Blogs

Christ Church is seeking an Charles Dodgson Collection Project Archivist. Reporting to the College Librarian, the post-holder will lead on the preparation, cataloguing and promotion of the Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) collection held by the Library.  Charles Dodgson (1832-1898) – better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll – was a mathematics tutor and also Sub-Librarian at Christ Church. The collection includes photographs and some of Dodgson's photographic equipment. 

Cataloguing work includes the appraisal and selection, listing and arrangement and entry into the Epexio catalogue, assessing conservation and preservation needs, adding authority files, numbering and re-housing into preservation packaging as appropriate. The role-holder will also contribute to outreach activities including exhibition planning. Time-allowing, the role-holder will also identify and prioritise items for digitisation and liaise with Digitisation colleagues.

This role would be appropriate for a recent graduate of an archives and records management or similar programme, and applications from new professional in the field are also welcomed. 

Details of the collection are here: https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/college/library-archives/lewis-carroll-collection

Full details of the role are here: https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/vacancies/charles-dodgson-collection-project-archivist-two-year-fixed-term

Image details: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/10ed277d-d972-4517-905c-126bf5edeaa9/surfaces/e01385e6-96e7-4647-bbfd-124cd37a2b11/

Darkroom London is hosting Brett Rogers OBE on ( October 2024. Brett, the former director of The Photographers' Gallery, will be talking about her illustrious career and provide insights into gallery curation and organising exhibitions. 

Brett Rogers talk with Darkroom
Wednesday, 9 October 2024 at 1900
£5
Darkroom London, Unit 10 Murmarsh Workshops, 71 Marsden Street, London, NW5 3JA
Bookings: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule/3369f406/?appointmentTypeIds[]=67686348

Exeter's Bill Douglas Centre is advertising two new jobs at the museum. These are a Curatorial Assistant and a Museum Assistant. They are being funded from the recent award by Research England's Higher Education Museums, Galleries, and Collections Fund and will help extend services to external researchers, as well as assist with general duties in the museum.

You can find the advert and application for the Curatorial Assistant at Grade D here and the Museum Assistant at Grade C here .

The deadline for applications is 9 September 2024.

Edward Wade (1829-1869, but dates uncertain) of Preston was listed by Gillian Jones in “Lancashire Professional Photographers 1840-1940” (pub. 2004). In 1860, Wade announced that he had moved to “more commodious premises” at number 36 Fishergate, and he offered to rent number 117 Fishergate (his old/first studio?). Wade remained at number 36 Fishergate until May, 1869, when he posted a notice in The Preston Chronicle to announced his retirement, and the sale of his negatives, cameras and equipment.

No mention is made of Wade as a daguerreotypist in the Heathcoates’ A Faithful Likeness.

We can safely assume that he had been busy making carte-de-visites for almost a decade, but how did he become a photographer, and, most importantly, when did he take this daguerreotype?

With the generous help of BPH member, Rob Whalley, who has provided much valuable information, I have been trying to establish the facts relating to a daguerreotype which I found very recently. The leather case imprinted with the logo of E. Wade, appears to be a product of the mid- to late 1840s, but Edward Wade would only have been about 18 years old at that time…

In trying to unveil this enigma, I would appeal for help to anyone who knows of the existence of other daguerreotypes marked E. Wade, 117, Fishergate, Preston.

well I did my bit in Brisbane in 1989 to celebrate photography... and only had a dozen people show up at the studio.  Sandy Barrie

Barry Lategan who has died after a long illness aged 89 years was one of Britain’s leading fashion, portrait and advertising photographers from the 1960s to the 2000s. He was best known for his portrait of Twiggy, for his Vogue covers, and his advertising work. Many of his photographs are immediately recognisable. He was awarded an RPS Honorary Fellowship in 2007.

Lategan was born in South Africa and came to Britain in 1955 to study at the Bristol Old Vic theatre school. National service with the RAF intervened and it was during a tour in Germany that he joined the camp photographic society and photography took over his life. Lategan retuned to South Africa in 1959 and assisted Ginger Odes.

He returned to London in 1961, working in some of the leading studios, and photographing fashion. In 1966 he was introduced to Twiggy, then 16 years old, and created what became the face of the 60s. This helped propel Lategan’s career and he had his first Vogue cover in 1968 of a fur-clad Lesley Jones. He worked regularly for Vogue until 1981. He set up his own studio in 1967 in Chelsea. His photography was included in Bailey and Litchfield’s Ritz magazine, and he was the subject of a BBC2 Arena programme broadcast in 1975.

In 1977 he moved to New York to focus on commercial and advertising work, including directing television commercials, and personal projects. 

On his return to London in 1989 he continued with his advertising work and TV commercials for companies such as Jaeger, Pirelli, Vodafone and Gordons, winning numerous awards in both mediums. During his career he photographed many well-known models, celebrities from fashion, film and music, and royalty.

In 2006 Lategan suffered a serious fall which caused a serious brain injury and affected his behaviour. He was diagnosed in 2016 with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) which he and his family discussed publicly to raise awareness of the condition.

Lategan was involved with AFAEP, now the Association of Photographers, and helped select the inaugural AFAEP Awards in 1984. He held his first exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, in 1975, and was widely exhibited during his career (including by the RPS). Along with many of his contemporaries he enjoyed a long association with Olympus Cameras.

His work is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and V&A Museum, London, and elsewhere.

The Barry Lategan Archive is now being managed by his son, Dylan.

https://www.barrylategan.com/

Text: © Michael Pritchard
Image: Barry Lategan, c1950s. © Estate of Barry Lategan / Barry Lategan Archive

Featured in the Pre-Raphaelite Society Review, Summer 2024 issue is my research into a photograph of Jane Morris by Herbert Watkins I rediscovered in the St Bride Library. It was mistaken for another, well known version. Together with another renctly digitised version these three different versions are now published together for the first time. They are from the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the William Morris Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery.The museums involved mention different dates (1858- 1860) and I have joined this community hoping to learn more about the details of this photography session (and any other photograph made of Jane Burden Morris).

Read the full article

Perhaps a long shot, but I’m trying to identify a North Yorkshire photographer who just put his initials on his postcards.

I recently purchased a couple of cards, with similar initials, one was of the Farndale Show, postally used from Kirkbymoorside in August 1910,. The other, seen here, I have now identified as having been taken outside St. Mary's Church, Church Houses, Farndale East; it looks like they are waiting for Godot!

I’ve also seen examples with the same initials on the Helmsby Archive, in their “Around and about” photo album, one of Farndale Band (HA09448) and one of Lastingham Church (HA09358). However, they don’t know the parochial photographers identity.  

Any assistance in identifying the photographer would be gratefully received.

The Photographic Collections Network has issued the following notice... We regret to announce that after many years of sharing best practice and celebrating photo collections and photo archives across the UK, the Photographic Collections Network will close on 19 August 2024. 

Photographic Collections Network (PCN) has worked significantly in the sector with many amazing people and photographic collections, supported by the PCN Steering Group and our network. We’ve advised on collections placement, copyright, orphaned works, collections care, digitisation, preservation and so much more. We are proud of our extensive events programme of talks, workshops, advice sessions and collection visits that engaged people across the sector. 

Please continue to refer to our website for resources such as other organisations who provide help and support to the sector: https://www.photocollections.org.uk/advice 

From the PCN Manager Debbie Cooper and the wider PCN Steering Group, we would like to thank everyone who has supported us over the years.

Current PCN Steering Group

• Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum 
• Geoff Belknap, Keeper of Science and Technology, National Museums Scotland
• Brigitte Lardinois, Reader in the Understanding of Public Photography, London College of Communication, University of the Arts in London
• Leanne Manfredi, National Programmes Lead, Victoria and Albert Museum
• Michael Pritchard, Photo Historian, formerly Royal Photographic Society
• Tamsin Silvey, Cultural Programme Curator, Historic England 

------------------------

The Network was launched in 2016. See: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-photographic-collections-network

My Pressphotoman blog has recently published a series of posts about celebrated photographers, who learned and/or refined their craft with W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle on Tyne and London.

The featured photographers are Hayman Seleg Mendelssohn (1847-1908); John Edwards (1813-1898), Downey's principal photographer in the 1860s/70s; James Herriott (1846-1931); and Richard Emerson Ruddock (1863-1931).

Hayman Seleg Mendelssohn (1847-1908)

John Edwards (1813-1898)

James Herriott (1846-1931)

Richard Emerson Ruddock (1863-1931)

If any British Photographic History subscribers have additional information or images that they wish to add to this resource, please use the 'comments box' at the foot of each post.

Two pioneering photographers will be commemorated with blue plaques by English Heritage today, Thursday, 8 August 2024. The first will mark the Fulham home of Christina Broom, believed to have been Britain’s first female press photographer, while in Brixton, the second plaque will honour John Thomson, a ground-breaking photojournalist working at the advent of the medium.

English Heritage Historian, Rebecca Preston, said: “These two very different photographers were both pioneers in their own right, both working at the forefront of photography at a time when it was not the accessible medium that it is now. I am delighted to celebrate them today, each at an address associated with the very pinnacles of their respective careers.”

Despite only making her first experiments in photography at the age of 40, with a borrowed quarter-plate box camera, Christina Broom went on to become the most prolific female publisher of picture postcards in Britain. She was a prominent photographer of the suffrage movement; the only woman photographer allowed into London barracks; and the only photographer permitted regularly into the Royal Mews. Her plaque at 92 Munster Road – a terraced house of 1896 – will be the very first blue plaque in Fulham, where she lived and worked for 26 years. From this house, without a public-facing studio or shop, Mrs Broom and her daughter Winifred ran her photographic business. At their busiest, mother and daughter produced 1,000 postcards per day. When she was interviewed in her drawing room in 1937, the reporter from Westminster and Chelsea News was ‘confronted with hundreds of prints from a selection of some of the thousands of negatives – many of them irreplaceable – that are stored elsewhere in the house’. Broom died at number 92 in 1939 and her daughter remained there until she died in 1973.

John Thomson was a leading photographer, geographer, travel writer and explorer. His seminal work, Illustrations of China and its People (1873–4), charted his travels through more than 4,000 miles from Hong Kong to the Yangtze-Kiang, via Canton and the Great Wall, creating a far broader panorama of Eastern culture than had ever been seen in the West. With the permission of King Mongkut of Siam, he took the first-known photographs of the ruins of Angkor Wat in 1866 and the reproduction of his photographs, particularly the innovative combination of text and image, was a landmark in the history of illustrated books. Thomson and his family moved to what is now 15 Effra Road in Brixton in the 1870s. It was while living in this terraced house of 1875­–6 – formerly known as 12 Elgin Gardens – that Thomson published one of his best-known and influential works, Street Life in London (1877–8). With its cast of street characters, such as Covent Garden flower sellers, Italian musicians and ‘Hookey Alf of Whitechapel’, Street Life has been reprinted many times since. Thomson was convinced that photography was ‘absolutely trustworthy’ in its ability to convey accuracy and truth. ‘We are now making history’, he wrote in 1891, ‘and the sun picture supplies the means of passing down a record of what we are, and what we have achieved in this nineteenth century of our progress’.

Other photographers commemorated by the Blue Plaques Scheme include Bill Brandt, Lee Miller, Camille Silvy and Cecil Beaton.

The English Heritage London Blue Plaques scheme is generously supported by David Pearl and members of the public.  The London-wide blue plaques scheme has been running for 150 years. The idea of erecting ‘memorial tablets’ was first proposed by William Ewart MP in the House of Commons in 1863. It had an immediate impact on the public imagination, and in 1866 the (Royal) Society of Arts founded an official plaques scheme. The Society erected its first plaque – to poet, Lord Byron – in 1867. The blue plaques scheme was subsequently administered by the London County Council (1901–65) and by the Greater London Council (1965–86), before being taken on by English Heritage in 1986. www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/

See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9wpy787y1o

Main image: (l-r) Jamie Carstairs, David, Caroline and Jessica Thomas (Thomson descendents) and Betty Yao below the blue plaque for John Thomson.  © Michael Pritchard

Hello - is anyone able to identify the studio name on this portrait please?

This autumn, Tate Britain will present The 80s: Photographing Britain, a landmark survey which will consider the decade as a pivotal moment for the medium of photography. Bringing together nearly 350 images and archive materials from the period, the exhibition will explore how photographers used the camera to respond to the seismic social, political, and economic shifts around them. Through their lenses, the show will consider how the medium became a tool for social representation, cultural celebration and artistic expression throughout this significant and highly creative period for photography.

This exhibition will be the largest to survey photography’s development in the UK in the 1980s to date. Featuring over 70 lens-based artists and collectives, it will spotlight a generation who engaged with new ideas of photographic practice, from well-known names to those whose work is increasingly being recognised, including Maud Sulter, Mumtaz Karimjee and Mitra Tabrizian. It will feature images taken across the UK, from John Davies’ post-industrial Welsh landscape to Tish Murtha’s portraits of youth unemployment in Newcastle. Important developments will be explored, from technical advancements in colour photography to the impact of cultural theory by scholars like Stuart Hall and Victor Burgin, and influential publications like Ten.8 and Camerawork in which new debates about photography emerged.

The 80s will introduce Thatcher’s Britain through documentary photography illustrating some of the tumultuous political events of the decade. History will be brought to life with powerful images of the miners’ strikes by John Harris and Brenda Prince; anti-racism demonstrations by Syd Shelton and Paul Trevor; images of Greenham Common by Format Photographers and projects responding to the conflict in Northern Ireland by Willie Doherty and Paul Seawright. Photography recording a changing Britain and its widening disparities will also be presented through Anna Fox’s images of corporate excess, Paul Graham’s observations of social security offices, and Martin Parr’s absurdist depictions of Middle England, displayed alongside Markéta Luskačová and Don McCullin’s portraits of London’s disappearing East End and Chris Killip’s transient ‘sea-coalers’ in Northumberland.

A series of thematic displays will explore how photography became a compelling tool for representation. For Roy Mehta and Vanley Burke, who portray their multicultural communities, photography offers a voice to the people around them, whilst John Reardon, Derek Bishton and Brian Homer’s Handsworth Self Portrait Project 1979, gives a community a joyous space to express themselves. Many Black and South Asian photographers use portraiture to overcome marginalisation against a backdrop of discrimination. The exhibition will spotlight lens-based artists including Roshini Kempadoo, Sutapa Biswas and Al-An deSouza who experiment with images to think about diasporic identities, and the likes of Joy Gregory and Maxine Walker who employ self-portraiture to celebrate ideas of Black beauty and femininity.

Against the backdrop of Section 28 and the AIDS epidemic, photographers also employ the camera to assert the presence and visibility of the LGBTQ+ community. Tessa Boffin subversively reimagines literary characters as lesbians, whilst Sunil Gupta’s ‘Pretended’ Family Relationships 1988, juxtaposes portraits of queer couples with the legislative wording of Section 28. For some, their work reclaims sex-positivity during a period of fear. The exhibition will spotlight photographers Ajamu X, Lyle Ashton Harris and Rotimi Fani-Kayode who each centre Black queer experiences and contest stereotypes through powerful nude studies and intimate portraits. It will also reveal how photographers from outside the queer community including Grace Lau were invited to portray them. Known for documenting fetishist sub-cultures, Lau’s series Him and Her at Home 1986 and Series Interiors 1986, tenderly records this underground community defiantly continuing to exist.

The exhibition will close with a series of works that celebrate countercultural movements throughout the 80s, such as Ingrid Pollard and Franklyn Rodgers’s energetic documentation of underground performances and club culture. The show will spotlight the emergence of i-D magazine and its impact on a new generation of photographers like Wolfgang Tillmans and Jason Evans, who with stylist Simon Foxton pioneer a cutting-edge style of fashion photography inspired by this alternative and exciting wave of youth culture, reflective of a new vision of Britain at the dawn of the 1990s

The 80s: Photographing Britain
21 November 2024 – 5 May 2025
Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
Open daily 10.00–18.00
Tickets available at tate.org.uk and +44(0)20 7887 8888

In celebration of International Women’s Day, 8 March, 2025, we invite scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts to submit abstracts for participation in a free, online, global, 24-hour symposium dedicated to celebrating the contributions of women to the medium of photography from photography's announcement in 1839 to contemporary artists in 2024. This unique event aims to highlight the diverse and impactful work of women photographers, and those working with photography, across all cultures and time zones.

We seek 15-minute papers that explore a broad range of topics related to women’s contributions to photography. These may include but are not limited to:

• Historical and contemporary profiles of influential and underappreciated women photographers.
• The impact of gender on photographic practice and representation.
• The role of women in shaping the photographic medium or its exhibition.
• Cross-cultural perspectives on women’s contributions to photography.
• Challenges and achievements of women photographers in various global contexts.

Our goal is to foster a rich, international dialogue that underscores the significant yet often overlooked achievements of women in the field. Presentations will be scheduled to accommodate various time zones, ensuring a truly global exchange of ideas.

To participate:
Please submit a 300-word abstract outlining your proposed paper by 1 October 2024. Abstracts should be submitted to celebratingwomeninphotography@gmail.com. Please also include your name, affiliation, time zone of anticipated residence on International Women’s Day, and a brief (100-word) biography. Selected papers will be notified by 1 November 2024, and detailed guidelines for presentations will be provided.

We encourage contributions from diverse perspectives and regions to create a comprehensive and inclusive representation of women in photography.

Join us in celebrating the vibrant and transformative work of women photographers worldwide!

Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day 2025
Convenors: Kris Belden-Adams, PhD, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Mississippi and Dr Rose Teanby, Independent Scholar, UK
Call for papers - close 1 October 2024
Notification of acceptance - 1 November 2024
Conference-a-thon - 8 March 2025
Website coming shortly

Sefton Samuels who has died aged 93 years was a documentary photographer and photojournalist who documented the city of Manchester from the 1960s. Samuels' work is held in the National Portrait Gallery and V&A Museum collections. Some of his Manchester work was gathered in his book Northerners (2011)

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefton_Samuels and https://www.seftonphoto.co.uk/

Obituary here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/aug/08/sefton-samuels-obituary

A launch event of the AHRC Research Network, The Ethics of Medical Photography: Past, Present and Future, has just been announced. The first in a series of online seminars brings together Beatriz Pichel (De Montfort University, project PI), Katherine Rawling (University of Leeds, project Co-I), Toni Hardy (Wellcome Collection) and Andreas Pantazatos (University of Cambridge) to introduce the network and its aims, as well as discuss some of the main ethical dilemmas that historians, heritage specialists and collections managers are facing in relation to medical photography.

About the Network:

This multidisciplinary network brings together historians, ethicists, archivists, heritage scholars, artists, photographers, social scientists, and the public to generate theoretical and practical resources to research, curate, and disseminate historical medical photographs in an ethical way. To balance the ethical needs of heritage institutions, researchers and the public, this network will move beyond the looking/ not looking dilemma [Moeller, 2009] to ask:

• how does our understanding of the ethics of medical photography, and of medical photography itself, change when we focus on race, disability, gender, class and age rather than consent, privacy and anonymity?
• how can we widen access to early medical photographs while respecting the dignity of both historical subjects and present viewers?

For any questions about the seminar please contact empnetwork24@gmail.com

You can join the Network mailing list here