Blogs

Hello, I am writing an article on what I am calling the 'Abused Tintype' - short bit of explanatory blurb below:

"The Abused Tintype: The Tintype was a form of early photography that was extremely popular in the mid nineteenth century. It was cheap to produce and versatile enough to be sent in the post as the image was printed onto Japanned metal. However, partly due to its versatility it also became the first form of photography that could survive having its surface scratched into, bearing the physical marks of peoples emotional pain in the19th century."

I am looking for Tintypes from any region that may have had hands or faces scratched out or anything else that might bear the physical impression of violent emotion. 

Any that are published I will of course credit their owners.

Feel free to post below or get in touch at gavinmaitland80@hotmail.com

Many thanks.

Gavin Maitland.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Professor of Photographic History, Director of Photographic History Research Centre, at De Montfort University, Leicester, has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). The honour is given in recognition of outstanding research and it is the first time that a photographic historian has been recognised by the Academy in this way.

Edwards is retiring from DMU at the end of the year and her post has been advertised and applications remain open until 18 September.  

The IS&T Archiving Conference brings together an international community of imaging experts and technicians as well as curators, managers, and researchers from libraries, archives, museums, records management repositories, information technology institutions, and commercial enterprises to explore and discuss the field of digitization of cultural heritage and archiving. The conference presents the latest research results on digitization and curation, provides a forum to explore new strategies and policies, and reports on successful projects that can serve as benchmarks in the field. Archiving 2016 is a blend of short courses, invited focal papers, keynote talks, and peer-reviewed oral and interactive display presentations, offering attendees a unique opportunity for gaining and exchanging knowledge and building networks among professionals.

You can see more here or download the attachment here: Archiving2016_Call_for_Papers.pdf. 

Visually rich with fine reproductions and high-level production, The Photograph and Australia tells the many stories of photography in Australia over the last 175 years. It examines the sense of wonder which the photograph can still induce for its ability to capture both things of the world and those of the imagination, and how Australia itself has been shaped by photography. Despite the complex history of photography in Australia, there have been few books published which present a comprehensive national view.

The Photograph and Australia will not only be an important addition to the scholarship on Australian photography but a valued addition to the bookshelves of photography experts and lovers of photography alike.

JUDY ANNEAR is senior curator, photographs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. GEOFFREY BATCHEN is professor of art history at Victorial University. MICHAEL AIRD works as a curator, researcher, and writer in the area of Aboriginal arts and cultural heritage. KATHLEEN DAVIDSON is an independent photo scholar.MARTYN JOLLY is head of photography and media arts at the ANU School of Art. JANE LYDON is an Australian Research Council Fellow athe the Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History at the University of Western Australia. DANIEL PALMER is associate dean of graduate research and senior lecturer in the art history and theory program at MADA, Monash Art Design and Architecture.

The Photograph and Australia
JUDY ANNEAR, WITH GEOFFREY BATCHEN, MICHAEL AIRD, KATHERINE DAVIDSON, JANE LYDON, AND DANIEL PALMER
paperback not available
£40 / $75.00 hardcover
August 2015

http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/ANNPHO.html 

http://www.thamesandhudson.com/The_Photograph_and_Australia/9781741741162

I would be really interested to have your critical responses.

York, and more recently Bradford-based, Impressions Gallery, along with London's The Photographers' Gallery, are the United Kingdom's oldest extant photography galleries. They have both survived the years and continue to produce exciting, ground-breaking and simply, interesting, exhibitions of photography, albeit with significant Arts Council England funding. 

To coincide with the transfer of its archives, which date back to its founding in 1972, to the National Media Museum, Impressions Gallery has produced an 80-page book summarising its history and outlining its current activities and ethos. Compiled by Director Anne McNeil and Head of Programme Pippa Oldfield, the book is part history and part hagiography. It may also be a justification for the Gallery's existence - despite the fact that Impressions Gallery hardly needs a book to justify itself. In the current declining public funding climate it probably does no harm to show national and local politicians and funding bodies such as ACE what it has achieved over its forty-plus years. The pages are interspersed with inserted sections showing where its exhibitions have toured to, the photographers it has exhibited, and its reach in its new home in the city of Bradford. 

This book is not the history of Impressions Gallery that some would want, but it is far more than simply a justification for why the Gallery exists. The book will prove to be a starting point for historians looking at Britain's still modest photography scene and it does much to show why Impressions Gallery has justified its funding over the years. 

As for the Impressions Gallery archives these are now, in theory, accessible to researchers and the public through Insight at the National Media Museum. It is from those that a fuller history of Impressions Gallery and the UK's post-1970s gallery scene will need to be based upon.

Visit Impressions Gallery here: http://www.impressions-gallery.com/

The History and Archives department of the German Photographic Association (DGPh) is awarding a grant concerning the history of the German-language photobook. This grant, which, initially, is going to be advertised over a ten-year period at two-yearly intervals, is intended specifically to promote historical research into all aspects of photojournalism as a part of general photography history. The grant owes its existence to the initiative and legacy of the internationally renowned designer, curator, collector and photography promoter Manfred Heiting (DGPh).

Treatment of the following, related topical fields is conceivable, for instance:

• History of photomechanical printing methods as well as of the associated industries (printers/graphic arts institutions/block factories, paper makers, press builders) in the late 19th and 20th century
• History of photographic publishers
• The photographer and the book
• On the relationship of photographers and publishers as image suppliers and image exploiters

To read more and to apply, see: http://www.dgph.de/preise/dgph-stipendium-zur-geschichte-des-deutschsprachigen-photobuchs

Christina Riggs, FSA, will discuss the use of photography in the excavation of the legendary Egyptian tomb, which Howard Carter discovered in 1922. How did photography shape the way the excavation was conducted, the presentation of the find in the press, and the archaeologists’ own ideas about what they had found? This lecture will present work-in-progress on Dr Riggs’ current project, ‘Photographing Tutankhamun’, a study of the tomb’s 3,000-strong photographic archive.  The project has been supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, and a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

Image: Howard Carter peers into the gilded shrines surrounding the burial of king Tutankhamun. Photograph by Harry Burton. Copyright the Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.

See more and book (tickets are free) at: https://www.sal.org.uk/events/2016/02/the-camera-and-the-king-photographing-the-excavation-of-tutankhamuns-tomb/

The status of photographs in the history of museum collections is a complex one. From its very beginnings the double capacity of photography - as a tool for making a visual record on the one hand and an aesthetic form in its own right on the other - has created tensions about its place in the hierarchy of museum objects. While major collections of 'art' photography have grown in status and visibility, photographs not designated 'art' are often invisible in museums. Yet almost every museum has photographs as part of its ecosystem, gathered as information, corroboration or documentation, shaping the understanding of other classes of objects, and many of these collections remain uncatalogued and their significance unrecognised. 

This volume presents a series of case studies on the historical collecting and usage of photographs in museums. Using critically informed empirical investigation, it explores substantive and historiographical questions such as what is the historical patterning in the way photographs have been produced, collected and retained by museums? How do categories of the aesthetic and evidential shape the history of collecting photographs? What has been the work of photographs in museums? What does an understanding of photograph collections add to our understanding of collections history more broadly? What are the methodological demands of research on photograph collections?

The case studies cover a wide range of museums and collection types, from art galleries to maritime museums, national collections to local history museums, and international perspectives including Cuba, France, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Together they offer a fascinating insight into both the history of collections and collecting, and into the practices and poetics of archives across a range of disciplines, including the history of science, museum studies, archaeology and anthropology.

Editor(s): Elizabeth Edwards, Christopher Morton

See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/photographs-museums-collections-9781472533661/

Bromley House Library, Nottingham, is opening The Pauline Heathcote Archive at Bromley House Library on 29 July at 2.30pm. Bromley House was the home of the first commercial photographic studio in Nottingham and was in use from 1841 until 1955. Eric Butler has been working with Bernard Heathcote and Bromley House to set up a research centre for the history of photography based on Pauline Heathcote’s extensive and thorough research notes. There is also a small photographic museum celebrating the important photographic heritage of Bromley House.

The main archive and other exhibits are housed on the third floor. The reception will be held on the first floor where some examples from Pauline’s Archive together with some exhibits will be displayed. There is, unfortunately, no lift access.

If you are interesting in attending the opening RSVP by 22 July 2015 to Bromley House Library, Bromley House, Angel Row, Nottingham, NG1 6HL. t: 0115 9473134 w: http://www.bromleyhouse.org/

Over the past five years as Trinity Mirror's archivist I have begun to bring together all its national and regional photographic archives into a central archive based at Watford.

What has become apparent that a number of the regional archives are incomplete and that no one person knows what happen to the them. There are Chinese whispers of archive's being discarded or donated to local councils and heritage organisations but no hard evidence to what exactly happen.

I need help in tracking down and mapping what happen to the missing archives. If you have any knowledge of either hard copy prints, glass plates, 35mm or 6x6 negatives pre 1966 archives for the following titles it would be appreciated.

Birmingham Post & Mail , Coventry Telegraph, Daily Herald, Manchester Daily Mirror, Hinckley Times, Liverpool Post & Echo, Huddersfield Examiner, Manchester Evening News, Newcastle Chronicle & Journal, Reading Post, Western Mail and South Wales Echo

If you have any information you can contact me via the blog or by email at Johnm@mirrorpix.com.

Bry-sur-Marne, France, the birthplace of Louis Daguerre, which has done much to reclaim his legacy in recent  years, will be the venue for The Daguerreotype Symposium organised Daguerreobase in collaboration with the European Daguerreotype Association (EDA). It will take the them of Outside the Studio. Landscape and Cityscape Daguerreotypes. It will take place from 8-9 October 2015. 

Read more here.

De Montfort University is pleased to announce the availability of one Wilson Fellowship for its MA in Photographic History. The Fellowship offers £5,000 toward the defrayal of tuition and other costs related to the MA, and is open to all students UK, EU and International. To apply for the Wilson Fellowship, please submit your cv and a proposal outlining your MA thesis topic, in English, to the Admissions Committee by 3 August. This proposal should be no longer than 4,000 words. For applications to the MA, please contact Student Recruitment at the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at adhadmissions@dmu.ac.uk or apply online through our website. For questions about the MA programme or the Wilson Fellowship please contact Programme Leader, Dr Kelley Wilder at kwilder@dmu.ac.uk.

The Wilson Fellowship will be awarded to applicants who will contribute significantly to the field of photographic history.

The MA in Photographic History is the first course of its kind in the UK, taking as it does the social and material history of photography at its centre. It lays the foundations for understanding the scope of photographic history and provides the tools to carry out the independent research in this larger context, working in particular from primary source material. You will work with public and private collections throughout Britain, handling photographic material, learning analogue photographic processes, writing history from objects in collections, comparing historical photographic movements, and debating the canon of photographic history. You also learn about digital preservation and access issues through practical design projects involving website and database design. Research Methods are a core component, providing students with essential handling, writing, digitising and presentation skills needed for MA and Research level work, as well as jobs in the field. For further details on the course and application process, please see a course description at our web pages.

Regular BPH readers will be aware of the general story of the Quillan Leaf. Some of you may have attended the recent Rethinking Early Photography conference at the University of Lincoln where Professor Larry Schaaf, gave a public lecture which, for the first time, told the story of the leaf. It presented the outcome of further research which identified the likely author of the leaf image, adding a new name to British photography's early canon. 

BPH is pleased to provide exclusive advance access to a video of Schaaf's lecture at the link here http://youtu.be/iP3sloApu50: or below and titled The Damned Leaf: Musings on History, Hysteria and Historiography.

BPH offers its thanks to Professor Schaaf, Dr Owen Clayton, the conference organiser, and Adam O'Meara who undertook the video production. 

'Professor Schaaf's talk will be made public on the conference website on Monday, with other conference keynote talks to follow - check back for a link.

The Royal Collection Trust, Windsor Castle, is offering a paid curatorial internship in the photographs department. The aim is to encourage the successful applicant to gain new skills and the opportunity to develop knowledge of one of the world's largest art collections. 

About the role

From 1840s prints to present day film, the collection of photographic items is internationally renowned. You will gain first-hand experience in a wide range of curatorial activities, including researching the photographs and assisting with their display and presentation through a range of media. You'll also help with the administrations of loans and exhibitions, and have the opportunity to develop an insight into a specific area of curatorial responsibility through individual project work.

With the chance to benefit from the expertise of Curators within our Photograph Collection team, you'll be able to develop your skills and enjoy the rewards of working in an exciting and high-profile organisation.  

About you

With a keen interest in the history of photography, art and the Royal Collection, you have the ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team. You have an organised approach and excellent written and verbal communication skills, and you know how to use initiative and take responsibility. Above all, you're eager to immerse yourself in the unique learning opportunities that the collection presents.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to use your passion for history of art and enthusiastic approach to develop new skills and take the next step in your career.

How to apply

 For further information and to apply online, please visit http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/about/working-for-royal-collection-trust

Windsor Castle

£15,307.50 per annum (pro rata)

The closing date for applications is 21 July 2015.

Royal Collection Trust is committed to equality of opportunity.

Saturday June 27th saw the opening of a retrospective exhibition in the Gregynog Gallery, National Library of Wales featuring photographs and material from the archive of Philip Jones Griffiths. Best known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and its aftermath he also served as President of Magnum from 1980 to 1985. His archive is now lodged at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. On display are in excess of 100 photographs including unseen prints from his visits to Vietnam which culminated in the publication of Vietnam Inc in 1971.

The exhibition contains biographical information, archive documents, cameras, personal effects and material from his personal library. In many instances photographs are displayed alongside the relevant contact sheet.There is also a bunker containing a digital 'slide show' of further images from Vietnam Inc as well as a darkroom featuring a short audio commentary on six of his best known images from Vietnam.  Much of Griffiths' work in Vietnam was shot on colour slide film and there is an opportunity to see some of his best known images in both colour and black and white.

His work subsequent to Vietnam is explored through a selection of sixty colour prints exploring the depth and breadth of his photography.

The exhibition is a joint exhibition between the National Library of Wales and the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation for the Study of War. It runs until December 12th 2015.

Poster%20PJG.pdf

Biblioteca Nacional de España has organised an exhibition curated by Helena Pérez Gallardo, Delfín Rodríguez Ruiz titled Looking at Architecture. Monumental Photography in the XIX Century. It runs from 3 July-4 October 2015 in Madrid at the Biblioteca Nacional de España.  

Since the birth of the daguerreotype, buildings and monuments have been one of the main objects photographed. This exhibition intends to reveal the different links that connected photography, architecture and engineering in the nineteenth century through a broad investigation into the holdings of the National Library of Spain and accompanied by works of great importance belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Prado National Museum, among other institutions.

The exhibition, which is divided into six sessions that include over two hundred works, will use treatises, engravings and albums to explain what the representation of architecture was like up to that moment and why there emerged a need to reproduce architecture in Europe, to then respond to the reasons that motivated the choice of the works and monuments to be photographed, concluding with what was the main destination for all of these photographs. In short, Looking at Architecture intends to show the how, why, when, who, what for and for what reason photography of architecture was produced, and particularly what where the characteristics of its practice in Spain.

It is accompanied by a book of the same title. 

Biblioteca Nacional de España
Paseo de Recoletos, 20-22
28071 Madrid

Mar-Sab / Tue-Sat: 10.00 – 20.00 h
Dom, Fest / Sun, Hol: 10.00 – 14.00 h

Entrada / Admission: Gratuita / Free

Metro: Metro: Serrano / Colón

More info: www.bne.es

Edinburgh International Book Festival is presenting Alison Morrison-Low and Sara Stevenson, curators of the National Museums of Scotland major exhibition (and associated publication) Photography: A Victorian Sensiation at a special event on 18 August. In an age where we are all happy snappers, we forget the photographic revolution that took place in 19th century Britain. Join the National Museum of Scotland’s curator A D Morrison-Low (pictured, right) and Sara Stevenson, formerly chief curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, to discover how the Victorian craze for the photograph transformed the way we capture images today and mirrors our own modern-day fascination for recording the world around us. Chaired by Ruth Wishart. Book here. 

In addition, the Museum is also hosting a series of events around the exhibition including a history of photography short course, a lecture on stereoscopy by Denis Pellerin and a symposium on Scottish photography. See all the events here.

Details of the symposiuum programme which includes presentations from John Falconer, Roger Taylor, Anne Lyden, Helen James, Mary Panzer, Sara Stevenson and Ray McKenzie can be seen here.

A treasure trove of materials relating to John Logie Baird’s first-ever transmission of trans-Atlantic television pictures is at risk of being exported unless a UK buyer can be found to match the £78,750 asking price. In order to provide a last chance to keep the archive in the UK, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on the items in the hope a UK buyer can be found in the time permitted. BPH understands that a UK museum is looking in to the possibility of finding the funds to acquire the material. 

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said:

Britain led the world in the development of television technology in the 1920’s, all due to the pioneering work of John Logie Baird and his colleagues. It belongs in Britain where it would be of huge importance for the study of the history of television, and I hope a UK buyer will come forward to save it for the nation.

Between November 1926 and April 1927 – John Logie Baird and his assistant, Benjamin Clapp developed the idea of rigging up a receiving station and television receiver in America and transmitting pictures over telephone lines from Baird’s laboratories in London, to Clapp’s house in Surrey and from there (where there was a powerful transmitter station), by wireless to the East Coast of the United States of America.

The archive is comprised of: Benjamin Clapp’s radio log books for the USA receiving station and his amateur radio station (GK2Z) used in the transmission, related paper ephemera, and a gramophone “Phonovision” disc (SWT515-4), containing an early video recording made on 20th September 1927. It is the only known Phonovision disc which depicts images of ‘Stookie Bill’, one of Baird’s famous ventriloquist dummies which is in the collection of the National Media Museum. It is the earliest Phonovision disc in existence, and thus the world’s earliest surviving video recording.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey took the decision to defer granting an export licence for the items following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), administered by Arts Council England. The RCEWA made their recommendation on the grounds that the items are closely connected with our history and national life and that they are of outstanding significance for the study of the history of national and international television and for our wider understanding of twentieth century communications.

RCEWA Member Christopher Rowell said:

The Columbia disc and the notes connected with this world first of a transantlantic video recording represents British ingenuity and invention at the highest level. The notes contain the first ever use of the acronym ‘TV’ for television. The excitement of the achievement rests in these objects, which we hope will remain in this country as a permanent testament to Logie Baird and his team. Their departure abroad would also be a serious loss to scholarship.

The decision on the export licence application for the phonovision disc and ephemera will be deferred for a period ending on 28 September 2015 inclusive. This period may be extended until 28 December 2015 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase the items is made at the recommended price of £78,750.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, is currently seeking a freelance consultant lecturer for the MA in Photography (Historical and Contemporary). The Programme Director is Dr Juliet Hacking. The consultant lecturer will take on the role of Programme Unit Leader and lead tutor for ‘Contemporary Photography, 1968 until now’, a 30 credit unit, for the academic year 2015-16. The teaching will take place one day per week in Semesters One and Two (with occasion commitments on other days). The successful candidate will be paid according to a day rate, with a contract specifying the total number of days to be worked. Applicants must have a PhD in a relevant field and the ability to work in the UK.

For further information/to apply for the role, please send a CV and covering letter by midday on 10th July 2015 to vacancies@sothebysinstitute.com

While at Schwartzenberg, Austria earlier this week for the annual Schubertiade, I was struck by the exhibition of ‘Art Photography’ by Peter Mathis, held in a room adjacent to the concert hall.  Mathis is an Austrian born in 1961.  His work is striking and very beautiful, seeming to be lithographs or paintings but photograph they are.  To quote from his website www.mathis-photographs.com ‘Since 2009 he has become more immersed in landscape photography and producing large format works. Regardless of the type of picture, the authenticity of his work plays a prominent role for Peter Mathis. His essential design elements are light and structure. Light reflected by the object should be optimized so that it serves the overall structure and composition of the image. A picture therefore is not a simple reproduction of a predetermined motif, but instead is developed with the camera while on site. He refuses any simulation of artificial light moods or movements on the computer that are not reproducible in a physical sense. He is only interested in “true” nature, that which we can actually experience, instead of computer generated artifices.  Many of his works aim to recognize and capture the fleeting nature of the moment, such as the photo of the Alps, above.’