“Pamela’s Circle c. 1740”Ambrotype by Judith Harrison Kalter{see photograph in "Photos" on above tabs}“Pamela’s Circle c. 1740” is a quarter plate ambrotype on black glass. It measures3 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches and is still without a proper case. This is now my favorite photograph because it was made in the 21st Century, using a process devised in the 19th Century with equipment from the early-mid 20th Century to photograph a book written in the 18th Century. One of the first English novels, Pamela or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson was first published in 1740 and is the story of a young woman, in servitude to the master of the house, who is also her tormentor. She prizes her chastity, learns how to protect it and is rewarded by marrying the lord of the manor and in the final chapters learns her new role in society. Virtue rewarded. The props in the photograph were carefully chosen to reflect the manners of Pamela’s social circle.The picture accompanying my ambrotype is the set up I used in making the photograph and made with a digital camera. I like how the juxtaposition of the two photographs shows how the ambrotype image is flipped; truly a negative image of the subject. Both photograph were taken out of doors in natural light, filtered by tree leaves, late one afternoon. My camera is a Kodak 5x7 wooden view camera. The wetplate collodion process is familiar to most people as that used for tintypes. In fact it is difficult to tell the difference between a tintype and an ambrotype when they are in cases and under glass. I use a magnet to identify a tintype as it will attract a magnet and the glass of the ambrotype will not. Ambrotypes are most often made on clear glass with a dark paper or black velvet placed behind and glass over the plate to protect it. I will be writing about how to make an ambrotype in an upcoming edition of The Photogram.“Pamela’s Circle c. 1740” also embodies for me the changing role of women from the rigid feminine roles of the 18th Century to the freedoms enjoyed and the roles played by women in society today.Judith Harrison Kalter 2009
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The NMeM blog reports that a PhD student has discovered a new Demachy print in the museum's collections. Student, Julien Faure-Conorton from Paris, found the print Ploërmel, Brittany hidden beneath another print in the collection, La Cueillette, which is part of the Royal Photographic Society material now housed in Bradford.
In the words of the blog posting:
The full story is this: Julien has been jetting over from France since February to have a ferret around our collection of photographs by Demachy. Demacy was a Frenchman whose early pictorial photography made him one of the world's most famous photographers by the early 20th century. He had a record five exhibitions dedicated to him at The Photographic Society in London -- but mysteriously hung up his camera for good in 1914, never to so much as photograph his grandchildren again. He was also one of the very first people in France to have a car.
We have all the prints that Demachy originally donated to the Royal Photographic Society, but it was one in particular -- RPS3647, La Cueillette ("Gathering") -- that led to Julien's big moment. Looking at the picture, Julien noticed that the corner of the print was peeling at the corner, detatching slightly from its cardboard backing. And there was something underneath.
That something turned out to be an entirely different Demachy print -- entitled Ploërmel, Brittany. It seems that Demachy was either unhappy with this hidden print, or was just short on backing boards and had to reuse it for La Cueillette.
So Julien's eagle eye uncovered an important early photograph we (and the Royal Photographic Society) didn't even know we had.
Check out the full posting and more pictures at the National Media Museum blog.
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British bookseller Bernard Quaritch Ltd has published the first comprehensive history of the earliest years of photography in China. It combines previously unpublished research with over 150 photographs, many of which are attributed and published here for the first time. Terry Bennett describes the way in which the discovery of photography in China was framed against the tumultuous backdrop of the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion and the opening of numerous treaty ports to foreign trade. From 1842, when the use of a camera was first recorded in China, foreign and Chinese photographers captured the people, places and events of this unsettled period. They were professional portraitists, soldiers and pioneering amateurs, among them: Jules Itier; Pierre Rossier; Lo Yuanyou (the earliest-recorded Chinese commercial photographer); Felix Beato; and Milton Miller. The author, an acclaimed international authority on historical photographs from China, Japan and Korea, sheds new light on the unique historical value of these photographs.
The images are drawn from institutional and private collections from all over the world. The text includes extensive documentary notes, valuable listings of early stereoviews of China and biographies of more than forty photographers working in China up to 1860. It also introduces important new detail on the life of Felix Beato.
230 x 238 mm, 242 pages, over 150 illustrations
cloth-bound with pictorial dust-jacket
ISBN 978-0-9563012-0-8 £50
It can be ordered from Elisabeth Grass at Quaritch, 8 Lower John Street, Golden Square, London, or via email: e.grass@quaritch.com, website: www.quaritch.comRead more…
Donald Stewart is looking for information on early uses of, and references to, infra red photography. In particular, and in his own words: "I'm trying to get information on early British infra red photography, experiments or practice but other than its use in astronomical studies"...Please comment here so that he can pick up any feedback.
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The latest issue of this journal (Volume 7, Issue 2 July 2009), carries a paper by Julia F. Munro, titled 'The optical stranger': Photographic anxieties in British periodical literature of the 1840s and early 1850s, pages 167-183.
The abstract reads: An examination of periodical literature from the period of the invention of photography in 1839 and onwards reveals that the reception of the medium on the part of the Victorians was characterized by an ambivalent response of enthusiasm as well as anxiety, an ambivalence that grew increasingly insistent despite familiarity with the medium as it became popular in the early 1850s. This article examines in depth the representations of photography in a selection of fictional and periodical texts from the 1840s and early 1850s, in order to trace the development of the anxieties about photography and to elucidate how such anxieties evolved in light of the medium's growing ubiquity. In serving as a space in which Victorians expressed their ambivalence, the texts provide valuable insight into the Victorians' negotiation of photography and the visual culture within which the medium operated. The various photographic anxieties the author considers include the troubling association of photography with the magical, the unease felt towards the photograph as memorial, and the concerns regarding the medium's agency and the perfect photographic copy it produces. The latter two qualities of the medium prove to be central concerns that underlie the other expressions of anxiety voiced in regard to photography.
More on the journal can be found here: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713735038~link=coverRead more…
Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs
30 October 2009 - 7 March 2010 . Admission free.
• New exhibition unlocks treasure trove of images from the dawn of photography
• Over 250 rarely-seen images trace development from gentleman's pursuit to mass pastime
• Social document, art form – and a window onto the spirit world…
170 years since its invention, photography remains the main technology through which we understand and record the world. Camera phones are now ubiquitous, but in its infancy, photography was an expensive, elaborate and experimental pursuit. Points of View - the British Library's first ever major photographic exhibition - will examine the development and influence of photography, from its invention in 1839 up to the growth of a popular amateur market in the early 20th century.
Rarely displayed items from the British Library's photography collection will show how photography has played a critical role as the primary means of visual expression in the modern age. See www.bl.uk/pointsofview.
Among the 250 exhibits are:
An oak tree in winter by William Henry Fox Talbot c.1842-43
Talbot's calotype process, which he announced in 1840 and patented the following year, produced a paper negative from which unlimited prints could be made. This example illustrates the expressive artistic possibilities of the process in one of his most accomplished studies. (Calotype negative and salted paper print)
The hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park, London by Don Juan Carlos, Duke of Montizon, 1852
The arrival in 1850 of the hippopotamus Obaysch from Egypt - the first to be seen in England - caused immense excitement and doubled the number of visitors to the zoo in that year. Obaysch was joined by a mate in 1854 and survived until 1878. This is one of many natural history studies by the Count of Montizon exhibited at the Society of Arts Photographic Exhibition in 1852. (Salted paper print from a collodion negative)
Dictyola dichotoma by Anna Atkins, 1843-53
Between 1843 and 1853, Anna Atkins produced nearly 450 ‘photograms' of specimens of algae, issued in a small edition as British algae. Cyanotype impressions. This is one of only 12 copies that still survives today. The vivid blue of the cyanotype process contributes to the abstract beauty of cameraless images. ( Cyanotype)
X-ray photograph of frogs by Josef Maria Eder and Eduard Valenta, c.1896
Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of x-rays in 1895 brought a new dimension of hitherto invisible structures into photographic visibility. While a risky craze in amateur x-ray photography soon subsided, what was to become a tool of immense practical utility also revealed a world of startling beauty. (Photogravure)
Portrait of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, by Lady Alice Mary Kerr, c.1870
Alice Kerr's photographs are largely unknown apart from the rare examples in the British Library collections, but her intense and compelling portraits - particularly this study of the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt - merit comparison with the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. (Albumen print)
Printing Kodak negatives by daylight, Harrow, by an unknown photographer, 1891
This scene of the factory production of prints at Kodak's Harrow factory illustrates the growth of amateur photography in the last decade of the 19th century. The company's motto of ‘You press the button, we do the rest,' ushered in a new age of popular photography in the 20th century. (Gelatin silver print)
The exhibition explores the dramatic transformations in world order during the 19th century that shaped much of the world we live in today. It will draw on the British Library's rich photographic collection of over 300,000 images – including the daguerreotype and calotype, negatives, X-ray photographs and spirit photography.
Describing the exhibition the British Library's Head of Visual Materials, John Falconer commented: “Points of View explores the development of photography in the 19th century and how it quickly became a common part of daily life and a major commercial industry. Today we can't imagine life without photos but its invention in the 19 th century opened up a new world of visual communication and personal expression. Drawing on the unique collections held in the British Library, this exhibition examines the growth of the medium from the viewpoint of how and why it was used in the 19 th century, in fields as diverse as travel, portraiture, war, science and industry.”
The accompanying events programme will offer a rich mix of performances, talks, family events and more. Highlights so far announced include:
Imagining The Impossible (Saturday 31 October) - a Halloween special on the weird world of spirit photography.
The Wonderful World of Early Photography: A Discovery Day (Saturday 7 November) - an event for all the family packed full of workshops, talks, demonstrations of the Camera Obscura, Magic Lantern and Pinhole cameras and advice clinics on your own photography collections.
A Village Lost and Found (Wednesday 11 November) - photography collector and world renowned musician Brian May and photo historian Elena Vidal introduce the stunning 3D world of 19th century stereograms.
Late at The Library: Victorian Values (Friday 20 November) - a photography themed, and burlesque flavoured night of performances, sideshows, music and slightly twisted Victoriana.
Professor Heard's Peerless Victorian Magic Lantern Show (Sunday 29 November) - a brilliant introduction to an entertainment massively popular before the advent of recorded sound and moving image.
Capture Kings Cross (27 February 2010). A mass participation event, creatively photographing the area around the British Library and the Kings Cross development.
The British Library will be offering a range of learning activities to accompany the exhibition, including workshops for secondary and further education students, and guided tours for those in higher education and adult groups.
An accompanying book, Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs, will be published by the British Library in November 2009. It will feature over 150 colour illustrations including photographs from many of the most celebrated names in 19th century photography such as Francis Frith, Felix Teynard, Samuel Bourne and Peter Henry Emerson, as well as numerous lesser known names who made significant contributions to the medium.
The book will be published by the British Library in November 2009, available in hardback at £29.95 (ISBN 978 0 7123 5081 5) and paperback at £15.95 (ISBN 978 0 7123 5082 2 ) with 176 pages, 270 x 220 mm, over 150 colour illustrations. Available from the British Library Shop (tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7735 / email: bl-bookshop@bl.uk) and online at www.bl.uk/shop as well as other bookshops throughout the UK.
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We are on the hunt for all modern calotypists and paper negative makers, whatever process involved.The Fox Talbot Museum is trying to track down the few lonely calotypists out there to create a network for exchanging information and ideas. So far we've had image makers from Spain, France, Britain and the US sign up.If you know anyone out there who has made paper negative, whether Talbot's or Le Gray's process or one of their own, drop us a line at foxtalbotmuseum@nationaltrust.org.uk.
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The publisher, Routledge, is delighted to announce that Volume 10, Issue 1 of Visual Culture in Britain is now available. This is the journal's first issue published by Routledge and to celebrate it is offering free online access to all articles in this issue for the remainder of 2009.
Of particualr interest to readers of BPH is a paper by Venda Louise Pollock titled Dislocated Narratives and Sites of Memory: Amateur Photographic Surveys in Britain 1889–1897. The abstract reads:
Prior to the formation of Sir Benjamin Stone's National Photographic Record Association (NPRA), a number of amateur photographic societies throughout Britain embarked on photographic surveys. The catalyst for these endeavours was 'Illustrated Boston', a set of slides visually describing the New England town sent from the Boston Photographic Society and premiered by the Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association in 1889. These slides were then shown in photographic societies throughout the United Kingdom. Although William Jerome Harrison had published erudite advice on how to carry out such a task, these formative surveys reveal a dislocation between ideal methodology and the realities of amateur surveying. This disjuncture has significant import for the representation of place and, drawing on the theories of Timothy Mitchell and Pierre Nora, this article examines the surveys as reflecting, and contributing to, particular social, aesthetic, political and institutional contexts integral to which was an oculo-centric culture of display founded on the primacy of visual knowledge and therein experience. It argues that the failure to capture the genius loci of place that Elizabeth Edwards has determined in the NPRA emerges from these early processes and their contexts and concludes by considering the impact of digitization on these surveys as images and material artefacts.
Read all the articles for free from this issue here: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g911231917Read more…
One of the world’s leading photographic history experts from De Montfort University (DMU) has been awarded a prestigious professorship from the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., US. The National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) has awarded the 2010 Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professorship to Roger Taylor, Professor of Photographic History, and Senior Research Fellow at DMU in Leicester. His role as the Safra Visiting Professor will involve working with the Gallery to build close connections between the research of curatorial staff and that of visiting scholars to CASVA, whilst also undertaking his own independent research.
Professor Taylor has chosen to use the professorship to undertake research into the memorably-named Linnaeus Tripe, a British photographer he came across when researching his Impressed by Light exhibition. He said: “It’s an unexpected privilege to be offered this professorship. I’ll be researching Tripe’s background in the Madras Infantry, and his innovative role as a documentary photographer. His large format pictures were mostly taken in Burmah and India during the 1850s and are wonderful, but there’s never been major exhibition dedicated solely to his work.”
A recent national review of research in the UK by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) shows that DMU’s photographic history research is classified as ‘world leading and internationally excellent’. Gerard Moran, Dean of Faculty Art and Design, added: “It’s marvellous that Roger’s visiting professorship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC should come along to cement the truly international reputation of De Montfort University’s work in this way. We’re looking forward to the many mutual benefits that will emerge for all parties from this valuable association with the NGA.”
Professor Taylor will spend four months at CASVA, beginning from 19 January to 19 May 2010, where he will also be conducting a seminar on the Gallery’s collections.
CASVA at the National Gallery of Art, founded in 1979, is a research institute that fosters study of the production, use, and cultural meaning of art, artifacts, architecture, and urbanism, from prehistoric times to the present. The Center encourages a variety of approaches by historians, critics, and theorists of art, as well as by scholars in related disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.
More information about CASVA is available at http://www.nga.gov/resources/casva.shtmRead more…
The National Media Museum in Bradford has launched a blog written by Museum staff. The blog takes a behind the scenes look at happenings within the Museum. Recent postings show the museum's offsite storage facility at Black Dyke Mills, a creative writing group at the museum and the Curator of Cinematography, Michael Harvey, being filmed for a Canadian TV documentary. Click here to view: http://nationalmediamuseum.blogspot.com/Read more…
