Blogs

As flagged earlier this year on BPH the ground-breaking Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, has been commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque at her former London home in Belgravia. The plaque was unveiled on 12 May at 10 Chesham Place which was the first London residence of the woman who would go on to transform the art of photography. Born in Calcutta in 1815, Julia Margaret Cameron arrived in England in 1848, living at Chesham Place as she settled into London life after years in India. Although she did not take up photography until later, while living on the Isle of Wight, this early London home placed her at the heart of the capital’s cultural world and the social and intellectual networks that would come to shape her remarkable career. She died in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in 1879. 

Rebecca Preston, Historian at English Heritage, said: “This plaque marks the place in London where Julia Margaret Cameron cultivated the creativity and connections that would later inform her work and provide many of her subjects Though she did not take up photography until her 49th year, Cameron went on to become one of its most original and influential pioneers, redefining what a photographic portrait could be.”

Jules Cameron, DJ, actor and presenter and great-granddaughter of Julia Margaret Cameron, said: “Julia Margaret Cameron saw photography not simply as a record, but as a way of revealing the soul. To have her honoured with a blue plaque feels like a quiet continuation of her work fixing her presence once more in light and memory. She wasn’t interested in perfection, but in truth, in feeling, in humanity. A blue plaque feels entirely fitting for someone so gloriously unconventional, and I think she would have absolutely loved it.”

Cameron is best known for the striking photographs of leading figures in Victorian society including fellow blue plaque recipients Alfred Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Ellen Terry and Marie Spartali Stillman, as well as imaginative allegorical scenes featuring members of her family and household. Rejecting the sharp focus favoured by many contemporaries, she instead embraced soft focus and long exposure to capture what she described as the “inner life” of her subjects.

Though often criticised in her lifetime, Cameron’s work gained recognition from Sir Henry Cole who bought photographs from her for what is now the V&A Museum. She has since secured her reputation as one of the most important figures in the history of photography. The house at Chesham Place, her first London base, marks the beginning of a journey that would lead her to redefine the medium and influence generations of photographers

Other notable photographers commemorated by the scheme include John Thomson, Christina Broom, Lee Miller, Bill Brandt and Cecil Beaton. 

The English Heritage London Blue Plaques scheme is generously supported by David Pearl and members of the public.

Images: © Michael Pritchard.  (Top): Jules Cameron unveils the plaque at 10 Chesham Place. (right): the blue plaque; (left): collodion photographer Magda Kuca makes a collodion portrait of Jules and Antonia Cameron with Andrew Graham-Dixon looking on;  (below): Speakers at the event (l-r) Hannah Starkey, Dr Marta Weiss, Tim Walker, and Andrew Graham-Dixon. 

A Blue Plaque to William Constable is to be unveiled in Brighton on the 29 May 2026 at 57 Marine Parade. The unveiling is scheduled for 1130 and attendees are asked to gather for 1115. Following the unveiling those attending are encouraged to go for a fish and chip lunch in the restaurant on Brighton's Palace Pier.

William Constable (1783-1861) was the first person to open a photographic portrait studio in Brighton. A 58-year-old inventor who had previously worked as a flour miller and high street draper, he had recently been employed as a land and road surveyor. Constable's Photographic Institution opened on Monday, 8 November 1841 at 57 Marine Parade, a large four-storey building situated on Brighton’s eastern seafront, at the corner of Atlingworth Street. Holding an exclusive licence from Richard Beard, Constable had a virtual monopoly in the production of photographic portraits in Brighton between November 1841 and 1851. He closed his studio at number 57 in 1854. 

Read more about William Constable here: https://victorianedwardianphotographersinbrightonhove.uk/brighton-photographers-1841-1860/ and see: Philippe Garner, 'William Constable. Brighton's First Photography', History of Photography, 15(3), Autumn 1991, 236-240.

Image: A daguerreotype portrait of William Constable. Courtesy of Philippe Garner.

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a team of over 1,100 employees and over 29,000 volunteers, united by our goal of saving lives through essential first aid services, training and campaigning.  As a charity with rich heritage and a long history of serving humanity, we are proud of our past and excited about creating a healthier, safer, more resilient future.  

Job Summary 

The Project Cataloguer will play a vital role in our AIM Museum Fundamentals project to preserve and enhance access to the Museum’s photographic collection. The postholder will be responsible for the creation of detailed item-level catalogue records and interpretation which will be published on the Museum’s public-facing catalogue, Collections Online. This role is particularly important in the lead-up to St John Ambulance’s 150th anniversary in 2027 where visual storytelling will be of paramount importance.

About You 

• Hold a recognised archival postgraduate qualification, or be currently enrolled on a recognised archival postgraduate degree course
• Demonstrable experience of cataloguing photographic collections to ISAD(G) standard
• Experience of creating archive authority records to ISAAR(CPF) standards
• Significant knowledge of databases, specialist archive cataloguing systems and archival collection preservation requirements
• A clear passion for photographic collections
• Experience of contributing to a programme of public-facing talks, blog and social media posts
• Experience of working alongside volunteers

About the Role 

• Lead the enhanced cataloguing of photographic prints to item level following ISAD(G) and in-house guidelines
• Assist the Archivist in publishing the catalogue records
• Help to develop collection authority records
• Provide regular updates on cataloguing progress to the Museum team and collaborate with curatorial and learning colleagues as needed
• Assist the Archivist with inclusive public outputs in the form of 10-minute lunchtime talks and social media content to engage physical and virtual visitors
• Work alongside an enthusiastic team of four Archive Volunteers
• Uphold brand values, protect the historic fabric and collections, and champion inclusive, compassionate leadership aligned with St John values.

The St John Ambulance careers portal is experiencing some issues and is not displaying salaries or closing dates, so I wanted to re-email with the confirmation that the salary is £20,119 (£33,533 FTE), and the closing date is 24 May.

See: https://www.sja.org.uk/vacancy/311776/

Just an update here which I hope will be of interest to any of press photo agency history lovers on my Press Photo History project - two staff memebers have recently sent memories (and a few photos) of their time at the Fox Photos press agency in the 1950's and 60's.The agency was one of the major suppliers of news photographs to the Fleet Street newspapers ...and the World!

They operated from Tudor Street and then Farringdon Road, London.

View more Fox Photos articles on the project here.

Thanks for reading 

Will.

Photo, above right: Brian and Gordon camera assistants at Fox photos standing in as models, with a prototype glass fibre bicycle taken for Hercules Cycles at the Earls Court cycle show 1954.

Photographer Brian Goodman Fox Photos staffer 1952-1956 with Reggie Speller and Les Graves

David Newman remembers Fox Photos office life and key press photography moments of the 1960's

Remembering Malcolm (Mel) Stern – Fleet Street and Fox Photos Photographer

We all know the sounds of a photo booth - the familiar swoosh of the curtain rail, the clattering of the spinning stool, and the clunk of the flash…four of them, one after another. Hidden away in the corner of a railway station or shopping centre, for generations the photobooth has been a space for people to experiment with the image they want to present to the world. A place to explore identity. As the photobooth marks its centenary, presenter and oral historian Alan Dein considers the machine’s role - from novelty attraction to apparatus of the state to cultural icon.

Dominic Winter Auctions is to offer the only known example of a near full-face portrait of a Southwold fisherman dating from c.1886. The 34 x 29cm portrait is an albumen print rather than the platinum more usually associated with Emerson's work and is inscribed on the back by Emerson 'An Old Sea-Dog - Taken Direct, Negative untouched, by P.H. Emerson BA MB, (Copyright)'. It is estimated at £1000-1500.

The catalogue entry notes:  A completely full-face portrait of the same fisherman, titled 'Old Fisherman' is reproduced on p. 153 of Nancy Newhall's book, P. H. Emerson - The Fight for Photography as Fine Art (1975). On page 155 is another photograph of the same fisherman, who there appears standing between two seated fishermen in front of a shed with the sign 'Nyl-Ghau' above the door. Both are platinum prints and belong to Emerson's Southwold series of c.1886, copies of which are held by George Eastman House, New York.

The identity of the sitter remains elusive, but this particular 'old sea dog' clearly captured Emerson's imagination, as he very rarely took close-up portraits such as this. The light here falls beautifully on the subject's hair, eyes and facial features, giving the fisherman a well-lived, contemplative and poetic expression. In the known photograph, which Emerson typically produced as a platinum print, the sitter's gaze is directly at the viewer, rather than into the distance over the viewer's shoulder, as here. It is very unlikely that the negative exists and this print is quite possibly unique.

Photographs, Posters & Postcards, Autographs, Documents & Ephemera
Dominic Winter Auctions
20 May, 2026, live and online
See: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Details/photo26a-photographs-posters--postcards-autographs-documents--ephemera/?au=892

In 1974, photographers Terry Dennett and Jo Spence made repeated visits to 'illegal' Gypsy and Traveller sites in and around London. They got to know the people who lived there, documenting their lives in sound and image. The results of their project never formed a dedicated exhibition or a comprehensive publication, either then or since. Our Studio Was The World makes this powerful and still strikingly relevant work accessible to a new audience, with over 280 newly scanned (and in some cases newly discovered) images and previously unpublished texts. 

As Dennett commented, Gypsies and Travellers were 'persecuted terribly... talk about the Nazis!' Today, they remain socially marginalised, over-policed and discriminated against.

Together and individually, Terry Dennett and Jo Spence are among the most influential figures in radical British photography, with their impact extending far beyond image-making - into publishing, exhibiting, teaching and shaping photographic theory. Our Studio Was The World is the first in a ground-breaking trilogy of books - alongside Terry Dennett: The Crisis Project and Jo Spence: The Unknown Recordings - which explores their unpublished work, ideas and committed socialist perspective.

Our Studio Was The World
Terry Dennett & Jo Spence
MuseumsEtc, 2026
£35 (print) or eBook £25
Details:https://museumsetc.com/products/our-studio-was-the-world?variant=42460921757777

To coincide with the publication of the publication of Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth by Sara Stevenson, a strictly limited series of museum-quality modern prints has been created. Curated by Sara Stevenson and Michael Gray, five images have been selected to represent the depth and humanity of Hill & Adamson’s work. Each print is drawn from a limited edition of just 50, produced to the highest archival standards, and presented within a signed portfolio These prints are not reproductions in the ordinary sense—they are contemporary objects of craftsmanship, extending the life of the original images into the present.

The Fishermen & Women of the Firth of Forth (1843-1847)
Limited edition of 50. Archival pigment print on Awagami Bamboo paper.
Printed by A and M, Edinburgh and published by Studies in Photography 2026.
Individual print: £185
Complete boxed set (five prints): £750
See more here

Hill & Adamson Exhibition
until Saturday 20 June 2026
Studies in Photography Lower Gallery
See more here

To order the book see here

Image:  Hill & Adamson. Newhaven Harbour from The Fishermen & Women of the Firth of Forth Portfolio. Limited edition of 50. Archival pigment print on Awagami Bamboo paper. Printed by A and M, Edinburgh and published by Studies in Photography 2026.
Image size: 158 x 213 mm. Paper size: 400 x 277 mm

This exhibition restages ‘art – photography – therapy’, an exhibition of Jo Spence’s photography curated by Terry Dennett in 2008, for an international photo therapy conference in Turku, Finland. Discovered in a battered portfolio in the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive, the original exhibition’s 41 panels include some of Spence’s best known and impactful work, from the series Remodelling Photo History (1981-1982) and The Picture of Health? (1982-1986) to various photo therapy collaborations with Rosy Martin and others, ending with the Final Project she made while coming to terms with a terminal diagnosis. 

The Project Remains Incomplete considers the role of Dennett in nurturing the educational and artistic legacy of Spence, after her death from leukaemia. Dennett, a lifelong collaborator of Spence’s, dedicated his life to stewarding her archive and making it available to students and the public. The title of the exhibition comes from Dennett’s own reflections about Spence’s unfinished Final Project.

This restaging also brings together archival material and voices that were not present in Dennett’s original curation in Finland. In so doing, The Project Remains Incomplete invites reflections on the role of curators and archivists in activating the past for use in the present, and in shaping artistic afterlives and reputations. Spence’s work continues to speak to current concerns with women’s self-representation, agency and the female gaze, as well as the therapeutic and political uses of photography. 

Led by Patrizia Di Bello, Professor of History and Theory of Photography at Birkbeck, the curatorial team includes Talia Ulrich, Olga Murphy, Kerry Hart, Julian Ehsan, Farzad Fazilat, and Chloe Griffiths. 

‘The Project Remains Incomplete’: Jo Spence, Curated by Terry Dennett
22 May – 10 July 2026
Peltz Gallery, 43 Gordon Square London WC1H 0PD
Free admission, Monday to Friday, 10AM to 8PM. Closed on weekends

Image credit: Jo Spence with Terry Dennett and David Robert, ‘Return to Nature’, from Final Project, 1991-92. Laminated plastic panel made by Terry Dennett circa 2008, 405 by 500 mm. All Jo Spence’s work © Image Centre, Toronto

The archive, both historic and personal with questions of authorship and authenticity, dominates the themes of the longlisted titles for the 2026 edition of the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards, the UK’s leading prize celebrating excellence in photography and moving image publishing. In addition, deeply personal approaches to race, representation, identity, and sexuality; notions of ‘the other’; and the preservation and transformation of the past feature. Selected books are those which make original and lasting educational, professional, historical and cultural contributions to the field.

The longlisted publications will be showcased by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation at this year’s Photo London (13-17 May 2026 - Booth P20, Publishers’ Section, National Hall, Level 1, Kensington Olympia, London) and POST, Brighton (3-5 July 2026). Following the longlist announcement, shortlisted publications will be announced in early June 2026. The winner of each category, sharing a £10,000 prize fund, will be announced at the end of June 2026. Events celebrating the 2026 Awards and the winners will take place in autumn 2026 in London at the Barbican and the V&A, South Kensington.

For the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards two winning titles are selected annually, with prize money of £10,000 divided equally between the winning title in the Photography category and the winning title in the Moving Image category. Since 1985 the Awards have recognised individuals who have made an outstanding original or lasting educational, professional, historical and cultural contribution to literature concerning photography or the moving image (including film, television, video, and new media). Sir Brian Pomeroy CBE, Chair of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation, says of the 2026 longlists, “It is a huge pleasure to be announcing such outstanding works in our two sets of long-listed books this year, evidence that the production of excellent books on photography and the moving image is alive and well.”

Since their inception in 1985, the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards have reflected the changing landscape of photobook and moving image publishing. Past winners include leading figures from the worlds of photography and film including artists and writers such as Isaac Julien; Sunil Gupta; LaToya Ruby Frazier; Zanele Muholi; Edward Burtynsky; Susan Meiselas; Martin Parr; Larry J Schaaf; Mark Haworth-Booth; Griselda Pollock; David Campany and Simon Callow.

The Longlisted Titles for the 2026 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award are:

• A Reprise by David Alekhuogie (Aperture)
• Black Chronicles: Photography, Race and Difference in Victorian Britain, edited by Renée Mussai (Thames & Hudson/ Autograph)
• Index²⁰²⁵ by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (Roma Publications)
• It’s Hard To Stop Rebels That Time Travel by Raymond Thompson Jr (Void)
• MAN by Erik Kessels and Karel De Mulder (RVB Books)
• Red Horse by Sasha Kurmaz (Éditions Images Vevey)
• Sound the Sirens by Bryan Anselm (Overlapse)
• Swan Moon’s Swan Moon by Swan Moon (TBW Books)
• The Fold by Hoda Afshar (Loose Joints)
• The Ramble NYC 1969 by Arthur Tress (Stanley / Barker)
• The Weight of the Word by Piero Martinello and Piero Casentini (Fw:Books)
• Too Many Products Too Much Pressure by Janet Delaney (Deadbeat Club)

The Longlisted Titles for the 2026 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award are:

• Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, & Male Sex Appeal by Mark Gallagher (University of Texas Press)
• Hollywood's Others: Love and Limitation in the Star System by Katherine Fusco (Columbia University Press)
• June Givanni: The Making of a Pan-African Cinema Archive by Onyeka Igwe (Lawrence Wishart)
• Out There in the Dark by Katharine Coldiron (Autofocus Books)
• Read Frame Type Film: Or, Written on the Screen by Enrico Camporesi, Catherine de Smet, and Philippe Millot (MUBI Editions)
• Shaping Global Cultures Through Screenwriting: Women Who Write Our Worlds edited by Rose Ferrell and Rosanne Welch (Intellect)
• The Animist Imagination in East Asian Cinema by Pao-chen Tang (Amsterdam University Press/ Routledge)
• Toward a More Perfect Rebellion: Multiracial Media Activism Made in L.A. by Josslyn Jeanine Luckett (University of California Press)
• Transnational Cinema Solidarity: Chilean Exile Film and Video after 1973 by José Miguel Palacios (University of California Press)
• Understanding Video Activism on Social Media by Jens Eder; Britta Hartmann; and Chris Tedjasukmana (Intellect)

Fiona Rogers, the V&A Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography and Judge of the 2026 Photography Book Award, said of the experience, “We were extremely impressed by the originality of the books submitted for this year’s KK book awards. The selection exemplifies the expansive nature of contemporary photographic practice and represents how visual culture impacts us all. It is inspiring to see so many varied approaches to portraiture, documentary, and the use of historical documents and archives as artistic, reparative interventions.”

David Martin-Jones, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Glasgow, and Judge of the 2026 Moving Image Book Award, explained, “The longlist expresses the great variety of books submitted. Both in terms of the different writing styles and approaches to the moving image, and, the great diversity of films currently being explored. The longlist celebrates works exploring filmmaking from all around the world, including dedicated works on African, Asian and Latin American cinemas; larger and smaller screens; more canonical films and those passed over or at risk of being “forgotten” by the canon; and most of all, the timeliness of so much scholarship on the audiovisual for our complex era. What the longlist shows, in a nutshell, is how important moving images are for how we process our relationship with the world.”

The call for the 2027 Awards will be issued in November 2026.

Image: from Black Chronicles: Photography, Race and Difference in Victorian Britain, edited by Renée Mussai (Thames & Hudson/ Autograph)

I have recently acquired these two lenses which look like book ends. They are very heavy as the supports are cast iron; the inserts are brass with one of the lenses being made to unscrew which I presume means a different one can be inserted. I believe both are of the convex type. They are extremely well made. 

When I obtained them I was hoping that an image could be formed when the two lenses were placed close together and this proved correct as shown in the attached images. My question is could they have been used in experimental photography or are they earlier than that? The image formed I believe is too small to be used for sketching purposes and it would be difficult to do that anyway. Maybe there is another purpose - Excuse the pun, but if anyone can throw light on their use I would be gratelful. If one lens is used on its own the image is larger but not distinct and has many abberations.

Thanks,

Mike Deane
oldphoto@cwgsy.net
www.deanephotos.com 

Studies in Photography is publishing the latest scholarship from Sara Stevenson Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth. This new volume brings together many previously unpublished photographs by the pioneering Scottish photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, created in collaboration with Jessie Mann. Across 160 beautifully produced pages, the book reintroduces one of the most important bodies of work in the history of photography.

Focusing on the fishing communities of the Firth of Forth—especially the village of Newhaven—these images are widely regarded as the world’s first social documentary photographs. At their heart are the fisherwomen: strong, resilient, and central to the life and economy of their community. Their presence, alongside the fishermen, is captured with extraordinary sensitivity through the calotype process, whose soft tonalities give these portraits a timeless immediacy.

This publication restores balance to the historical narrative and invites a fresh encounter with images that continue to shape our understanding of photography today.

Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth 
Sara Stevenson
£25. Studies in Photography, 2026
Available on pre-order, publication 11 May 2026
Details and order: https://studiesinphotography.com/collections/books/products/pre-order-hill-adamsons-fisherwomen-and-men-of-the-firth-of-forth

In this talk Caroline Bressey will be reflecting on the research she is currently undertaking which is supported by a Paul Mellon Centre Fellowship.The work is drawing on new and previous research with photographic archives, to reflect upon the surfacing of the lives of ordinary people. Photographic archives have enabled her to find a way to develop Black and other bodies ‘of colour’ in archives of working people, often in institutions such as asylums and prisons. Although such institutional records do usually record histories of the poor and excluded in forms not of their choosing, they do retain a diversity of English life.

Ordinary Lives: Photographic Encounters with Black Victorians
Caroline Bressey
Research Lunch, in person  - 26 June 2026, 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Paul Mellon Centre
Free but Book tickets

Two years ago I began cataloguing photographs in the Nottingham Central Library Local Studies Archive. So far I have catalogued over 70 boxes of lantern slides most of which were 'photographer not known', but last week was rather exciting, a box of 44 slides of which 39 were signed S.Bourne. The box was labelled 'High Pavement'. Samuel Bourne was involved with the High Pavement Chapel in Nottingham.

I have a problem now. Are these slides a new discovery or are they slides made from known photographs? Were they available for sale or were they personal holiday snaps used for a slide show at the chapel?

There are some images of Arthog in Wales and one of Exeter Cathedral. Other views include Cannes, Promenade des Anglais Nice and Mentone in France and also Ullswater.

I would be most grateful for any help, advice or pointers to discover more about these slides.

NB. Please do not ask to see the slides. I am a volunteer, I work one morning a week and have no budget. This project is in its very early stages and the library staff are already very busy.

The Burton at Bideford is seeking a socially-engaged photographer to work on a project with a group of women with complex needs. The project will use Historic England’s Janette Rosing Collection as a starting point.

We are excited to commission a socially-engaged photographer based in the South West to facilitate workshops with a group of women with complex needs. The aim of the workshops is to introduce the Janette Rosing Photographic Collection to participants, and use it as a starting point to explore themes of collecting, the landscape, the pastoral vs the sublime and rural histories. Through a series of practical photography workshops and photo walks, the group will develop new skills and creative engagement with landscapes documented in the collection. With the artist’s guidance, the group will learn how to improve their own photographs, through considerations in lighting and composition.

The appointed photographer will deliver 10 creative workshops, which will result in an exhibition at The Burton in 2026. The workshops will take place at The Burton, and will be supported by staff from The Burton’s Learning and Engagement Team and the charity Brave Spaces.

The Brief

The photographer will:

• plan and deliver 10 photography workshops.
  teach photography skills, and encourage experimentation. Participants will be using the cameras on their phones, but there’s an opportunity for experimenting with analogue photography methods if this fits the brief
• encourage the group to work on a theme, so that individuals end up with a body of work at the end of the 10 sessions.
• collaborate with the group to agree the best output for the final work.

Budget

Artist fee: £2,000
Artist travel and access budget: £500

Read more: https://www.burtonartgallery.co.uk/open-call-socially-engaged-photographer-2/

Image: Clovelly Harbour, Devon, c1885. Historic England Archive. 

Rackline Storage Systems has published a blog about how it implemented a new storage solution in a new museum storage area, to support the safe preservation of the Fox Talbot  Museum’s collection. 

The team at the Fox Talbot museum was looking to maximise their back of house museum storage. With a huge collection of photographic inventory, storage was needed to both house its existing collection, and the Fenton Photographic Collection which was being transferred from the BFI. To achieve this the collection store needed to be renovated and fitted out with a selection of high density shelving.  The biggest challenge was the diverse collection that it was to contain.

Read the full blog here: https://www.rackline.com/fox-talbot-photography-museum-storage-shelving/

This significant collection of historic photography offers a substantial visual record of Aotearoa New Zealand during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period of profound transformation for the peoples of this land. Assembled over several decades by Roger Ward (1945–2023)*, whose deep affection for Aotearoa New Zealand shaped much of his life and collecting, this unique photographic collection reflects a sustained engagement with the country’s history and culture. It was brought together with dedication, discernment and considerable expertise.

The collection comprises more than 1,500 original photographs documenting communities, landscapes and the built environment at formative moments in the country’s history. Distinguished by its depth, coherence and quality, the collection includes original prints, stereoviews and cartes-de-visite rather than later reproductions. Many works were created by prominent professional photographers working in Aotearoa during the colonial era, including: The Burton Brothers (New Zealand), Josiah Martin (New Zealand), and brothers James and George Valentine (Scotland). Together, these images reflect the development of photography as both a documentary practice and a commercial enterprise, while also recording the sweeping social, cultural and environmental changes taking place across the country.

A notable strength of the collection lies in its breadth of subject matter. Expansive landscapes, townscapes and architectural views are complemented by portraits and ethnographic studies, including photographs of Māori individuals and groups, marae and carving traditions. These images provide insight into how Aotearoa was visually represented and circulated in the nineteenth century, both locally and internationally.

We recognise the importance of honouring the mana, tikanga and cultural significance embodied in images of Māori people and places, and we are committed to approaching their presentation with respect and responsibility.

The collection will be presented as an online-only timed auction running 24.04.26—10.05.26, with selected highlights available for public viewing at Webb’s Mount Eden Gallery, exhibited alongside the Material Culture Live Auction catalogue.

Roger Ward, who was born in Otago in 1945 and died in 2023, began forming his remarkable collection of photographs following his retirement from a highly successful career in book marketing, a profession that made him an international figure in publishing and bookselling. Despite living much of his life overseas, he remained closely connected to Aotearoa New Zealand and returned frequently for extended periods, eventually purchasing a property near Mārahau, Nelson, where he spent his final years. His enduring affection for Aotearoa New Zealand, together with a sustained engagement with its history and culture, is expressed through this distinctive photographic collection, assembled with care, discernment and deep knowledge of the medium.

An Important Collection of Historic New Zealand Photography Part I | He Kohinga o ngā Whakaahua ō-Mua o Aotearoa Kohinga 1 (#188AD)
Webbs auctions, New Zeland
24 April-10 May 2026, online
Details: https://auctions.webbs.co.nz/auctions/catalog/id/946?

Image: James Valentine, Pool of Bathers, Whakarewarewa

The V&A Museum has launched a new monthly blog focused on the RPS Collection project which aims to 'offer insight into our approach, share discoveries from the project, and explore how the museum’s stewardship of the collection will foster creative connections and inspire new narratives.' The first, written by Dr Erika Lederman, gives an overview of the project and where it is at as part of a five-year cataloguing and digitisation programme. The RPS project now has 16 staff working on it from across departments in the Museum, plus 38 volunteers and 2 MA students. 

Erike concludes: 'The increased visibility of the collection has already resulted in increased loans and displays and some innovative research, which we will feature in future posts. We are looking forward to sharing stories, revealing exciting discoveries, and presenting new narratives as the project develops.'

Read the full blog here: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/projects/introducing-the-royal-photographic-society-rps-project

Among the lots in Flints forthcoming auction of Photographs, Optical Toys and Science on 12 May is a group of three lots of correspondence between John Spiller and William Crookes. Elsewhere is a mix of photographs and lantern slides including a quarter-plate ambrotype of St Lukes Church, Chelsea.

Photographs, Optical Toys and Science
12 May 2026
Live, but bidding online

See: https://www.flintsauctions.com/auction/search/?st=crookes&sto=0&au=110&sf=%5B%5D&w=False&pn=1

Image: William Crookes and John Spiller, c1855

The summary below is not an exhaustive list I am sure, and several of the events will have their own programmes of talks and exhibitions that will add another layer to the week.

Download the document (with clickable links) here:  PL Week.pdf