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Rochester, N.Y., October 6, 2015 —The George Eastman Museum has today announced its new name and launched a new website at eastman.org. Formerly George Eastman House, the institution encompasses one of the world’s foremost museums of photography and cinema and the historic Rochester estate of entrepreneur and philanthropist George Eastman, the pioneer of popular photography. The museum’s robust exhibition schedule features contemporary and historic photography, film screenings, and collaborative projects with cultural and educational institutions. As a research and teaching institution, the Eastman Museum has an active publishing program and makes critical contributions in the fields of film preservation and photographic conservation.

“The three-part mission of the George Eastman Museum remains leadership in the fields of photography and cinema; preservation and development of our collections, including the historic mansion and gardens; and service to our communities, in Rochester and beyond,” said Bruce Barnes, the Ron and Donna Fielding Director. “Our new name better conveys our institution’s core identity as a dynamic museum with world-class collections in the fields of photography and cinema.”

Each year, the George Eastman Museum presents at least ten new gallery exhibitions—including three exhibitions of contemporary artworks in its Project Gallery—and screens more than 300 films at its Dryden Theatre, including the Nitrate Picture Show, an annual festival of film preservation. The museum’s current main exhibition is an Alvin Langdon Coburn retrospective, with most objects drawn from its own collection. Major photography exhibitions next year will include Taryn Simon: Birds of the West Indies and Photography and America’s National Parks. The Eastman Museum also actively organizes traveling exhibitions, including Glorious Technicolor: From George Eastman House and Beyond, a film series that was presented earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival, Austrian Film Museum, and Museum of Modern Art.

Founded in 1947, the institution is the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives. Its holdings comprise more than 450,000 photographs, including the estates of Lewis Wickes Hine, Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and Nickolas Muray; 28,000 motion picture films, millions of film stills, tens of thousands of film posters, and extensive archival holdings, including the Technicolor archive; the world’s preeminent collection of photographic and cinematographic technology, recently named a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; one of the leading libraries of books related to photography and cinema; and extensive holdings of documents and other objects related to George Eastman.

“The George Eastman Museum is actively building our collections, with a particular emphasis on photographic and moving image works by contemporary artists from many cultures to complement our great strength in works from the past,” Dr. Barnes continued. “At the same time, we are committed to the preservation and interpretation of George Eastman’s estate, a National Historic Landmark, and are currently making a substantial investment in restoration projects for its original structures.”

The Eastman Museum is a longtime leader in photographic conservation and film preservation. From the late 1980s through 2009, its advanced study programs in photographic conservation, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, trained dozens of conservators, who transformed their field. In 2013, the Eastman Museum restored the long-lost film Too Much Johnson, directed by Orson Welles in 1938. Last year, the museum commenced operation of a film digitization laboratory donated by Eastman Kodak Company.

As a research institution, the George Eastman Museum has an active publishing program, including The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915–1935, released earlier this year, and two photography books—Photography and America’s National Parks and In the Garden—to be published next year in collaboration with Aperture Foundation. As a teaching institution, the Eastman Museum, in partnership with the University of Rochester, offers graduate degree programs in film preservation and in photographic preservation and collection management; graduates from these programs are now contributing to their fields at institutions around the world. The museum also offers renowned workshops on photographic processes, attracting participants from across the globe.

A member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, an accredited member of the American Alliance of Museums, and a member of the International Federation of Film Archives, the George Eastman Museum is supported with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the County of Monroe, and with private contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations.

A century of military photographic images goes on show at Shrewsbuy Museum & Art Gallery from Monday 19 October 2015 until 10 January 2016 in a new exhibition by the Defence School of Photography.As well as marking the centenary of photography by members of the Armed Forces, the exhibition also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the School’s move to RAF Cosford in Shropshire in 1965.

The exhibition will showcase the very best work of photographers from the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force with striking images from conflicts beginning with World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan, to peacetime training at the School and nearby locations. A timeline display highlights the many achievements of the School and its students over the last century, including winning two Academy Awards for films in World War II.

As well as an impressive selection of images, the exhibition will include a photographic pod which would have been carried underneath an aircraft during a reconnaissance mission and an original RAF helmet and Mae West vest discovered hidden in a house in Denmark after a bomber crew escaped from a crash.

A special Shropshire connection is a selection of light-meters from the company formed by prolific Oswestry-born inventor Edward Weston, who emigrated to the USA and eventually held 334 patents for his many creations.

Jon Jarvis, Head of the Defence School of Photography, said: “We have created a centenary exhibition at the School, which has been much enjoyed by those who have seen it. Now we can take a selection of photos and artefacts on tour for a wider audience to enjoy at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery. The balcony there gives us an ideal opportunity to display some of our students’ work and to celebrate a hundred years of photography by the Armed Forces.”

Tina Woodward, Shropshire Council’s Deputy Cabinet member for museums said: “This is a wonderful opportunity for Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery to host a top quality exhibition of images by the three services looking back over 100 years. I am very grateful to the staff at the Defence School of Photography for their generosity and hard work. I am sure the exhibition will be very popular.”

The exhibition opens at 10am on Monday 19 October 2015 and closes at 4.30pm on 10 January. It is open daily at first, and will be on closed Mondays from 2 November 2015.

Admission to all the galleries and exhibitions at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery costs:- Adult £4, senior £3.50, student £3.60, child (5-17) £2, family of 2 adults and 3 children £10.

Website – www.shrewsburymuseum.org.uk

Tel: 01743 258885 Email: shrewsburymuseum@shropshire.gov.uk

A collection of material relating to H G Ponting including his Emerson medal and correspondence with Buckingham Palace and the Royal Household between 1910 and 1929 is being sold on 3 November at Bonhams, London.

The catalogue footnote reads: 

• SCOTT'S 'CAMERA ARTIST'S' COMMAND PERFORMANCE
  
  Ponting was the first professional photographer and film-maker to accompany an expedition to the Antarctic. On his return he lectured extensively in London on the ill-fated Scott expedition and wrote reluctantly that "the outbreak of the Great War ended what had been a highly successful beginning to a novel feature in the entertainment world". In his account of the ill-fated Scott expedition The Great White South, published in 1921, he writes "I had the honour to receive the Royal Command to show my kinematograph record, and tell the story of the Scott Expedition at Buckingham Palace, before Their Majesties the King and Queen, the Royal Family, the King and Queen of Denmark, and several hundred guests". The present correspondence reveals that Ponting was presented with a scarf pin by the King in thanks and in return Ponting presented the King with a portfolio of photographic prints and subsequently copies of his books, although it was noted that "His Majesty prefers to receive books in the same form in which they are issued to the public and not specially bound" and that he shouldn't send films to Balmoral as, contrary to rumour, they don't have the equipment to play them.
  
  Ponting's Emerson Medal is one of only 57 awarded to photographers who had gained the admiration of P. H. Emerson, the well-known photographer of the life and landscape of the Norfolk Broads. He began awarding these in 1925 and Ponting thereby joined the illustrious ranks of Julia Margaret Cameron, Hippolyte Bayard, Alfred Stieglitz and Nadar.
  
  Provenance: Thomas Baker McLeroth, Ponting's executor, and by descent.

Read the full catalogue text here: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22811/lot/145/

This is a fascinating exhibition about the history of London portrayed through Victorian era photographs. The best photographs in the posting are by John Thomson. The composition of these images is exemplary with their eloquent use of light and low depth of field. The seemingly nonchalant but obviously staged positioning of the figures is coupled with superb rendition of light in photographs such as 'Old Furniture', 'London Nomades' and 'Recruiting Sergeants At Westminster'.

The details are intriguing, such as shooting contre-jour or into the light in 'Recruiting Sergeants At Westminster' with one of the soldiers and the two street lads in the distance staring directly at the camera. This seems to be a technique of Thomson’s, for there is always one person in his intimate group photographs staring straight at the camera, which in this era is unusual in itself. The women on the steps of the Romany caravan stares straight at the camera, one of the two children framed in the doorway behind slightly blurred, telling us the length of the exposure.

Then we have the actual characters themselves. With his tall hat and what seems to be scars around his mouth, the man centre stage in The Cheap Fish Of St. Giles’s (1877, below) reminds me of that nasty character Bill Sikes out of Charles Dicken’s immortal Oliver Twist (1837-39). And the poverty stricken from the bottom of the barrel… the destitute women and baby in The “Crawlers” – Portrait of a destitute woman with an infant (1877, below). “The abject misery into which they are plunged is not always self sought and merited; but is, as often, the result of unfortunate circumstances and accident.” It must have been so tough in that era to survive every day in London. See Matthew Beaumont. Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London, Chaucer to Dickens. London and New York: Verso, 2015.

Dr Marcus Bunyan for Art Blart

http://wp.me/pn2J2-7gh

John Thomson
The “Crawlers” – Portrait of a destitute woman with an infant
1877
© City of London: London Metropolitan Archives

“The industrial and social developments of the 19th century and their effect on the city and by extension the poor in Britain were subjects of interest and detailed study in the Victorian period. Street Life in London by Adolphe Smith and John Thomson is a good example of this and in particular, its use of early photographic processes.

Adolphe Smith was an experienced journalist connected to social reform movements. While John Thomson was a photographer who had spent considerable time in the Far East, especially China, and central to his work was the photography of streets and individuals at work. Produced in 12 monthly issues, starting in February 1877, each issue had three stories accompanied by a photograph. Most of the text was written by Smith, although two are attributed to Thomson – London Nomades and Street Floods in Lambeth. The images were staged as tableau rather than being spontaneous street scenes and the relatively new process – Woodburytype – was used to reproduce the images consistently in large numbers for the publication.”

Text from the London Metropolitan Archives Facebook page

Unknown photographer
Trafalgar Square
c. 1867
© City of London : London Metropolitan Archives

The first proposal for a square on the site of the former King’s Mews was drawn up by John Nash. It was part of King George IV’s extravagant vision for the west end curtailed by his death in 1830. Trafalgar Square was completed between 1840 and 1845 by Sir Charles Barry. There had been proposals to erect a monument to Horatio Nelson since his death at Trafalgar in 1805 but it was 1838 before a committee was formed to raise funds and consider proposals. William Railton’s design was chosen from dozens of entrants and his impressive Devonshire granite column with its statue of Nelson by E. H. Baily was erected in 1839-43. It was already attracting photographers before the scaffolding was dismantled. The four lions at the base of the column were originally to be in stone rather than bronze but it was 1857 before a commission was given to the artist Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873). This photograph shows two of the lions when newly positioned some ten years later.

Dominic Winter's autumn Photography auction comprises 147 lots from 1850s onwards. Highlight of the sale is anticipated to be a series of 76 ballooning magic lantern slides that include 27 aerial photographic views of London (and one of the Eiffel Tower) by balloonist-aerial photographer pioneer Cecil Victor Shadbolt (1859-1892).

Among the aerial photographs is the earliest known surviving aerial photograph of Great Britain, a photograph of Stamford Hill taken by Shadbolt on 29 May 1882 (shown here). All the other photographs date from between then and Shadbolt's untimely death in a ballooning accident in 1892. A handful are captioned and signed by Shadbolt and the whole collection was clearly used as part of a magic lantern lecture series that Shadbolt used to give called Balloons and Ballooning. That colour slide with the unfortunate motto 'Upward and Onwards' is numbered 1 and clearly the start of the lecture. One of the other uncaptioned photographs shows the building of Crystal Palace and is surprisingly the oldest known surviving photograph of the building. Most of the photographs show amazing clarity but this photograph is a little more blurry due no doubt to the greater camera shake from flying in a tethered rather than free floating balloon. Other views include Blackheath, Catford Bridge, Sutton, Beckenham Junction, Thornton Heath and Dartford.

There is also an 1884 photograph of Shadbolt and 'Captain' Dale in the grounded balloon car with Shadbolt's camera clearly visible and attached to the basket (see my profile icon). The collection is estimated at £7,000-10,000 but for those interested I have created a Flickr slideshow with copyright watermarks to stop these escaping into the public domain too easily. Any comments or suggestions about some of the uncaptioned locations in the slideshow will be gratefully received: 

SLIDESHOW

Other highlights include a private collection of large and early platinum prints of India by little-known Victor Pont, portraits of Tennyson by Julia Margaret Cameron, O.G. Rejlander and James Mudd, an interesting album of rural China by an unidentified Western photographer/geologist 1875, three unidentified salt prints, good prints of Rome by Macpherson, a good series of vintage British Airways photographs by Norman Parkinson and an archive of studio photographs of British royalty and Society by Marcus Adams and his son Gilbert, from the family.

Photographers represented in the auction include Marcus Adams, Lai Afong, Albert Arthur Allen, Thomas Anna, Edouard-Denis Baldus, Cecil Beaton, Bisson Freres, Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Clifford, two portraits of Charles Darwin, Philip Henry Delamotte, Olive Edis, Peter Henry Emerson, George Fiske, Francis Frith, Hill & Adamson, Lee Lockwood, Robert Macpherson, James Mudd, Eadweard Muybridge, Victor Pont, NASA, Kazumasa Ogawa, Norman Parkinson, William Lake Price, Victor Prout, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Cecil V. Shadbolt, Kozabura Tamamura, John Whistler.

The Aperture Digital Archive is a fully searchable online resource containing every issue of Aperture magazine since its founding in 1952. Users will be able to access all 220 issues of the magazine from their desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.

“Aperture is a document of great artistic, cultural, and scholarly value,” says Dana Triwush, the publisher, “and the archive is designed as a dynamic, interactive tool in keeping with the high standard of content and image quality for which the magazine is known.”

See more and access here. http://archive.aperture.org/

The Photography Seminar, University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term 2015.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY SEMINAR
Michaelmas Term 2015
Tuesdays (Weeks 1, 3, 5) – 12:30pm - 2pm*
Co-organizers: Mirjam Brusius and Geraldine Johnson

October 13th, 2015 (Tuesday, Week 1) – 12:30pm -- 2pm:
Photography, Exhibitions and the Birth of a Discipline
Anthony Gardner (Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University)
Location: Dept. of History of Art, Littlegate House, St Ebbes

October 27th, 2015 (Tuesday, Week 3) – 12:30pm – 2pm:
Photography at the Griffiths Institute (Site Visit): Tutankhamun and Beyond
Christina Riggs (University of East Anglia) in conversation with Mirjam Brusius and Geraldine Johnson
Location: Griffiths Institute (Sackler Library)
To register for the Griffith Institute site visit, please go to: www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/events (limited places—only 10 can attend)

November 10th, 2015 (Tuesday, Week 5) – 12:30pm – 2pm:
Exchanging Natural Objects: The Performance of Nature in Edwardian Natural History and Photography
Damian Hughes (De Montfort University)
Location: Dept. of History of Art, Littlegate House, St Ebbes

Please bring your own lunch for informal conversation from 12:30pm to 1pm.

Formal presentations will begin at 1pm and finish by 2pm.

Co-sponsored by Dept. of History of Art (Centre for Visual Studies) and Bodleian Libraries

Photo%20Seminar%20poster-MT%202015.pdf
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Preview Hilary Term

Tuesdays (Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7) – 12:30pm - 2pm*

January 19th, 2016 (Tuesday, Week 1) – 12:30pm – 2pm:
Title tbc
Shamoon Zamir (NYU Abu Dhabi)
Location: Dept. of History of Art, Littlegate House, St Ebbes

February 2nd, 2016 (Tuesday, Week 3) – 12:30pm – 2pm:
The Engraved Photograph, the Victorian Periodical and Nature of Photographic Trust
Geoffrey Belknap  (University of Leicester)
Location: Dept. of History of Art, Littlegate House, St Ebbes

February 16th, 2016 (Tuesday, Week 5) – 12:30pm – 2pm:
Title tbc:
Richard Howells (King's College London)
Location: Dept. of History of Art, Littlegate House, St Ebbes

March 1st, 2016 (Tuesday, Week 7) – 12:30pm – 2pm:
Photography at the Sackler Library (Site Visit): Martin Kemp and Kelley Wilder in conversation about Eadweard Muybridge
Location: Sackler Library, 1 St John St, Oxford OX1 2LG
To register, please visit: www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/events in late January (limited places)

The Mail onlline has reported that a phootgraph album sold at a C&T Auctions for £22,400. It says: 'An old photo album containing pictures of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire taken by Prince Albert [actually Ernst Becker] has sold for £22,000 after it was originally valued at just £200.

The leather-bound album containing 240 photos - four of which are of Maharaja Duleep Singh - was discovered by a house clearer who had won a contract to clear out a property.

It was taken to an auctioneers in Rochester, Kent, along with three other albums, where it was expected to make about £1,000, but surprisingly sold for 22 times that.

Read more here.

Singh was a member of the Photographic Society, later the Royal Photographic Society, from 1855 until his death. 

The work of progressive English organisation The Kibbo Kift Kindred (1920-1932) is presented in an archive exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery opening 10 October 2015.

Intellectual Barbarians: The Kibbo Kift Kindred explores the creative output of the group, whose idealistic ambitions for world peace were rooted in a shared appreciation of nature and handicraft. Part of the Whitechapel Gallery’s programme of exhibitions curated from archives, the display features rarely seen prints, photographs, woodcarvings and clothing, and revisits the group’s major exhibition at the Gallery in 1929.

The Kibbo Kift Kindred was formed in 1920 by commercial artist, writer and pacifist John Hargrave after he became disillusioned with the perceived militaristic tendencies of the Boy Scout movement, of which he was a key figure. Hargrave’s new group expressed a complex social, economic and spiritual philosophy based on naturalist principles and committed themselves to the creation of a new world. Their 1929 exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery was a means of spreading their ideas and philosophy to a wider public.

A highly original mystical-medieval-modernist style was adopted across the creative practices of Kibbo Kift, from their insignia to their costumes and rituals. Activities such as hiking and camping were pivotal and were given spiritual importance, while the group’s aesthetic drew heavily from ancient Egyptian, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Native American styles in craft, dress and language. The art of abstraction, advertising and experimental theatre were also key references. Kibbo Kift presents a forgotten moment in the history of British art and design but their futuristic vision continues to have resonance today.

Unusually for the time, Kibbo Kift was open to all ages and genders and allowed men, women, boys and girls to camp together. Although relatively small in number, the group’s notable members and supporters included suffragettes Emmeline Pethick Lawrence and Mary Neal, scientist Julian Huxley, social reformer Havelock Ellis, novelist H. G. Wells and surrealist photographer Angus McBean.

This display takes as its starting point the major Kibbo Kift Educational Exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in the late-1920s, which showcased the group’s ambitions and their remarkable body of visual art.  Highlights include rarely-seen sculptures, designs for ceremonial dress, and photographs of the group taking part in rituals, parades and camping trips. Drawing from major public and private collections including The Museum of London and London School of Economics, the display offers a new interpretation of Kibbo Kift’s unique vision for the present day and sheds light on the diversity of the Whitechapel Gallery’s educational ethos in the early 20th century.

To coincide with the exhibition, the book The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians by  Dr. Annebella Pollen, Principal Lecturer, History of Art and Design and AHRC Research Fellow, University of Brighton, is published by Donlon Books in October 2015. The first full-length title to explore the creative output of Kibbo Kift, the book showcases over 100 largely unseen examples of the group’s accomplished art and design, including previously unpublished photographs by Angus McBean.

10 October 2015 – 13 March 2016
Gallery 4, Free Entry

See: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/about/press/intellectual-barbarians-kibbo-kift-kindred/

Could you lead a participatory exhibitions, events and learning programme to engage the widest possible audience with Photography? Provide curatorial and research expertise as a key member of the Art Department and deliver broad access to the photographic collections at Amgueddfa Cymru?

The successful candidate will have excellent knowledge of photographs and photographic practices from the 1830s to the present day and an innovative and creative approach to public engagement.

Contract: 35 hours per week 
Salary: £24,523.91 - £31,143.17 per annum
Closing date: 26 October 2015 (by 5pm)

View the full job description (PDF)

This photograph has been consigned to the November 13th Photographs sale at Heritage Auctions but I can't get a positive ID on the photographer.  Possibly O. G. Rejlander?  Any leads would be appreciated.

Portrait of a Young Girl, English, circa 1860, albumen print, 161 x 133mm. Sheet size 460 x 328mm.

This photograph has been consigned to the November 13th Photographs sale at Heritage Auctions but I can't get a positive ID on the photographer.  Any leads would be appreciated.

Two Boys, English, late 1850's, albumen print, inscribed in pencil on verso “Possibly Winfield”, 268 x 214mm. Sheet size 505 x 343mm.  The Winfield in the inscription probably refers to David Wilkie Wynfield (1837–1887) but this image does not seem to match his oeuvre.

Victorians in Camera explores the world of nineteenth century photography from the subjects' point of view. Using a wealth of contemporary evidence – in both words and pictures – the book seeks to relive the experience of Victorian photography, following customers into palatial studios where artists created exquisite images floating on a silver surface, and into low photographic dens where hucksters turned out murky likenesses on thin pieces of blackened iron.

• What did the Victorians want from a portrait?
• Where did they go to have it made?
• What was it like to be photographed in a Victorian studio?
• What did clients get for their money?
• How did they feel about the results?

 For further information, go to:

http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Victorians-in-Camera-Paperback/p/10955

The Leamington Spa Local History Society and The Royal Photographic Society have commemorated Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901) with a blue plaque at the site of his Leamington Spa studio. The plaque was unveiled by Mayor of Leamington, Councillor Amanda Stevens on Wednesday, 23 September 2015. Robinson joined the Photographic Society on 5 March 1857, the same year that he opened his studio. He exhibited for many years at the Society's annual exhibitions, most famously with his combination prints such as Fading Away. He sat on the Society's Council and became a Vice President. In 1891 he resigned from the Society to join the Linked Ring but was reconciled in 1900 when he became an Honorary Fellow of the RPS. 

The unveiling was attended by photographic historians Geoff Blackwell, a Society trustee, Colin Ford CBE, and Michael Pritchard, together with Leamington residents and local historians. 

Hello, I am hoping that someone here can shed light on this Julia Margaret Cameron cabinet card , recently acquired.

Beautiful image,

I am trying to identify the sitter and the date. Apparently sold at Swann Galleries, May, 2015, identified as an unknown woman, (possibly Annie Chinery-Cameron), JMC's daughter-in-law.

It does not appear in any size in "Julia Margaret Cameron, The Complete Photographs" by Cox and Ford, 2003, 

i can find no other copy of this image online, save the Swann catalog entry.

Cameron fans, is this a fake?  It sure doesn't look like Annie Chinery to me..

.

Best Regards, David

The Royal Photographic Society has honoured photography curators Els Barents, Maria Morris Hambourg and Roger Hargreaves at its annual Awards ceremony held last week. Els received the Colin Ford Award (seen right) which recognises a major contribution to curatorship. She is the recently retired director of the Huis Marseille Museum for Photography in Amsterdam.

Maria (below, left) received the Society's Outstanding Service Award particularly recognising her role at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Roger (below, right) has worked at the NPG, curated many photography shows and currently works with the Archive of Modern Conflict. 

In addition Paul Goodman, formerly at the National Media Museum, received the Society's Fenton Medal for his work at the museum on behalf of the Society's Collection which is housed there. 

See more here: http://www.rps.org/news/2015/september/the-rps-2015-awards-announced

The London-based Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in collaboration with the National Museum and Archaeological Survey of India will be presenting the exhibition: Imaging the Isle Across: Vintage Photography from Ceylon (see poster here: India.jpg). The exhibition will be inaugurated on Saturday, 26 September 2015 at 5pm at the National Museum Auditorium. The exhibition is a partner event of the Delhi Photo Festival, 2015.

The history of photography in South Asia is a story of itinerant practitioners, seeking to expand the eye of the lens by exposure to the farthest corners of the world. Though Ceylon came under British rule only in 1815, it followed the maritime expansion of the Portuguese, the Dutch, Danes and the French – the first of which identified it in their sea-charts as Zeilon, from which the modern name Ceylon was derived and maintained till 1972.  Featuring vintage photographs drawn primarily from the Alkazi Collection of Photography, this exhibition takes its viewers through a mapping of sites as well as visual tropes and themes emerging from early photography via diverse mediums of production such as albums, illustrated books and postcards. These traces remain foundational in generating a imagistic canon that etched the life of a swiftly transforming country, as did the coming of a modern, pictorial language instituted by Lionel Wendt, the art photographer and patron.

We are extendedly grateful to the contributions and support of the University of Cambridge, Centre of South Asian Studies; the India-Sri Lanka Foundation, Ismeth Raheem, Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes, Dominic Sansoni and Anoli Perera.

Leicester's Photographic History Research Centre at De Montfort University has announced its autumn seminar programme. The evening talks are free of charge and open to everyone. The first takes place on 20 October and the full programme is available here.

Peter Eric Palmquist was killed by a hit and run driver on January 13, 2003, at the age of 66. He had been a professional photographer for more than 50 years, 28 of them at Humboldt State University. He is considered one of the most important photo historians of the 20th century. His emphasis was the American West, California, Humboldt County before 1950, and the history of women in photography worldwide. He published over 60 books and 340 articles. With co-author Thomas Kailbourn, he won the Caroline Bancroft Western History Prize for their book, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West. Professor Martha Sandweiss, Princeton University, wrote, “He (Peter) established new ways of pursuing the history of photography, and with his collections and research notes soon to be accessible at Yale, he will be speaking to and inspiring new generations of students and researchers forever.” Established by Peter’s lifetime companion, Pam Mendelsohn, this fund supports the study of under-researched women photographers internationally, past and present, and under-researched Western American photographers before 1900.

A small panel of outside consultants with professional expertise in the field of photohistory and/or grant reviewing will review the applications in order to determine the awards. Applications will be judged on the quality of the proposal, the ability of the applicant to carry out the project within the proposed budget and timeline, and the significance of the project to the field of photographic history. Each recipient of the award will agree to donate upon completion of the project a copy of the resulting work (i.e., published book, unpublished report, thesis, etc.) to the Humboldt Area Foundation to submit to the Peter Palmquist Archive at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and a report to Humboldt Area Foundation at the end of the grant period.

Click here to download an application form.

RANGE OF AWARDS: $500 - $1,500

ELIGIBILITY

Individuals researching Western American photography before 1900 or women in photography as well as nonprofit institutions conducting research in these fields are eligible to apply.

APPLICATION GUIDELINES

1. Complete application form and budget form

2. Write a short statement explaining your study of either:

• Under-researched women photographers internationally, past and present
• Under-researched Western American photographers before 1900

3. Since submission of a vague plan of work often results in rejection of an application, we urge you to provide as clear and complete a statement of your work plan as possible.

4. Statement must be double spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point font, and no more than 1,250 words. Statement must describe how funds will be used.

5. Include a copy of your resume or curriculum vitae no longer than 3 pages.

6. Previous Palmquist Grant recipients may reapply if they include the following information:

• Report the specifics of what was accomplished with the award
• Report the specifics of how the funds were used to reach that accomplishment

No other materials (additional samples of work, etc.) will be considered: please enclose only the items listed above.

Completed applications must be postmarked by: November 2, 2015 by 5:00 pm, and submitted to:

Humboldt Area Foundation • 363 Indianola Road, Bayside, CA 95524

Award Recipients will be notified by December 16, 2015

A new exhibition Cameras of the United Kingdom has opened at the JCII Museum, Tokyo. The exhibition includes one of William Henry Fox Talbot's original 'mousetrap' cameras from The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum. This is the first time that any of the Talbot cameras have been loaned for an overseas exhibition.

The exhibition provides a survey of the history and development of the British camera. and runs from 15 September until 20 December. 

See:http://www.jcii-cameramuseum.jp/top_e.html

and a Japanese news report here: http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20150915_721205.html

Image: Left - Hiroshi YANO (Director of JCII) -Right- Yasuhito KOBAYASHI (Director-General of KYPC) unveil the Talbot 'mousetrap' camera one of the highlights of the exhibition at the opening ceremony on 15 September.