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Dr Geoffrey Belknap, a historian of photography, visual culture and Victorian science, has been appointed Curator of Photography and Photographic Technology at the National Media Museum. He replaces Colin Harding who is undertaking PhD research looking at the work of Horace Nicholls. The Museum is due to announce its new name and re-brand in Spring 2017. 

Dr Belknap has spent a large part of his career studying and writing about photography: in particular its contribution to scientific communication in the Victorian era and the publication of photographs in 19^th century periodicals. He has previously worked at Harvard University, leading a team of graduates in a study of Charles Darwin’s personal correspondence and use of photographs at the time On the Origin of Species was being produced. He completed a PhD at Cambridge University which included an analysis of photographic images in the British periodical press in the late 1800s.

Dr Belknap joins the National Media Museum from his current role at the University of Leicester and the Natural History Museum (London). He will complete the academic year as post-doctoral fellow on the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council)-funded Constructing Scientific Communities: Citizen Science in the 19th and 21st Centuries project, before taking up the position of curator in June 2017.

From June he will be responsible for the Museum’s collection of photographs and items of photographic equipment, including internationally renowned works and objects from the Daily Herald, Kodak, and Impressions Gallery collections.

Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum, said: “Geoffrey brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the Museum, and will oversee the application of our renowned photography collections to our mission of exploring the science and culture of image and sound technologies. His specialist subjects of photography, visual culture and Victorian science are an enticing prospect at a very exciting time for the Museum, as we take a fresh look at how our objects can tell stories which will inspire the scientists and innovators of tomorrow.”

Dr Belknap said: “I am delighted to be joining the team at the National Media Museum, and to have the privilege of curating the world-class photographic collections that it holds. I am keen to integrate my own research experience, which has focused on photography as a reproductive technology within the contexts of the history of science, to the future of the collections, exhibitions and research culture within the Museum. One of the keys to this future will be the development of new crowd sourcing platforms to engage with and improve our knowledge of photographic collections. It is an exciting time to be joining the National Media Museum and I look forward to working with both old and new communities to the Museum and its collections.”

Dr Belknap’s most recent book From a Photograph: Authenticity, Science and the Periodical Press, 1870-1890 was published in November this year, and he has previously authored or co-authored titles including Through the Looking Glass: Photography, Science and Imperial Motivations in John Thomson's Photographic Expeditions and Photographs as Scientific and Social Objects in the Correspondence of Charles Darwin.

The National Media Museum is currently constructing the £1.8m Wonderlab gallery, due to open in spring 2017, which will explore the science of light and sound through 25 state-of-the-art interactive exhibits and experiments. Work also continues on the development of the £5m Sound and Vision gallery, which will showcase the world-firsts and other significant items in the Museum’s photography, cinematography and television collections.

François Cheval, curator of the Nicéphore Nièpce Museum is leaving after twenty years. There's an interview with him here: http://www.loeildelaphotographie.com/en/2016/12/12/article/159930065/au-revoir-monsieur-cheval/

Read more about his career here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Cheval

Only four years after the invention of photography was announced to the world in 1839, two Scots had mastered the new medium and were producing works of breathtaking skill in extraordinary quantities. A Perfect Chemistry: Photographs by Hill & Adamson at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, will explore the uniquely productive and influential partnership of David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848), which lasted a few short years from 1843 until early 1848. These stunning images, which belie the almost unimaginable technical challenges faced by the duo, are arguably among the first examples of social documentary in the history of photography. 

Look out for more details ion BPH as they become available. 

Image: David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, Lady Mary Hamilton (Campbell) Ruthven, 1789-1885. Wife of James, Lord Ruthven. Gift of Mrs. Riddell in memory of Peter Fletcher Riddell, 1985

Sotheby's online auctions is offering a hand-coloured image of Alice Liddell c.1860 in a timed auction which ends on 16 December. The description reads: Hand-colored albumen print depicting Alice Liddell seated beside a potted Fern. Carroll Image No. 613. One of 8 images known, which includes the small vignette cut-out at the end of Carroll’s Alice manuscript. Carroll arranged for the photograph to be colored for presentation to Alice Liddell. It is estimated at $120,000-180,000. 

See more here.

Dumfries and Leicester, UK – Two important archives are being merged to capture the history of holograms and their innovators. Prof Sean Johnston of the University of Glasgow has donated a large research archive to an even larger collection at De Montfort University (DMU), gathered and managed by by Prof Martin Richardson at DMU’s Leicester Media School.

Johnston (left), a historian and physicist, is Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Glasgow, Scotland; Richardson (right), an artist, researcher and entrepreneur who gained his PhD at the Royal College of Art, is Professor of Modern Holography at De Montfort University in Leicester, England. Their aim is to preserve the history of the still-mysterious art of holography and to inspire continuing innovation.

The materials include correspondence and interviews with dozens of seminal figures in the field such as Emmett Leith at the University of Michigan and Yuri Denisyuk of the Vavilov Institute in St Petersburg, Russia. The collection also contains reminiscences, photographs, exhibition catalogues, unpublished documents and holograms from holographic artists, engineers, scientists, business people, enthusiasts and collectors. Richardson’s archive, which he has been amassing through his varied career, carefully preserves art and commercial holograms from pioneering businesses that have come and gone.

Background
Based in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Dumfries Campus of the University of Glasgow, Johnston’s archives were built up over the past fifteen years during his historical studies of holograms, their creators and their audiences. His research has led to publications and presentations around the world, and culminated in two books published by Oxford University Press: Holographic Visions: A History of New Science (2006) and Holograms: A Cultural History (2016). Now, as his research extends in new directions, Johnston wants to make the collection available to other scholars and creators.

Since holograms were first conceived by Dennis Gabor in 1947, there have been at least 20,000 contributors to the field, 7,000 patents, 1,000 books and countless commercial products. Holograms have evolved to intrigue audiences over three generations, although most ‘holograms’ viewed today are in fact inferior technologies based on Victorian stage tricks. Viewing genuine holograms remains a privileged and memorable experience.

Collections that document the history of the subject are far rarer. Most are still in the hands of their creators, many of them now retired. National museums and large companies, even in the countries that have contributed to holographic innovation, do not have sustained collecting policies for the subject. Acquiring, documenting and protecting the materials can be expensive for institutions. As a result, the history of the subject is threatened with disappearance. ‘I’ve been approached by holographers in industry, engineering and art seeking a permanent home for their life’s work’, says Johnston, ‘and I’ve recommended building a critical mass by merging collections’. To encourage such moves, Johnston and Richardson aim to unite their diverse treasures to preserve the broad history of holography.

The social sciences and the humanities as well as the art market have discovered African photography. There have never been as many publications and exhibitions on this subject as today. At the same time, however, it is forgotten in what desolate state and precarious conditions most photo and cinematographic archives are, the guardians of the visual heritage of the continent. And even though, in recent years, much has been done to conserve and digitize photo archives in Africa, the long-term preservation of the material and, in particular, access to analogue and digital photo and film archives is by no means assured.

For this reason and with the experience of several years working in and with photo archives in Cameroon, African Photography Initiatives has formulated the Yaoundé Declaration. The Yaoundé Declaration is calling on the government and other stakeholders to assume their responsibilities and make every effort to preserve and provide access to analogue and digital photo and film archives in Cameroon.

As a concrete request, the Yaoundé Declaration is asking for the recognition by the Ministry of Arts and Culture of the Buea Press Photo Archives and the Yaoundé Press Photo Archives as cultural property as intended in the national law on Cultural Heritage from 18 April 2013.

The Yaoundé Declaration was presented on November 9 at the University of Yaoundé I in the framework of an international conference. Endorsed by the vice-chancellor of the University, the organizers of the conference and over 50 first signatories from Cameroun, the Yaoundé Declaration will be included as first recommendation in the proceedings of the conference.

The Yaoundé Declaration with the list of the signatories will be handed over to the Ministries of Communication and Art and Culture in due course.

We are kindly inviting you to sign the Yaoundé Declaration. Together, we hope to create momentum and point the way to the sustainable preservation of and access to analogue and digital photo and film archives in Cameroon and, by extension, to other African countries.

Please, if you agree, advertise for the Yaoundé Declaration and distribute this call through your network.

Yaoundé Declaration online: http://african-photography-initiatives.org/index.php/research/yaounde-declaration

See more on the history of African photography here: http://africaphotography.org/

For subscribing please send an email to yaounde.declaration@gmail.com with the subject "Yaoundé Declaration". Please indicate your name and institution.

Thanks you for your support.

Jürg Schneider & Rosario Mazuela 

The Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University has announced its Spring 2017 seminar series: Medical Histories in Photography and Film. Each takes place in the Clephan Building on Tuesdays from 4-6pm. They are are open to all.  

• January 10, 2017 (room CL 2.35). Dr Katherine Rawling (Associate Fellow, CHM, University of Warwick). Authority, Agency and Ambiguity: Doctor-Photographers and the 19th Century Medical Photo
  
  The figure of the doctor-photographer is a crucial actor in the production of many medical or psychiatric patient photographs. Frequently with one foot in each of the camps of science and art, the doctor-photographer responded to the concerns of both spheres of discourse in her or his practices. In this paper I wish to investigate a selection of photographers who were also psychiatric doctors, in an attempt to unpick their dual roles and consider how they negotiated or approached this highly ambiguous and complicated task of photographing their patients. How did practitioners reconcile these roles, or did they feel they needed to? What happens to a photograph when it is taken by a doctor? Is the act of photographing approached in a different way? What is the effect on the subject/sitter/patient? Do doctors produce different photographs compared to non-medical photographers? Are their photographs then viewed differently?
  As a representation of the doctor-patient encounter, psychiatric patient photographs offer an opportunity to consider issues of control, authority, consent, complicity, resistance, intimacy, agency, the production and communication of knowledge, and professionalization and identity formation. Each photograph produced by a doctor is a visualisation of the relationship between a patient and their practitioner but, also, that between a subject or sitter and their photographer. The images are therefore ambiguous and fluid, with multiple meanings and uses.
  
  
• February 7, 2017 (room CL 2.30). Dr Lukas Engelmann (Research Associate, CRASSH, University of Cambridge). Picturing the Unusual. Medical Photography as ‘Experimental System
  
  
• March 4, 2017 (room CL 2.29).  Dr Anna Toropova (Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, University of Nottingham). Cinema and Medicine in Revolutionary Russia

 In case of queries contact Dr Beatriz Pichel beatriz.pichel@dmu.ac.uk

In 1839, the world woke up to the amazing new invention of photography. This revolutionary medium created a gold rush of eager practitioners. Victorian Perthshire, in common with most areas of Britain, produced its own adepts of what was called the ‘Black Art’. Today, the majority of Perthshire’s early photographers have been forgotten; much of their work has been lost or destroyed by unfortunate events, with fire an occupational hazard in photographic studios. Fortunately, examples survive in archives and private collections.

The aim of The Early Photographers of Perthshire is to shine a light on the Big County’s part in Scottish photographic history. It is also a celebration and archive of the contributions, large and small, made by Perthshire’s early photographers. Be they, David Octavius Hill, ‘one of the nest calotypists in photographic history’; Jessie Mann and Lady Kinnaird, ‘rivals for the accolade of Scotland’s first female photographer’; or James Moyes, ‘who seems to have combined his commercial photography business with his job as a gravedigger.’

The Early Photographers of Perthshire has been written by two Perth locals: professional photographer Roben Antoniewicz and historian Dr Paul S. Philippou. This is the pair’s second collaboration. The first resulted in the publication in 2012 of the very well-received, Perth: Street by Street.

Roben Antoniewicz’s links to Perthshire photography began in the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1850s, his great, great, great grandfather David Wood of Wood & Son, printers and booksellers, sold photographic papers in his shop at 52 High Street. Later, his great grandfather, also called David Wood, began commissioning local photographers for the firm’s Woodall Series of ‘Perthshire view’ postcards. Roben’s personal photography was celebrated in 2003 when he won the annual ‘Schweppes Photographic Portrait Prize’ run by the National Portrait Gallery (London). The winning picture, a portrait of his granddaughter Mairead, was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery. Roben is fascinated by photography and over a period of many years he has enjoyed discovering photographs made by Perthshire photographers, many of which appear in this book.

Dr Paul S. Philippou is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History, University of Dundee. In 2015, he was awarded a PhD by the university for his thesis, ‘There is only one P in Perth – And, it stands for Pullars!: the Labour, Trade-Union, and Co-operative Movements in Perth, c1867 to c1922’. Post-doctorate work by Paul includes ‘Mutually Hostile Parties?: the co- operative movement in Perth and its relationship with the labour movement, 1871-1918’, Scottish Labour History (2016). Paul has written other books: Spanish Thermopylae: Cypriot Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39; Perth: Street by Street (with Roben Antoniewicz); Battleground Perthshire: Two Thousand Years of Battles, Encounters and Skirmishes; and Born in Perthshire (the latter two with Rob Hands).

£15, Tippermuir Books, ISBN: 9780995462328. 

Order the book here: http://tippermuirbooks.co.uk/?product=the-early-photographers-of-perthshire

A lecture based on the book takes place on 15 December at Perth's A K Bell Library. See more here: http://www.culturepk.org.uk/whats-on/the-early-photographers-of-perthshire-1839-1918-lecture/

A series of lots relating to the Irish Coghill family are being sold by Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers in its sale of Rare Books, Early Photographs, Manuscripts, Maps and Paintings, on 13 December 2016. Amongst the main photography lots are: 

• Lot 753. Highly Important Album Some of the Earliest Irish Photographs Dated 1855 Coghill (Sir Joscelyn) First Secretary of the Dublin Photographic Society: A very important Album of original 'Photographs, 1855', dated on cover 1855, the album containing circa 100 numbered pages, oblong quarto, with about 140 images in various sizes, many neatly captioned, some about 6 x 8 ins, others smaller, mostly portraits but also including some important landscape photos.
• Lot 754. Early Irish Photographic Prize Collection Coghill (Sir Joscelyn) Amateur Photographic Association Prize 1867 [an Album submitted for, and awarded the prize]. 
• Lot 751. The John Shaw Smith Photographic Albums Photographs: Four Albums of almost 300 Photographs after the originals now in the National Photographic Archive, by John Shaw Smith, taken c. 1850 - 52 in Ireland, Egypt, & The Middle East, all carefully mounted in black oblong folio albums, & each neatly captioned underneath. 

See more here

As documentary evidence, the photographs attest to the lives of the disenfranchised. They mark the lives of individual people as that most valuable thing, a human life. In this sense they are important. But I find this photographic documentation of Britain's imperial history of empire and expansion quite repugnant, both morally and spiritually. Where the "Sir Johns" and "Sir Roberts" are named, but the pygmies are displayed anonymously all dressed up in Western attire: "Pygmies of Central Africa."

As Caroline Molloy observes, while standing as testament to cultural diversity in the late 19th/early 20th century, "the historical colonial connotations of the photographic exhibition strategies used in the Expansion and Empire gallery cannot be ignored." The taxonomic ordering of individual sitters identified by name, status, biography, by group portraits of racial type and status. Basically a white patriarchy in which a standard of male supremacism is enforced through a variety of cultural, political, and interpersonal strategies. Super/racism.

"Colonialism is the establishment of a colony in one territory by a political power from another territory, and the subsequent maintenance, expansion, and exploitation of that colony. The term is also used to describe a set of unequal relationships between the colonial powerand the colony and often between the colonists and the indigenous peoples." (Wikipedia)

Unequal relationships; exploitation; and the probing gaze of the camera to document it all.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

SEE THE FULL POSTING AT http://wp.me/pn2J2-8Ad

Exhibition dates: 18th May - 11th December 2016

#colonisation #colonialism #Britishphotography #photography #documentaryphotography #BritishEmpire #partriarchy #BlackChronicles #blacklives #racism #subjugation #exoticism #minorities #identity #portraits #portraiture

London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company Sir Henry Morton Stanley; Kalulu (Ndugu M’hali) 1872 Albumen carte-de-visite 3 1/2 in. x 2 1/2 in. (90 mm x 62 mm) © National Portrait Gallery, London Purchased, 1995

London Stereoscopic Company A member of the African Choir 1891 Courtesy of © Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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At long last my book on Lyddell Sawyer is here! Printed and Published! It has over eighty illustrations, 115 pages and 18000 words. Beautifully digitally printed with a soft cover. The price which will barely cover the costs is £15.00 plus the usual postage and packing.If anyone would like a copy please let me know.

Reporting to the Associate Librarian of Houghton Library for Technical Services, the Horblit Project Cataloger performs original and complex copy cataloging of the photograph portion of the Horblit Collection of Early Photography and coordinates the digitization of the collection.  Note: This is a 2 year term position. An end date will be determined based on start date.

The Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography came to Houghton Library in 1995 as the gift of Mrs. Harrison D. Horblit and is one of the premier collections of early photographs. Harrison Horblit (1912-1988, Harvard College Class of 1933) began collecting early photography as a result of his interest in the history of science and technology.  The photography collection, over 7000 items, begins with some of the earliest photographic negatives and prints, daguerreotypes, and early works describing the invention of photography. It includes examples of all the photographic processes used in the nineteenth century and the images represent all the major photographers of that era.

See more about the collection here: http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/printing/early_photography.cfm

See more and apply here: https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWEbHost/jobdetails.aspx?partnerID=25240&siteID=5341&AReq=41166BR

I am looking for the new owner of an autochrome that was auctioned by Dominic Winter in 2009. The auction website showed this jpg for lot number 863 captioned "Native North American, 1920, showing a seated man with a ?European child wearing a feather head dress". As I would like to reproduce this autochrome in my forthcoming book (and former PhD thesis) on Autochrome photography in Britain, I am looking for the owner of this photograph to ask for his or her permission.

Please contact me if you are the current owner or if you know its current whereabouts.

Many thanks

Caroline

● Editor's note. BPH will carry full details of Caroline's book when they become available. (MP)

Autochrome, that was sold under lot number

This symposium will contextualise the exhibition within the broader theme of street photography and the long-term development of photography in Sheffield. It also aims to emphasise the importance of UK-wide photography networks to continued development and research in the field. The symposium will offer the first chance to find out about the Photographic Collections Network. This is a new organisation, supported by Arts Council England, for anyone involved with photography archives and collections. It launches in October 2016 and Paul Herrmann, one of the co-founders, will give more information about its aims and plans.

Speakers will include Susanna Brown (Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum), Simon Roberts (UK-based contemporary photographer), Paul Herrmann (Director, RedEye: The Photography Network and Chairman of the Photographic Collections Network), Paul Hill (UK-based photographer and Professor of Photography) and Ken Phillip (Sheffield-based photographer and former Lecturer of Photography, Sheffield Hallam University).

The symposium will be followed by a special evening viewing of the Street View exhibition 5.45pm-7.45pm with curator Catherine Troiano.

Read more and book here.

Image: Langdon Clay, 'Kings Inn' from the series ‘Cars’, New York, 1977. Image © Langdon Clay

The Art Newspaper carries a fascinating Q&A with James Hyman where he talks about the 3000 strong Claire and James Hyman Collection of photography collectionand what might happen to it in the future, He makes a strident, but reasonable, call for a senior curator of British photography at Tate Britain to compliment Simon Baker, curator of international photography, at Tate Modern. He suggests that within the Tate staff there have shown a lack of interest in receiving the collection, although Nicholas Serota has been 'personally engaged'. 

Read the full interview here: http://theartnewspaper.com/reports/photography-review/why-a-collection-of-british-photography-is-probably-going-abroad/

See more of the Hyman Collection at its website here: http://www.britishphotography.org/artists

If you have excellent organisational skills and you're looking for an exciting and unique place to work this role could be for you. Using your skills in administration and ability to work in a team you will provide support to the Collections and Exhibitions department at the National Media Museum.

The team consists of curators, archivists and exhibition and events co-ordinators and it will be your job to facilitate the work they do and provide assistance to the head of the department.

You will need to have excellent organisational skills and work well with a range of both external and internal colleagues as well as providing a frontline service to people contacting the department.

There will be opportunities to get involved in projects and the right person for the job will be able to co-ordinate this process from keeping records of meetings to maintaining budget information.

This a great opportunity to become part of a Collections and Exhibitions department at a national museum working with an iconic collection.

For Museum collections information click here

For further details see the Vacancy Information Pack.

To view job details or apply click here.

Job title:  Collections and Exhibitions Assistant
Job reference:  SMG00084
Application closing date: 24^th November 2016
Location: National Media Museum - Bradford
Salary: £16,000 per annum

Details of the first successful camera for continuous recording have recently been published.  When Sir Francis Ronalds became Director of the Kew Observatory in 1842, he decided to ease the load on observers by creating a camera that would capture the minute-by-minute variations of a scientific instrument through the day and night.  By early 1846, different cameras were recording atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, atmospheric electricity and geomagnetic forces.

Either Calotype or Daguerreotype could be used in the machines and Ronalds worked with many photographic pioneers in London in perfecting the processes for his unusual application; these included Collen, Malone, Henneman, Beard, Egerton, Nicklin and Herschel.  Waxed paper was later the medium of choice, which was adapted to the cameras by William Crookes, and, still later, gelatinised paper.

The instruments were in use at the new Met Office from the early 1860s in developing the science of weather forecasting and in total around 80 of them were deployed around the world into the 20th century.  Original examples survive at the Science Museum in South Kensington and at the Oxford Museum of the History of Science.  Photographs from as early as 1845 are retained in various archives, including the Royal Observatory Greenwich collection at Cambridge University Library; the Oxford Museum; the National Meteorological Library and Archive at Exeter; and the Institution of Engineering and Technology.  Malone’s photographic portrait of Ronalds is at the Royal Society.

Further details of these materials are provided in:

Sir Francis Ronalds: Father of the Electric Telegraph
Beverley F Ronalds
Imperial College Press
ISBN: 978-1-78326-917-4 (hardback)
£40
See: http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/p1072> which describes the life and many inventions of this little known scientist and engineer.

A collection of early photographic technology and images is being transferred from the British Film Institute to the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock in Wiltshire, thanks to a £36,100 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and support from Art Council England’s Preservation of Industrial and Scientific Materials (PRISM) fund.

The collection comprises hundreds of cameras, optical devices and toys from the eighteenth century to the late 1980s as well as nearly 3,500 photographic images ranging from the earliest processes through to the first part of the twentieth century. It was assembled by James Fenton, a founder member of the RPS Historical Group who exhibited it as the Fenton Museum of Photography in the Isle of Man for many years  After it closed it was purchased by the Museum of the Moving Image, which closed in 1999. Since then, the collection has remained in storage, but with the support of the British Film Institute, Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, it will now be brought back into the light at the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock.

The museum, situated in the grounds of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, celebrates the achievement of William Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot captured the world’s first photographic negative at the abbey in 1835 and invented the calotype process, paving the way for photographic processes on film still used today.

As Britain’s birthplace of photography, Lacock is the perfect place for James Fenton’s collection, and the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and PRISM means that this unique collection can be properly cared for. Volunteers at the museum will work with skilled conservators to catalogue and digitalise the 4,500 objects in the collection in front of the eyes of the visitors, bringing the history of photography to life in a completely new way.

Roger Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum, said, ‘We are hugely grateful to all of our supporters; the British Film Institute, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and Arts Council England. With their support, we are better able to tell the history of photography, to preserve a crucial part of our history, and to care for this incredible collection in the way it deserves.’

Nerys Watts, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund South West, said, ‘HLF is so pleased to support this project to bring together and digitise the wonderful Fenton collection of photographic material. Thanks to National Lottery players, this internationally significant collection, which shows the evolution of photography, will now be conserved and exhibited, with opportunities for a wide range of people to learn new skills.’

The Fenton collection will move to the Fox Talbot Museum before the end of the year, and 2017 will bring an exciting programme of displays, conservation and photographic demonstrations, ensuring that this extraordinary collection is preserved and presented for ever, for everyone.

• The Fox Talbot Museum recently advertised for a Project Officer to work on the collection. 

A new photograph by William Henry Fox Talbot has been discovered in an album brought to Sotheby's for valuation. The early photogenic drawing shows a negative of a fern. Also in the album is a faded photograph showing a print which is signed by Talbot and dated 1839. 

The album also contains watercolours and drawings by members of Talbot's wife's family and their circle, and will be offered in an auction on Tuesday 15 November in Sotheby's, London, sale of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History. 

The photograph recently came to light when the album was brought along for a valuation at Sotheby's and was subsequently inspected by Professor Larry Schaaf, director of the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, who confirmed its authenticity.

The album will be available to view at Sotheby's New Bond Street from Wednesday 9 until Friday 11 and from Sunday 13 to Monday 14 November. Details here

For further information please contact Richard Fattorini richard.fattorini@sothebys.com  020 7293 5301

A call for papers for a one-day symposium at Quad, Derby, to be held on Saturday, 8 April 2017 has been made. The symposium is being presented to coincide with the exhibition People, Places, and Faces: the W. W. Winter’s Archive, curated by Greg Hobson, which will be shown at Derby Museum during Format 2017. The symposium coincides with the 150th anniversary of Winter’s Studio which has been in operation at 45 Midland Road, Derby, in a purpose-built photographic studio since 1867.

The symposium will bring together a range of people working on studio archive projects including professional archivists, curators, artists, and volunteers.  The event will explore a range of studio archive projects in and beyond the UK and seek to develop a network to share skills, knowledge, and experience among those working in this field.  We are particularly interested in papers which describe and discuss the planning, funding, organisation and outcomes of these archive projects.

Papers

The call is for 20-minute papers for which an abstract of no more than 350 words should be submitted to Pete James: petej158@gmail.com. by 31 December 2016. All proposals will be peer-reviewed by a steering group and those accepted will be notified by 20 January 2017.

Proposals should include the following:

• Title of paper or presentation
• Abstract (max 350 words)
• Your name
• Institutional Status (if applicable)
• Contact address and email

For further details on Winters’ Archive Project see: http://www.wwwinter.co.uk/historyandheritage.html

The symposium is titled: UNDER THE DARK CLOTH: working with historic photography studio archives

Saturday 8th April 2017, from 11.00am-5pm

at Quad, Derby.

The event is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, PARC, The Royal Photographic Society, The Photography Collections Network, Quad, Format Festival, Derby Museum, W. W. Winter and The Art Fund.