Some of the potential areas for papers are, but not limited to are:

Reconstruction:

• Approaches to the photomechanical transfer of images to the printed page from Talbot onwards
• Specific processes, in particular the Woodburytype, Photogravure, Photolithography and Collotype
• The impact of new methods of photomechanical reproduction on printed publications

Deconstruction:

• Contemporary artistic practice of historical analogue photomechanical printmaking processes
• The application of historic photomechanical processes to innovative modern use
• Hybrid digital /analogue approaches that open up the potential of photomechanical print processes in a virtual world

The organizers welcome proposals from practicing printmakers and photographers, historians and process specialists, visual artists as well as image and print scientists, to present their theoretical and/or practical research and working methods and artworks.

Proposals and final papers will be peer reviewed. 

Presentations will be 25 minutes, if you are reading your paper this equates to approximately 3000 words, but please adjust for your own style and take account of your visual materials.

Read more here: https://rps.org/photomech

De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre's annual conference is now open for registration.The programme, including keynotes from Kim Timby and Emily Mark-Fitzgerald is now available.

Recent scholarship surrounding the development, use, and reuse of colour photography has highlighted the need for more research and debate about photographic colour, in terms of histories, technologies and the emotions they have affected. Long told as merely a triumphalist history of technological achievement, colour photography is steeped as well in controversy, in the re-telling of history, in activism, in politics of individuals, communities and countries. Colour photography, while a boon to some, has been developed and deployed at the expense of others. As well as seeking to delve to broader issues and concerns, Photography and Its Many Colours wishes to create a platform for the voices of such individuals and communities to be heard.

The 9th annual conference organized by the Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University in Leicester (UK) will thus address contemporary debates in and around colour photography through discussion of themes such as:

• Historical and contemporary uses of colourisation
• Emotional and affective responses to colour photography
• Industrial histories
• Activist and political uses of colour in photography
• Colour photography in race and identity politics

Full details and registration can be found here: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/annual-conference-2021/

Colin Ford explores the surprisingly large number of world-famous and influential photographers who were originally Hungarian, many of them Jewish.

Colin Ford CBE was Deputy Curator of the National Film & Television Archive (1965-72) before becoming the first senior curator of photography in any British national museum or gallery (National  Portrait Gallery, London, 1972-82). He then became founding Head of The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television (now The National Science and Media Museum), Bradford. A decade later, he became Director of the The National Museums & Galleries of Wales (1993-98). 

Colin was first involved with Hungarian photography when he curated the first exhibition in Britain of André Kertész (Serpentine Gallery, 1979). This was followed by The Hungarian Connection (NMPFT 1987). The most recent of his Hungarian exhibitions, Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century, was the first photography show ever originated by London’s Royal Academy.

Photography: Hungary’s Greatest Export?
with Colin Ford
60 minutes
Thu 20 May 20217:30pm 
£10
Details, booking etc. on https://www.jw3.org.uk/whats-on/festivals/yivo-series.

I worked for Kodak in the Research Labs for 30+ years during which I was involved with a variety of projects.  I decided to write down some memories and some descriptions of the technologies I worked on.  Along the way I had come across a number of novel imaging products from other manufacturers so my article although it has an autobiographical flavour grew into a review of what I thought were technically interesting imaging systems.  Some of these were explored in Kodak R&D both at Harrow and in Kodak's main lab in Rochester New York and as far as I know have not been described in any detail elsewhere. 

Interesting%20Imaging%20Systems.pdf

Join former V&A Museum ciurator Susanna Brown for a journey back in time to the elegant world of photographer George Hoyningen-Huene (1900–1968).  A pioneer in the fields of portraiture and fashion photography, Hoyningen-Huene worked during the golden age of Vogue and Vanity Fair, and his images define the glamorous aesthetic of that era. He collaborated with the stars of the artistic milieu in Paris, including Man Ray and Salvador Dalí, before embarking on a new career as a colour consultant for Hollywood movies.

He was also an avid traveller, publishing illustrated books of his journeys through Africa, Greece, and Mexico. His stylish photographs remain an enduring source of inspiration for today’s photographers and artists and his work can be found in numerous museum collections, including the RPS Collection at the V&A, MoMA, and the Pompidou Centre.  

To book a place visit: https://rps.org/events/bristol/2021/may/george-hoyningen-huene-1900-1968/

Two events took place last week to commemorate William Friese-Greene. In Bristol a short ceremony was held at the commemorative plaque to WFG in the city and John Winstone talks about it below. The other was an online discussion arranged by the Kennington Bioscope and the Cinema Museum with Ian Christie, Stephen Herbert and Peter Domankiewicz The event was recorded and is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62OiHjLlAl4

John Winstone of the Reece Winstone Archive writes the day after the centenary of F-G's death: The last time I stood under the plaque was in 1955, in a schoolboy's striped blazer, when Reece Winstone FRPS had arranged for Lord Mayor Harry Crook (Mr Kleen-eze) to unveil the plaque to F-G on his birthplace behind Bristol Council House and had made a plea that the house be saved from the Council's agenda to demolish. The family thought it prudent to describe Willie as the Pioneer of Cinematography on this more public plaque in the face of a then very recent publication by a photo-historian with ulterior motives denouncing F-G's reputation. Yesterday, at a somewhat poorly attended gathering without any press present, and with representatives of just two of the original seven organisations who had paid for the plaque, but now more optimistic for F-G's place in history I said a few words, looking at the site of the grade II Georgian house, still a car park. My wife and I left a few flowers. F-G's eldest surviving son in 1955, Graham, an artist in architectural metalwork, had made the bronze plaque. Now bereft of its green patina,  doubtless a result of Bristol's polluted air, the plaque is in need of conservation (if only the HLF would consider more carefully when awarding grant related to cinematography!).

The two of us moved up to St George's church, Brandon Hill, now a music venue. Here beneath the gallery F-G's second 1955 plaque by Graham is affixed, funded by the Old Boys of F-G's charity school, QEH. We left a posy from the rest of the flowers. This plaque, which speaks in the privacy of F-G's church and where he married Helene Friese, makes the assertion the Inventor of Cinematography, just as Reece had dared to describe him in his speech at the unveiling of the birthplace plaque,

A short film of the 1955 unveiling is now on our website to view at www.reecewinstone.co.uk.

This review in the current issue of Race & Class (62:4), published by Sage on behalf of the Institute of Race Relations draws a straight line from social and political PROTEST in the 1970s, to today:

'Stacey has written a rare and important book which integrates word, image, artistry and activism in the real lives of working people and those who documented their lives and struggles, and although it records events and initiatives nearly half a century ago, its relevance to now-times is total.'

Read the review here

It’s a strange fact, but British inventor William Friese-Greene is as well-known among serious film buffs for not having invented cinema as he is for inventing it. Now, on the centenary of his sudden death at 65, mid-flow at a meeting of film distributors, admirers of this controversial pioneer from Bristol are at the centre of a new drive to establish his international legacy once again.

Film director and historian Peter Domankiewicz believes Friese-Greene will soon be reinstated as one of the great figures in the development of the moving image: the one who got there before Thomas Edison, the Lumière brothers and George Méliès, the Frenchman whose story was told by Martin Scorsese in the hit 2011 film Hugo.

Read the full report in The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/02/historian-fights-to-establish-william-friese-greene-as-true-father-of-cinema