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Make exquisite rich brown images using this 19th century print technique.  Led by local photographic artist Catriona Gray who specialises in alternative processes, this short, three-hour workshop, will show you all you need to make your own exquisite and unique Van Dyke Brown prints.

You will learn how to coat your own photographic paper, and expose it to light using the photogram technique of placing objects directly onto the paper. There will also be the opportunity to make a photographic print from a digital negative (if you want to do this, please email your image in plenty of time before the workshop).

We encourage you to bring your own objects, leaves, flowers etc. along to the workshop, to make the images truly personal.

See more here.

Courses take place on 27 January, 21 February and 27 March, book here.

Edinburgh auction house Lyon and Turnbull is offering a group of photogenic drawings dating from May 1839 in its forthcoming auction of books and photography. The group are believed to have been made by William Thomas Salvin of Croxdale Hall, County Durham. They are estimated at £2000-3000. 

The catalogue description is below: 

[COUNTY DURHAM] PHOTOGENIC DRAWINGS, BY WILLIAM THOMAS SALVIN (1767-1842) OR WILLIAM THOMAS SALVIN (B. 1808)  OF CROXDALE HALL, COUNTY DURHAM 

3 of feathers, c. 108 X 174mm., annotated on verso, "Magpie feathers May 1839 W. Salvin" and "W. Salvin, May 15, 1839"; 4 of plants, from 75 x 105mm. to 175 x 105mm., annotated on versos in pencil "April 1839, W. Salvin", "May 1839. W. Salvin" (x 2) "[?] from High [-]oile, Salvin, 1829", one of the armorial bookplate of W.T Salvin Esq., annotated "May 16th 1839, W. Salvin", & 3 totally faded; all somewhat faded, one creased
Note: These must be amongst the earliest "photogenic drawings" produced in Co. Durham. First conceived in England by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1834, photogenic drawing is the first photographic process capable of producing negative images on paper. The inventor did not publicize his experiments until the Daguerreotype was introduced in January 1839. The first photogenic drawings were produced of flat objects (plants, fabrics, drawings or manuscripts, etc.), being placed directly on light sensitive paper, following the principle of a photogram. Talbot had presented his discoveries of photogenic drawing to the Royal Society in January and February 1839, and it is therefore likely that William Thomas Salvin (1767-1842) or his son, also William Thomas Salvin (b. 1808) was present at Talbot's Royal Society lecture and was inspired by it to make some of his own photogenic drawings in May 1839.

See more here.

Alexander Lamont Henderson (1838-1907) was a photographer who was distinguished for his services by Queen Victoria of Britain and a member of the Royal Photographic Society. The information related to his life and work is poor as his "royal" images were destroyed after the death of Queen Victoria and his "commercial" work which was donated to the library of the London Guildhall Museum in 1907 was destroyed in 1940's bombing. A set of what he himself called "Holiday snaps" could possibly be the only part of his work that is saved nowadays. It consists of photographs taken between 1884 and 1906 during his trips in Mediterranean countries.

In 1884, Queen Victoria awarded him with a Royal Warrant. This permitted him to depict moments from the everyday life of the royal family and was also responsible for printing portraits of members of the British royal court on porcelain plaques destined to be mounted on jewellery.

After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Henderson retired. It was then that he made a series of photographic tours in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, and Australia. Upon his return to London, he turned the negatives produced on his trips into lantern slides and presented a series of these pictures during special projection events called ‘Lantern Lectures’ on the occasion of the annual exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society in London.

What makes his Greece body of work so special is that his camera did not follow the iconographic stereotypes of the time and disregarded the systematic recording of ancient monuments.

In addition to panoramic views of Athens, showing newly built neoclassical mansions, Henderson recorded snapshots of the social and everyday life of the city with images of street vendors being particularly prominent.

The views from the royal palaces of Athens and Tatoi are of particular interest, as they record for the first time their original interior decoration. Furthermore, the photographs from the halls of the National Archaeological Museum and from the first permanent exhibition of the National Historical Museum in the main building of the National Technical University of Athens provide important information on museum displays of the time. Leaving the confines of the city of Athens, Henderson toured Faliro and the port of Piraeus, where he captured unique snapshots of vibrant everyday life. His Greek tour concluded with a short visit to Chania and Patras.

In spite of their limited number, his photographs distinguished themselves by the variety of their subject matter, their defined composition and their outstanding chemical treatment; they clearly demonstrate the work of an excellent professional photographer rather than that of a tourist finding himself equipped with a camera in early 20th century Greece. In total, they constitute a valuable treasure from which unique information about the history and the physiognomy of our country can be drawn.

Henderson died in 1907 and his photographic work was donated to the London Guildhall Museum, which unfortunately was destroyed during the Second World War when the German Air Force bombed London causing major damage. A small portion of Henderson’s work, indicated as ‘Holiday Snaps’, was discovered in the family house and was preserved by the photographer’s son-in-law, William Henderson Gray. This set, probably the only body of Henderson’s work that survived the Blitz, included about 4,000 subjects, produced mostly during the trips he made in the latter years of his life. Among them were the 86 glass lantern slides held today in the Photographic Archives of the Benaki Museum. For the exhibition, the material was processed and part of it was digitally printed.

Guided tours to the exhibition will be carried out by the exhibition curator Aliki Tsirgialou who will attempt to trace Alexander Lamont Henderson’s travels in Greece.

For more information go to @TheBenakiMuseum on Instagram or search #HendersonHolidaySnapsBM

See more here: https://www.benaki.gr/index.php?option=com_events&view=event&id=5752&Itemid=559&lang=en 

#HendersonHolidaySnapsBM

Opening on 30 January, 2019 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey presents masterpieces of early 19th-century photography by one of its unsung pioneers. A trailblazer of the newly invented daguerreotype process, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804–1892) travelled throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from 1842 to 1845, producing more than one thousand daguerreotypes - the largest known extant group from this period and the earliest surviving photographs of Greece, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Jerusalem, and among the first depicting Italy.

Featuring approximately 120 of his daguerreotypes, supplemented by examples of his graphic work—watercolors, paintings, and his lithographically illustrated publications—the exhibition will be the first in the United States devoted to Girault, and the first to focus on his Mediterranean journey. Many of the sites depicted have been permanently altered by urban planning, climate change, or conflict.

The exhibition is made possible by the Arête Foundation/Betsy and Ed Cohen.

Additional support is provided by Jennifer S. and Philip F. Maritz and the Alfred Stieglitz Society.

It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Daguerreotypists in the early 1840s faced enormous technical challenges, especially in the desert, so daguerreotypes from these years are exceedingly rare. No other photographer of the period embarked on such a long excursion and successfully made a quantity of plates anywhere near Girault’s production of more than a thousand daguerreotypes. The resulting photographic campaign remains an unparalleled feat in its appearance, scope, scale, and ambition. Using an oversize, custom-made camera, he exposed more than one image on a single plate to create at least six different formats, including unexpected horizontal panoramas and narrow vertical compositions.

The fact that a collection of this size survived at all is extraordinary and attests to the achievement of an unheralded innovator working with unprecedented technology. The survival of this monumental and exemplary collection is also a result of Girault’s meticulous archival process—precocious at the time, even if today it seems commonplace. The artist stored his daguerreotypes in custom-built wood boxes; in addition, he carefully sorted, labeled, and dated the images so that he could retrieve them for future use, occasionally recording when he utilized them, for example, as the basis for a painting or published print. He also had them inventoried several times during his lifetime. In essence, he created the world’s oldest photographic archive.

“The exhibition reveals Girault as the originator of a thoroughly modern conception of photography, by which visual memories can be stored, retrieved, reassembled, and displayed,” stated Stephen C. Pinson, Curator, Department of Photographs. “At the same time, it is perhaps more important than ever to recognize that Girault was himself the product of a complex network of political, social, and historical forces that had far-reaching impact on the West’s relationship with the world he photographed.”

The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to experience these rarely seen works, as Girault never exhibited his daguerreotypes and died without direct heirs in 1892. In 1920, a distant relative, Charles de Simony, purchased Girault’s estate outside Langres, France, and discovered the photographs—labeled and carefully stored in their original wood boxes—in a storeroom of his  dilapidated villa. A handful of intrepid collectors and curators were henceforth aware of the collection, but its dramatic content and scope remained little-known to the world until 2003, when the first of several auctions of material drawn from the original archive was held.

Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey is curated by Stephen C. Pinson, Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The catalogue is made possible by the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.

The exhibition is featured on The Met website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter via the hashtag #MonumentalJourney.

We at Bazar Nadar added a chapter 'UK photographs' to our 'Collections'. You can find anonymous masters and photographs from Fenton, Rejlander, Polyblank, Cameron and others. We will add more items soon. 

Feel free to check our inventory or ask your questions. 

https://bazarnadar.bigcartel.com/category/uk

Hubert Weston King, the owner of the W. W. Winter studio in Derby has passed away on Xmas day 2018, just shy of his 87th birthday. The Winter studio is the longest operating photographic studio business in the UK, if not the world and second longest operating from the same address in the UK, after the Reeves studio in Lewes, Sussex. The business was established in 1852 by Emmanuel Nicolas Charles with Walter William Winter joining in 1862 and taking it over in 1863 following Charles' death. It has operated as W. W. Winter from the same address in Midland Rd, Derby since 1867 where it has remained as the leading studio in Derby.

In 1896 William Henry King joined the studio as an assistant and in 1910 he bought the business. It has been in the King family ever since, passing down to William's grandson Hubert, who at 14 joined the business then run by his uncle, in 1945. In addition to portrait photography, the studio has long chronicled events in the Derby district and its scope extended to industrial work, product photography for advertising, line work for print and food photography. The studio is currently managed by Angela Leeson and Louisa Fuller is the photographer.

An ongoing Heritage Lottery Fund backed project with tireless work by the studio staff and a large team of volunteers has seen the conservation, cataloguing and digitisation of thousands of the firm's old film and glass negatives as well as an exhibition chronicling the incredible photographic heritage of the studio. Annual Heritage Day events provide a wonderful insight into the studio's past, chronicling so much of Derby's people and events. I had the fortune to spend a day at the studio during a visit from Australia in 2014 and Hubert was gracious enough to provide a private guided tour of the premises. It was as exhilarating experience for anyone interested in photographic history.

The University of Leeds and Leeds Film are partnering to offer a funded PhD to produce an analysis of the history of independent cinema exhibition in Leeds. This collaborative doctoral project seeks to break new ground by enabling a student to carry out an analysis on independent film exhibition in Leeds informed by both academic scholarship and practical experience of a series of regional film initiatives under the umbrella of Leeds Film.

Such an analysis will fill a significant gap in cultural memory within the city: despite Leeds’ link with film innovator Louis le Prince and early movie making, and despite currently having the largest number of DIY film exhibitions in the UK, very few discussions of film in Leeds appear in literature, academic or otherwise.

A comprehensive historical overview of independent film exhibition in Leeds constitutes the first aim of the PhD project, with a number of potential research questions providing a specific focus. 

Click here for more information. 

The Royal Collection contains a significant body of work which reveals the historical and contemporary importance of women photographers. Join Catlin Langford, Assistant Curator at the Royal Collection Trust, as she discusses key moments in photographic history, from the development of accessible camera technologies to the advent of colour photography, framed through the work of pioneering women photographers.

Book here: http://www.thelightbox.org.uk/Event/pioneering-women-photographers-in-the-royal-collection

Image: Detail from Mary Steen (1859-1939), Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, Queen Louise of Denmark, Alexandra, Princes of Wales, Amaliensborg, May 1892, RCIN 2927326

The 2019 Royal Photographic Society Hurter & Driffield Memorial Lecture will be given by award winning documentary film maker Anthony Geffen, Film-maker and CEO of Atlantic Productions, whose talk "From Attenborough to Hawking" will describe the challenges of pioneering immersive storytelling in Virtual and Augmented Reality.

As new technologies emerge, film-makers must re-engineer their art form to account for new platforms and more immersive experiences.  A pioneer in these mediums Anthony Geffen will talk about what it has taken him to stay ahead of the curve, over a career spanning more than 25 years and his vision for the future.

Anthony Geffen is one of the world’s leading documentary filmmakers and a pioneer in immersive storytelling who has won over 50 international awards including 4 BAFTAs and 8 Emmy Awards.  His diverse films include 11 projects with David Attenborough including the BBC series The Great Barrier Reef.  His theatrical films include The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest and his most recent television work was The Coronation with The Queen for the BBC.  He is widely considered a visionary for his innovative storytelling encompassing multiple platforms including 3D, interactive apps, and most recently immersive experiences in VR and AR with AI.  In 2017 he received the first British Academy Award for VR storytelling with David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef VR.  Current projects include Black Holes with the late Stephen Hawking.  Anthony is a fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford University.

Lecture open to all.

Date: 6 February 2019

Time: 18:00 - 20:30

Venue: Royal Philatelic Society, 41 Devonshire Place, London, W1G 6JY

Click HERE for tickets and further information 

Registration is opwn for the symposium Women, work and commerce in the creative industries, Britain, 1750-1950 which takes place on 7 and 9 February 2019 in London.

This two-day conference adds to the growing body of feminist scholarship that is deconstructing the male-dominated history of commercial and industrial artistic production. The programme will bring together current interdisciplinary perspectives on women’s experiences of work and the gendered dynamics of commerce in the creative industries in Britain between 1750 and 1950.

Keynote Speakers: Dr Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi (Bath Spa University), Dr Patricia Zakreski (University of Exeter) and Dr Jan Marsh (National Portrait Gallery)

Confirmed Speakers: Rachael Chambers (V&A), Isobel Cockburn (Independent Scholar), Barbara Cohen-Stratyner (Independent Scholar), Caroline Douglas (Royal College of Art), Sarah French (University of Sussex & Hastings Museum), Amy Goodwin (Norwich University of the Arts), Zoe Hendon (Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, Middlesex University), Ruth Hibbard (V&A), Johanna Holmes (RHUL, University of London), Catlin Langford (Royal Collection Trust), Rebecca Luffman (V&A), Michael Pritchard (Royal Photographic Society), Pamela Roberts (Independent Scholar), Benjamin Schneider (Merton College, University of Oxford), Christine Slobogin (Birkbeck, University of London), Deborah Sutherland (V&A), Rose Teanby (Independent Scholar), Katie Lloyd Thomas (Newcastle University), Helen Trompeteler (Royal Collection Trust), Grace Williams (Independent Scholar).

Day 1, Friday 8 February 2019: 10am – 5pm

Seminar Room 5, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd, Knightsbridge, London SW7 2RL

Day 2, Saturday 9 February 2019: 9.30am – 5pm

Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, 309 Regent St, Marylebone, London W1B 2HT

Spaces are limited and early booking is recommended: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-work-and-commerce-in-the-creative-industries-britain-1750-1950-tickets-53903735524

Image detail: Image credit: Pen and watercolour caricature of art students in the original V&A paintings galleries by Florence Claxton, Great Britain, 1861 © Victora and Albert Museum.

One of the most famous nineteenth-century collaborations between a poet and a photographer has found a home at the University of St Andrews Special Collections.

Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, 1875, photographically illustrated by Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the most celebrated women in the history of photography, will take pride of place as part of the University’s extensive photographic collection. It is believed to be the only copy in a Scottish collection. 

Tennyson is one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. Born in Lincoln in 1809, he published his first solo collection at 21 and his second collection in 1833. His second collection was met with such criticism that he did not publish again for ten years. His third collection, which included his seminal poem Ulysses, was received with more success.

In 1850 Tennyson published In Memoriam AHH. Dedicated to his late friend Arthur Hallam, it was a favourite of Queen Victoria, who said the book helped to comfort her after Prince Albert’sdeath. With Victoria’s patronage, Tennyson was acclaimed as the greatest poet of his day and was appointed Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth. Tennyson’s most famous works include Maud, The Charge of the Light Brigade and Crossing the Bar.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) is one of the most celebrated women in the history of photography. Best known for her powerful portraits, Cameron described her photographic subjects in the categories ‘Portraits’, ‘Madonna groups’, and ‘Fancy Subjects for Pictorial Effect’. Cameron was criticised for her unconventional techniques, but also celebrated for the beauty of her compositions and her conviction that photography was an art form.

Cameron’s close friendship with Tennyson resulted in the Poet Laureate choosing her services as a photographer to illustrate the proposed ‘people’s’ edition of Idylls of the King in 1874. Both lived in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, Cameron moved there in 1860 having visited Tennyson’s estate on the island. In the event, only three of her photographs were used and those were from woodcut copies. Tennyson encouraged her to fund the publication of two large-format albums with the full-size photographs tipped in and excerpts from his poems lithographed from her handwriting. The first volume appeared in December 1874 with Volume II published in 1875. The University has purchased a copy of Volume II, which contains thirteen albumen prints including a frontispiece portrait of Tennyson and text for the poems all printed in a facsimile of Cameron’s hand. The copy belonged to Dr Rolf S. Schultze (1902–67), Kodak’s research librarian and curator of the Kodak Museum in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also the honorary librarian for the Royal Photographic Society in London.

The acquisition of Idylls of the King greatly strengthens the University’s reputation as an important centre for the study of the history of photography and enhances our collection of photographically-illustrated books. The addition to the Special Collections of Idylls of the Kingaugments the University’s Tennyson collection which includes first editions of Poems, Chiefly Lyrical and In Memoriam. The book has already been accessed by academics and there are exciting plans for using the book in research and teaching projects.

Gabriel Sewell, Head of Special Collections, University of St Andrews, said: “Idylls of the King is one of the most famous nineteenth-century collaborations between a poet and a photographer and a rare and invaluable source for the study of Tennyson’s poetry and of Victorian culture.

“St Andrews has one of the most significant collections of early photographic material in the UK. Idylls of the King is the jewel in the crown in our collection, cementing the University’s reputation as one of the foremost important centres for the study of the history of photography.”

The University of St Andrews Library is very grateful to have received the support of the Friends of the National Libraries to purchase a copy of Julia Margaret Cameron, Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Other Poems. Volume II (1875).

Ian Smith (life dates unknown) photographed for the American magazine LIFE in 1945/6 and was listed on the masthead as a staff photographer. Numbers of his images of British politicians of the period, of movie stars, directors and producers, and his reportage of life in England in the aftermath of WW2, are held by Getty Images.

I have started a Wikipedia article on him. However there is scant information about his life. Does any other member have information on this quite significant British / Scottish photographer? I would be most grateful for any leads.

The Rijksmuseum’s curator of photography, Mattie Boom, has for the last few years been studying hundreds of photographs for her doctoral research into the emergence of amateur photography in the Netherlands. The results of her work will be on show from 15 February 2019 in Everyone a Photographer, an exhibition of more than 130 photographs, photograph albums and cameras that will take us back in time to the end of the 19th century.

The invention of small, easy-to-use cameras enabled amateurs to record important moments themselves for the first time. In Everyone a photographer, Boom shows how amateur photography brought about profound changes in visual culture; and how amateur photographs are the missing link in the history of photography.

Everyone a Photographer will run from 15 February-10 June 2019 at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The accompanying publication Everyone a Photographer. The Rise of Amateur Photography in the Netherlands, 1880-1910 has been made possible by Familie Van Heel Fonds/Rijksmuseum Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds/Wertheimer Fonds and Marque Joosten & Eduard Planting Fonds/Rijksmuseum Fonds.

See more here: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions-expected/everyone-a-photographer

Image: Aan boord, Willem Frederik Piek, c.1892-93.

Welcome to 2019. During the forthcoming year BPH will continue to report on news, exhibitions, publications, jobs and events relevant to British photographic history. It now has over 3000 subscribers and more than 3000 blog posts have been made since 2007, plus, of course, events, forum posts and images. 

To kick off 2019 here are five events that we have to look forward to:

• New gallery space: Fotografiska opening, London, Spring 2019. See more here.
• Exhibition: The Mackinnon Collection, Edinburgh, from 15 November 2019. See more here.  
• Conference: The business of photography, Leicester, 17-19 June 2019. See more here. 
• Exhibition: Women in Photography: A History of British Trailblazers, Woking, from 30 January 2019. See more here.
• Symposium: Women, Work and Commerce: Women in the Creative Industries, London: 9-10 February 2019. See more here.

2019 also sees the bicentenary of the birth of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert which, because of their particular involvement with early British photography, will be of particular interest to photo-historians.

If you know of any other exhibitions, news, publications or conferences taking place and relevant to British photographic history please add them or provide details. 

Dr Michael Pritchard 

Royal Mail has withdrawn a stamp design marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day - after BBC News pointed out it showed US troops landing in what was Dutch New Guinea, nearly 8,500 miles from France.

For the full article see https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46694509

What is interesting to me is not just Atkins choice of the new medium of photography to describe, both scientifically and aesthetically, the beauty and detail of her collection of seaweeds; but within that new medium of photography, she chose not the photogenic or calotype process, but the graphic cyanotype process with its vivid use of the colour blue, a 'means of reproducing notes and diagrams, as in blueprints'.

Here we have a process that reproduces reality as in a diagram, a diagrammatic process that is then doubly reinforced when Atkins places her specimens directly on the cyanotype paper producing a photogram, a photographic image made without a camera. The resultant negative shadow image shows variations in tone that are dependent upon the transparency of the objects used. (Wikipedia)

Atkins photographs, produced "with great daring, creativity, and technical skill" are "a groundbreaking achievement in the history of photography and book publishing." While Atkins' books can be seen as the first systematic application of photography to science, each photograph used for scientific study or display of its species or type, there is a much more holistic creative project going on here.

Can you imagine the amount of work required to learn the calotype process, gather your thoughts, photograph the specimens, make the prints, write the text to accompany the images, and prepare the number of volumes to self-publish the book, all within a year? For any artist, this amount of concentrated, focused work requires an inordinate amount of time and energy and, above all, a clear visualisation of the outcome that you want to achieve.

That this was achieved by a woman in 1843, "in contrast to the constraints experienced by women in Victorian England," makes Atkins achievement of scientific accuracy, ethereal beauty and sublime transcendence in her photographs truly breathtaking.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

READ THE FULL TEXT AND SEE THE IMAGES AT https://wp.me/pn2J2-aRJ

Anna Atkins (1799-1871)
Ulva latissima, from Volume III of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions
1853
Cyanotype
Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

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Just after World War 2 the UK Developing and Printing (Photofinishing) trade was still mainly printing amateur snapshots by contact methods. But by the mid 1950s automatic projection printers had been developed and the so called “enprint” was born. At this time, in the UK, Kodak Limited had brought out their Velox Projection Printer and Ilford Limited were marketing the Kenprinter that was manufactured by a subsidiary company, Kennington and Bourlet Limited of Brentford, Middlesex. The Kenprinter and the VPP were both enlarging projection printers and used a soft grade of paper three and a half inches wide in rolls of up to 500 feet. Exposure was automatically controlled by a photocell and associated electronics.

The Kenprinter was patented by it’s inventor Arnold Reginald Kennington in the mid 1950s. 

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=GB&NR=781090A&KC=A&FT=D&ND=&date=19570814&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP

The Science Museum Group have an example of a Kodak VPP in their collection but do not seem to have a Kenprinter. Internet searches also suggest that no other museum has one.

I have recently discovered with an Internet search an export version of a Kenprinter that is presently for sale by a Danish building materials reclamation company. 

https://www.genbyg.dk/en/curious_items/?view_prod=79346/

The machine may not be complete but from photographs posted on the Internet it only appears to lack the removable legs, the foot pedal and the paper pressure plate. It does have all three lenses (these were usually made by Dallmeyer) and a selection of negative carriers. I wonder if any Photographic, Scientific or Technology Museum, or any individual with storage space, could get involved in acquiring this very rare piece of British photographic history?

The Kenprinter was in use by many D&P companies across the UK and I can recall over five different photographic businesses using them in the Great Yarmouth area in the 1960s. Several years ago I built a web site about Ilford’s D&P equipment, there is more information about the Kenprinter on this site.

http://www.greatyarmouthphotographic.co.uk/ilfordltd/page7.html

The Kenprinter illustrated here is the even rarer 600 model that produced prints up to whole plate size.

Looking to identify this Officer. 6 x 4 inch albumen print with no ID.  Grenadier Guards? I think that's a cap with plumage, and a sword hilt.

Many thanks in advance,

David McGreevy

In one of his recent statements, Noam Chomsky presented a truly pessimistic diagnosis of our times: the very beginning of the 21st century led us towards the crisis of democracy. Nowadays, we need to confront the system in which property relations play a decisive role in our social network. Power, according to Chomsky, is inevitably associated with wealth. In consequence, the rules of democratic societies are no longer valid, since the capital helps to avoid them.

The need to look at the problem of power in a broader way, which would go beyond the context of political domination, has already become strongly present in contemporary humanities. This topic became the subject of interest of the authorities of our academic discourse (especially Michel Foucault, Pierre Nora or Bruno Latour). Chomsky, however, in the aforementioned statement, also raised a second issue, which is especially important in our attempts to analyse today’s iconosphere: the phenomenon of the so-called ‘fake news’. At this point, his thought meets the observations of Giorgio Agamben. The recognition of the condition of our times made by both scholars is accompanied by the observations regarding the crisis of images. Paradoxically, despite the gradual loss of faith in the image (progressing with the growing awareness of the ways of manipulating it and using it as a means of persuasion) the thesis of Hans Belting, claiming that “we live in images and understand the world in images” still remains in force. After all, armed conflicts and trade wars are followed by the stream of provocative photographs. This spectacle of suffering was considered as a product created for consumption (Susan Sontag) or as a fast stream of “photo-shocks” (Roland Barthes).

We are strongly convinced that the tension growing on the axis power versus photography is the key issue for the research focusing on contemporary visual culture. Therefore, in the next issue of “Daguerreotype. Studies in the history and theory of photography” we would like to invite you to present your answer to the question of how photographic strategies place themselves in the complicated network of power, history, and memory. Let us ask ourselves what role photography can play in the game between those mighty opponents: is it stronger than only a defenceless pawn?

We invite you to send texts regarding the following problems:

• Blame(less?) photography: photographs as the means of ethical persuasion, ideological propaganda and/or a tool of violence
• Photography as a form of intervention: are the attempts to construct an unconventional “counter-history” (to use the term coined by the Polish historian Ewa Domańska) always doomed to failure? Can photography serve as a medium of re-figuring an abusive narrative? Or maybe the image, replacing the body, only replaces the actual participation, creating the illusion of participation in the social debate?
• The transgressive dimension of photography: in what kind of traps can photography fall into? When the strategies of visual rebellion, which were supposed to overcome the dominant power, eventually take its place? How does the reading and meaning of the photograph change depending on the place of its exposure, the field of exploitation or the status and role of the author?
• Photography through the prism of feminist discourse: photographs as tools for self-identification, the emancipation of body and contestation of social roles imposed by the system
• Photography and archiving/museum strategies: when organizing can be understood as control over the past, in which only the narratives of winners are present? When and how is curatorial practice an intervention that breaks the status quo and reminds the non-normative attitudes?

The issue of relationship between photography and power requires a broad, interdisciplinary perspective. Therefore, we invite scholars which work in different fields, such as anthropology, social and cultural studies, philosophy or art history, to join this discussion. Our intention is to present both theoretical essays, as well as case studies in our journal. The starting point of each paper can be located in the field of documentary, creative photography or photojournalism, but may also include analysis of examples from the private sphere or from the world of advertisement. Although the tension in the relations of photography and power is particularly noticeable in the era of the digital image, we are open for the reflection which refers to the roots of the photographic medium, which would be close to the title of our magazine and its traditions.

On behalf of the editorial team,

Małgorzata Maria Grąbczewska and Weronika Kobylińska-Bunsch

The deadline for sending the final articles is: 28th February 2019

Please prepare the text according to our editorial guidelines (you can also check our website dagerotyp.com) and then send to the address: dagerotyp@shf.org.pl  (if you won’t receive a confirmation from us, please send the text again)

We encourage our potential authors to consult the topics of the articles with the editorial board before sending the final text.

CFP
No. 2 (26) / 2019: Photography and power

John Myers will discuss his new publication Looking at the Overlooked, which documents the claustrophobia of the suburban landscape in the 1970s, published by RRB Photobooks 2019.

Looking at the Overlooked presents Myers’ photographs of substations, shops, houses, televisions and landscapes without incident (boring photographs), which are now being compared with the photographic movement New Topographics.

Followed by questions from the floor and photobook signing.

See more and book here: https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/events/john-myers/

Image: Television No. 4, 1973 © John Myers. Courtesy of RRB Photobooks.