On Saturday, 14 October around 30 people came together in the small parish church of St Peter and St Paul, Wendling, to remember the photographer Robert Howlett (1831-1858) who died on 2 December 1858, aged 27 years. A year long project which was crowd-funded, but initiated and realised by Rose Teanby culminated in the restoration of Howlett's grave and its re-dedication led by Reverend Julia Hemp. 

The proceedings were attended by Teanby, representatives of the Royal Photographic Society, descendants of Howlett and Thomas Hardwich, Howlett's great friend and collaborator. Along the way Teanby has dispelled misconceptions about Howlett'ds life and work, corrected oft-repeated facts and revised attributions of photographs. She has also rewritten the history of Howlett's most famous photograph showing Brunel in front of the chains of the SS Great Eastern. 

Saturday's ceremony was a fitting culmination of this work and a tribute to an important figure in photography's early history. Some further work is in hand including a catalogue raisonné of Howlett's photographs and there is the possibility of another grave retsoration project of another early, forgotten, photographic figure. 

See: http://www.photohistories.com/Photo-Histories/51/robert-howlett-and-the-power-of-photography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Howlett

The final Workshop of the Million Pictures project will be held in Exeter, south-west England, on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 January 2018, with an additional meeting of the research group on the morning of Saturday 13 January.

The project is a collaboration between magic lantern researchers in five institutions in different European countries, examining the uses of lantern slides and technologies in educational and institutional contexts. More details are at http://a-million-pictures.wp.hum.uu.nl/.

The detailed workshop programme will be available a little later, but the outline plan is:

Thursday 11 January

-- 14.00-17.00 (approx.), presentations and panel discussions

-- 18.00 - evening reception, performance, dinner

Friday 12 January

-- 09.00-17.00 (approx.), presentations and panel discussions

-- 18.30 (approx.), buffet dinner

-- 20.00 magic lantern spectacle at local theatre (also open to the public).

Saturday 13 January

-- 10.00-12.00 (approx.), research team assembly

The venues will be the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (www.rammmuseum.org.uk), the Barnfield Theatre (www.barnfieldtheatre.org.uk) and the Devon and Exeter Institution (www.devonandexeterinstitution.org).

Everyone is welcome to join us for discussions and presentations on all aspects of lantern slide use in educational contexts, plus reflections from the project teams and thoughts on how we should build on the excellent progress made in the course of the project. There is no charge for attendance, and the evening events are included for workshop participants, but if you are interested please register your attendance with us by 31 October 2017 so we can plan the catering and other arrangements.

If you would like to join us, or have any questions (including travel, accommodation etc.) please contact Richard Crangle (r.crangle@googlemail.com) or Joe Kember (j.e.kember@exeter.ac.uk).

The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research at the Humboldt Area Foundation has awarded 35 grants since its inception in 2005.  A website www.palmquistgrants.com now provides information about the recipients and their projects in addition to information about Peter’s work.  An application is also available through the website, due November 1, 2017. 

The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research provides financial support to independent researchers who are studying either Western American photographers before 1900 or women photographers past and present. The Humboldt Area Foundation in Bayside, California, administers this fund, which solicits applications for grants once a year in the fall and awards the grants the following January. A small panel of outside consultants with professional expertise in the field of photohistory and/or grant reviewing determines each year’s awards.

The University of St Andrews has an outstanding collection of books, archives and photography, accumulated throughout the six hundred years since the University’s foundation.  The collection is especially rich in the History of Science, Theology and Church History, Literary Studies and Photography.  In addition to a substantial collection of incunabula and early printed books, the library has a significant eighteenth-century collection dating from its period as a Copyright Library (1710-1836).  The archives also include an exceptional collection of 15th -16th century materials relating to Fife and to the University and city of St Andrews.

What is a University of St Andrews Library Visiting Scholarship?

Visiting Scholarships are an opportunity for applicants external to the University of St Andrews to research a topic in the Library’s Special Collections.  The scholarships are open to all interested researchers, whether or not affiliated to a university, and at whatever level. This Scholarship gives the applicant the opportunity to visit the University of St Andrews and experience first-hand the Library’s unique collections which offer research potential across an exceptionally broad array of disciplines.

Assessment of applications

All applications are assessed by a panel of academics and Library staff.

Successful candidates will be in receipt of

• Financial support up to a maximum of £1,500 to cover travel and accommodation, but not subsistence, during the Scholarship
• Accommodation in a University hall of residence.  The cost of this will be paid directly by the University, which will also make all necessary arrangements for residency. 
• A warm welcome to Special Collections and invitations to take part in its activities, e.g. seminars and workshops
• Curatorial support during the Scholarship
• Reading Room provision
• Sponsored email account
• Scholarships can be taken at a mutually agreed time between 1 July and 31 August 2018.
• Scholarships will last for a period of between two and eight weeks.  

Essential Criteria

All activity must be based strongly on the Special Collections of the University of St Andrews Library. Of particular interest to BPH readers will be the outstanding photography collections and a list of the key collections can be found here; https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/imu/imu.php?request=browse&browsetype=about

Visiting Research Scholar Application Process

Further details can be found here: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/researchandenquiries/visitingscholars/

Explore Your Archive is a campaign that showcases the best of archives and archive services in the UK and Ireland. The campaign is owned by the sector itself and delivered by a wide range of partners and stakeholders, including The National Archives (UK) and the Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland). By providing a range of marketing and information templates and materials, it aims to help professionals, volunteers, interns and students celebrate the unique potential of archives to excite people, bring communities together and tell amazing stories.

The campaign aims to open the phenomenal archival collections held by organisations – public and private – across the UK and Ireland, whatever their size and scale, and wherever they are. There is no ‘theme’ and there is no set date, thought there is an annual launch week (18-26 November in 2017). Any archive in the UK and Ireland can take part and freely use the material on this site (though note that the ARA owns the copyright to the campaign branding).

There are a number of events listed relating to, and about photography, which will be of interest to BPH readers coming up including:

• Sara Stevenson on The Police and Photography in the early years of invention 1840-80
• David Bruce on John Henry Greatrex: A Very Criminal Photographer

See: http://www.exploreyourarchive.org/

I have acquired a half stereo view, from the series "The Great Eastern in the Stereoscope", showing a scene onboard the great ship, after "The Explosion".  One of the funnels is clearly broken in half, and a gent in top hat is observing.

I assumed that this must be Brunel himself, viewing the destruction.

I also assumed that this was one of Robert Howlett's stereo views of the Great Eastern.

But, the facts don't add up. I'm confused, and am hoping members can help me understand.

The reverse of the image has a pencil notation (probably later) stating "Scene on the deck after the explosion, 1858".

From what I understand;

The explosion occurred on 9 Sept, 1859.

Howlett Died in December of 1858.

Brunel Died on 15, September, 1859.

So, Did Brunel inspect the damage 6 days before his death? Or is this someone else in the top hat? Who might that be?

As Howlett had untimely passed, was the photographer George Downes? or someone else?

Or do I have all my dates incorrect? Everything seems to have happened so quickly during this short time period.

Many Thanks,

David McGreevy

As part of the Stills Centre of Photography 40th anniversary events  Stills is pleased to present a talk by Brett Rogers OBE, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London. She will talk about the organisation's history, current priorities and future plans in light of their 50th anniversary in 2021. 

Brett Rogers OBE (b.1954, Australia) is Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London, the first publicly funded Gallery dedicated solely to photography in the UK. Founded in 1971, it established early on a reputation for its independent approach to curating and its promotion of photography in all its myriad forms. Now located in the heart of London’s Soho Quarter, the newly transformed building opened to the public in May 2012 continues to be recognized internationally as an innovator within the filed of photography and the wider image economy. Before joining the Gallery in 2006, Brett was deputy director of visual arts at the British Council, where she was responsible for establishing the British Council’s Photography Collection and curating an ambitious programme of international touring exhibitions on British photography. In 2013 her key role in developing the photographic field was recognized by University of the Arts London by appointing her a Visiting Fellow. Brett Rogers was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in the Queen’s Birthday Honors in May 2014. 

Book and see the other talks in the series here: http://www.stills.org/event/future

The Icon Photographic Materials Group is running an event on Friday 17th November to share knowledge on the conservation of photographs and film, following on from the successful Icon Scotland news and ideas exchange.

Speakers from public institutions, private conservators and students will talk about their dilemmas and solutions over traditional and modern photographic materials, from treatments to preventive measures, scientific investigation and routes into photograph conservation. The aim of the meeting is to build a comfortable space to discuss on-going projects. Tea, coffee, soft drinks, cakes and fruit will be provided.

If you’re willing to give a five minute talk, send a titled proposal (c. 100 words) with your name and affiliation by Monday 23rd October. Invited speakers will need to prepare approximately five PowerPoint slides, though these should be illustrative rather than textual. If you’d like any further details or to discuss your idea please get in touch as soon as possible: phmg@icon.org.uk. 

The event will take place from 12:30 (for a 13:00 start) -16:00. This will be followed by a short annual general meeting and a visit to Illuminating India: Photography 1857-2017 from 16:00-18:00. The annual general meeting and the exhibition are free.

A final version of the programme will be available from Tuesday 31st October. 

More information here: https://icon.org.uk/events/photo-conservation-round-table-discussion-annual-general-meeting-and-exhibition

"It has been called a revolution" reported the magazine Photography in 1907 describing the introduction of the autochrome plate. As the first colour photography process, which was easy to use and could achieve excellent colour results, the autochrome was celebrated as a turning point in the development of photography.

Art photographers, studio photographers, as well as scientists, devoted themselves to recording the world in colour. This publication provides the first comprehensive analysis of the colour revolution in Great Britain. It looks not only at the beginning of a debate about the value of colour in photography, which lasted until the 1980s, but also at the origins of a pictorial practice that continues into the digital age.

This book, in German for now, by Caroline Fuchs will be available from 7 November and is available through Amazon.

BPH will carry a review in due course. 

Das Autochrom in Grobritannien: Revolution Der Farbfotografie (Studies in Theory and History of Photography)
Caroline Fuchs
de Gruyter, 2017
324 pages, 100 illustrations
Printed book and e-book

ISBN 978-3110485882

Photoworks seeks to appoint a new Director to succeed current Director,  Celia Davies, after eight successful years with the organisation.

We seek a dynamic and ambitious individual who’ll build on our achievements to date and our distinctive and respected reputation. The new Director will inspire and lead the agile Photoworks team to deliver major cultural projects across different platforms nationally and internationally, overseeing the business plan implementation to realise them.

You’ll be a significant player in the photography and visual culture scene with a strong curatorial background and experienced in commissioning artists. You will have the vision to lead and ability to work in collaboration. You’re adept in understanding the operational demands of an organisation, with the ability to foster partners and stakeholders and seek out new cultural, strategic and commercial opportunities that extend the reach and impact of our work. You’ll be strongly committed to diversity and inclusion at every level of our activity.

Reporting directly to the Photoworks Board of Trustees, the Director will take overall responsibility for the organisation ensuring its full potential, its resilience and sustainability, and shaping its future.

Deadline for applications is Monday, 6 November 2017.

Interviews will be on Thursday, 16 November and Friday, 17 November 2017 in Brighton with possible second interviews on Monday, 20 November.

See more here: https://photoworks.org.uk/project-news/job-opportunity-director/#close-no

History and Theory of Photography Research Centre. All events free and open to all, at 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD.

24 October 2017, 6:00-7:30pm

Keynes Library (room 114)

Dr. AnnaLea Tunesi (independent scholar)

Art Dealing, Taste and Politics: Photographs from the archives of Florentine art dealer Stefano Bardini (1836-1922)

This paper explores the importance of photography in the nineteenth-century art market and for art-historical studies at large. Looking at images of paintings, sculptures and mediaeval and Renaissance crafts can be simultaneously revealing and deceiving. Time, place and users can change their connotations, raising important questions about their relationship to the original works. Intertwining photography, art collecting and art dealing, considered within an historical framework, this talk begins with Stefano Bardini’s show-room, to introduce his use of photographs for art dealing purposes by exploring the case study of a photograph of Allegory of Love, a c.1508 painting by ‘Il Sodoma’ (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), and its acquisition of various meanings through its European journeys.

Peltz Gallery: Exhibition continues until 31 October 2017

Monday-Friday, 10:am-8pm, Saturday:10am-5pm

Sunil Gupta: In Pursuit of Love

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/peltz-gallery

9 November 2017, 6:00-7:30pm

Room 106 GS,

Nina Lager-Westberg (Norwegian University of Art & Technology), Images at Work: Digitisation and the Archival Cultures of Photography.

29 November 2017, 6:00-9:00pm

Keynes Library (room 114)

Kate Flint, Flash! Photography, Writing, and Surprising Illumination (Oxford UP, 2017).

Book Launch - panel discussion followed by drinks.

6 February 2018, 6:00-7:30pm

Keynes Library (room 114)

Elizabeth Johnson (Associate Research Fellow, Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology)

The Touch of Light: Bruce Nauman’s Holograms.

Information on past events at http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/photography

Major Job Responsibilities

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in art history, art or art education OR 10+ yrs of curatorial experience OR Ph.D.
• Fluency in at least one foreign language (modern or ancient) required
• Highest level technical contributor in specialized curatorial functions

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

This new book explores how popular photography influenced the development of British travel marketing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Taking as its touchstone the image archive of the Polytechnic Touring Association, a London-based, originally philanthropic, travel firm, the book reveals the role that people’s increasing familiarity with the camera played in the travel industry’s shift from using lens-based images to mixed media.

This investigation uncovers the photographic desires of a new group of camera users – the tourist photographers: what photographs they took and why, and how this shaped how they experienced an increasing production of travel images. Through an exploration of lantern shows; the photography, travel and advertising press of the day; the work of official tour photographers; tourists’ personal photographs; and commercial photographic competitions, the book charts how the educational concerns and commercial imperatives, which successively defined the expected function of travel images, responded to these desires. As the book reveals, the relationship between popular photography and travel marketing was shaped by the different desires and expectations that consumers and institutions projected onto photography, in what became, effectively, a struggle over the interpretation of the travel image itself.

See more and buy:  Travel Marketing and Popular Photography in Britain, 1888-1939: Reading the Travel Image (Routledge) by Sara Dominici

The Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University is pleased to announce a call for applications for a new 12-month postdoctoral or more senior research associate in the history of photography. The selected candidate will engage in research on any aspect of the history of photography while in residence at Princeton for the 2018-2019 academic year. Applicants are expected to present a lecture on their work as well as participate in the scholarly life of the Department. Ph.D. required.

Applicants must apply on line at http://dof.princeton.edu/academicjobs and submit a CV, sample of published writing, research statement, and three letters of recommendation. This position is subject to the University’s background check policy.

Deadline: December 1, 2017. 

McCormick Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Photography 
Princeton University

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

McCormick Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Photography for 2018-2019

Princeton University

ART_McCormick%20Postdoctoral%20Fellowship%20in%20the%20History%20of%20Photography%20%285%29.docx

I am conducting research into the relationship between art and photography with reference to those who worked with Pre-Raphaelite artists specifically Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  There are several such as John Parsons, Emery Walker, William Downey and of course C L Dodgson.  Whilst there is some literature on Dodgson relating to this it is mainly restricted to his diary entries cross referencing with biographical details from other sources.  John Parson is more problematic; any information on him would be much appreciated and also on Downey and Walker.

The Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography will be holding its 2017 Conference on Monday 6 November at the Wellcome Genome Campus Conference Centre, Cambridge.

Details and the programme can be found here: http://www.ahfap.org.uk/conferences/2017-conference/

The Stereoscopic Society is presenting Denis Pellerin of the London Stereoscopic Company in a public talk. Denis will examine how Wheatstone tried to promote his reflecting stereoscope till the 1870s in spite of the popular success of the lenticular viewer.

There will also be 3D projection of several 3D AV and 3D VIDEO shows: Projection of international award winning presentations, including the ISU Club Folio (images from other 3D clubs around the world).

The meetings will be held at St Barbara’s Church Hall, 24 Rochester Road, Earlsdon, Coventry, CV5 6AG

Doors open at 2pm. Meetings start at 2.30pm end time 5pm.
Entrance: £3.00 including refreshments.

http://stereoscopicsociety.org.uk/WordPress/meetings/coventry-meetings/

Photography arrived in India in 1840 and ever since it has remained rooted in the distinctive aesthetics and cultural iconography of the sub-continent while also serving as a reflection of the political context of the times. The symposium will be chaired by Rahaab Allana, consultant curator of Illuminating India: Photography 1857–2017, curator of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi and Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in London

Booking is now open here: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/events/exhibition_events/illuminating-india-events/indias-place-in-photographys-world

India’s Place in Photography’s World

Science Museum

Friday 6 October, 14.00-19.00

Free, ticketed / All ages

Join visual artist Almudena Romero for an introduction to the historical processes of cyanotype printing and pinhole photography. Gather inspiration in the Gallery and learn the basics of analogue photography and these early printing processes so that you will be able to practice independently after the course. Suitable for all abilities.

On day one, beginning with a Gallery visit during which you will see different examples of early techniques, you will learn the process of cyanotype printing and create unique images on a variety of papers. On day two, you will construct your own pinhole camera, learn how to load it with photographic paper, create an image on a paper negative and make a paper positive out of the same negative.

Born in Spain in 1986, Almudena Romero is a visual artist working with early photographic processes such as cyanotypes, salt printing or wet plate collodion, along with new technologies including 3D printing. In 2015-2016, Almudena was commissioned by the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum (Tokyo), the Fundación Mapfre (Madrid) and the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) to deliver different educational projects to promote knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the wet collodion process alongside the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition at these museums.  Her practice has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally in galleries and festivals including the Brighton Photo Biennial and PhotoIreland, and has been featured in TimeOut, DUST magazine, Uncertain States and Photomonitor.

Weekend Workshop: Cyanotype Printing and Pinhole Photography
28 October - 29 October 2017, 11:00-17:00
Education Studio, National Portrait Gallery
Tickets: £150 (£125 concessions and Gallery Supporters) Book online, or visit the Gallery in person.

See more and book here

Responding to a Landscape will explore, debate and review the evolving relationship between artists and photographers and the landscape. We will hear from a number of perspectives, from acclaimed practitioners for which landscape is a recurring subject, a social and environmental concern, a research and archive practice and an essential departure. What does landscape and our natural world look like and mean to photographers and artists today?

The symposium has been planned in conjunction with the exhibition Matthew Murray’s Saddleworth; Responding to a Landscape, premiered at mac, Birmingham. Murray is interested in depicting the landscape based on what he feels rather than what he sees. His landscape work is a personal story and odyssey. His Saddleworth is the result of a five year creative and sensitive journey that captures the beauty of the moorland landscape.

The symposium invites acclaimed and outstanding photographers, artists, writers and photography historians to talk about their work and relationship with the landscape. Those speaking alongside Murray include; Richard Billingham, Chrystel Lebas, Jem Southam, Camilla Brown, Simon Constantine, John Hillman, Craig Ashley and Mark Wright.

The practitioners will talk about how they have approached landscape and their unique relationship with it. Landscape photography has a long and significant history and today approaches have perhaps never been so broad with practitioner’s motivations and aesthetic concerns been varied.Some document, others work with more abstract concerns; Some work collaboratively, others in isolation; Some are working on environmental concerns and others more personal stories.

During the Symposium we will hear from the perspective of the photographer, curator and academic. They are motivated by landscape for many different reasons. We will hear from and celebrate those that create self-initiated projects and commissioned bodies of work and see a range of photographic practices that are at the cutting edge of photography now.

The project is supported by GRAIN Projects, Arts Council England, Gallery Vassie, mac Birmingham, Pirate Design and the University of Gloucestershire.

Prices
Early Bird Concession: £15
Early Bird Standard: £22
Early Bird available until 15th October 2017.
Concession: £20
Standard: £28

*Please note prices include tea/coffee in breaks but do not include lunch.

Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/grain-responding-to-a-landscape-symposium-tickets-37285485892

Photo credit: Saddleworth ©Matthew Murray.