Blogs

In 2009 the Library of Birmingham acquired a dozen photographs by Daniel Meadows, one of the most influential figures to emerge from the new wave of British independent photography in the 1970s. In May the Library will be presenting a major exhibition of his early work and begin the process of acquiring his entire photography archive.

Curated by Val Williams, Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works will include renowned bodies of work such as June Street, Butlins at Filey and the landmark Free Photographic Omnibus project which saw Meadows undertake a journey across England in a double decker bus he had converted into a darkroom and living space. During his 10,000 mile odyssey Meadows photographed almost one thousand people from 22 towns across Britain. He subsequently revisited and re-photographed many of these same people almost 30 years later. Together Meadows’ numerous projects provide an extraordinary window that enables us to look back and see a unique record of England, at work and in its leisure hours, during a critical period in British photographic and social history. 

The exhibition will include new items such as a number plate from Meadows’ Photographic Omnibus and a selection of works drawn from the photography collection at the Library of Birmingham featuring works by Sir Benjamin Stone, Tony Ray-Jones, Meadows, Homer Sykes, Anna Fox and Faye Claridge that reveals the way in which two generations of photographers have been inspired and influenced by the noted Birmingham-born Victorian Record Photographer Sir Benjamin Stone.

Around this exhibition which opens at the Library of Birmingham on 16 May are a series of talks including: 

• Pete James Talk: Daniel Meadows: Archives and Influences
  
  22nd May 2014 6pm – 7pm; 
  Meeting Room Suite, level 1

  Pete James, Curator of Photography Collections will discuss the influence three individuals: Sir Benjamin Stone, Tony Ray Jones and Charles Parker, whose work is held in the Library of Birmingham archives, had on Daniel Meadows's Photographic Omnibus Project.

  To book your tickets now click here
  
  

• Meet Daniel Meadows 
  
  7th June : 2pm - 3pm; 
  Meeting Room Suite, level 1

  Daniel Meadows will discuss the Gallery exhibition ‘Daniel Meadows Early Photographic Works’. He will screen multimedia pieces and show work from his archive of forty years which, this year, is to be acquired by the Library of Birmingham.

  To book your tickets now click here.

• Community Photography in 1970's and 1980's by Professor Ian Grosvenor

  
  10th June 2014 : 6pm – 7pm;
  Meeting Room Suite, level 1

  Ian Grosvenor (University of Birmingham) will discuss Daniel Meadows’ work in the context of the emergence of community photography in post war Britain and the radical political activism in 1970s and 1980s which together had a huge impact on documentary photography in Britain.

  To book your tickets now click here.

The amateur photography of Rupert Potter, father of the celebrated children’s book author and illustrator, Beatrix Potter, will be explored in a new display opening at the National Portrait Gallery to celebrate the centenary of his death. As well as two new acquisitions showing Beatrix Potter on holiday with her father, The World of Rupert Potter: Photographs of Beatrix, Millais and Friends will display portraits taken by Rupert Potter of close family friends, showing the circles within which he socialised and the influence this had on his daughter’s life and work.

A professional lawyer and a keen photographer in his personal time, Rupert Potter (1832–1914) took many carefully posed portraits, particularly during the Potters’ lengthy summer holidays in the Lake District and Scotland, which show his impressive technical skill and aesthetic ability. He was a member of the Photographic Society, later the Royal Photographic Society from 1867 until 1912. As a result of his particular interest in portrait photography and, through his friendship with the painter Sir John Everett Millais, Potter began taking photographs of Millais’ sitters and paintings. Millais rated Potter's photographs so highly that he often used them to assist his working process, such as for his ‘Rosebery’ portrait of William E Gladstone, the second of his four paintings of the Prime Minister.

Beatrix Potter’s journals from the 1880s and 1890s vividly reveal the influence of her exposure to the art world and the life of a working artist before becoming one herself. She later used photography to aid her work, learning with one of her father’s old cameras. With their mutual interests in art and photography, father and daughter enjoyed a close relationship and despite their closeness being tested in later years,

Rupert was a significant influence in Beatrix's development as an artist and writer. Large numbers of Potter’s photographs survive in several collections, with the earliest dating to the 1860s. The World of Rupert Potter: Photographs of Beatrix, Millais and Friends will feature a carefully selected range of Potter’s photographs from the National Portrait Gallery’s extensive collection of his works, some of which were directly donated to the Gallery by Potter during his lifetime. A larger set of 186 photographs relating to his work for Millais was given to the Gallery by Jack Edward Ladeveze, currently Trustee of the Enid Linder Foundation, in 1993.

Two new acquisitions will be on display for the first time, which show Beatrix Potter on family holidays at two different points in her life. The first of these was taken in 1894, with her father and brother, before she became a published author. The Potter family enjoyed frequent holidays in Scotland and the Lake District, which provided the siblings with the opportunity to explore the surrounding countryside and indulge their interest in animals and natural history, and inspired the illustrated children's books for which Beatrix became famous. The second new acquisition was taken in the Lake District in 1906, by which point Beatrix had published eight books, and shows her with the Potters’ family friend, Hardwicke Rawnsley. Rawnsley encouraged Beatrix in her literary ambitions, and as co-founder of the National Trust, his conservationist views deeply influenced Beatrix, which led to her future contributions to the Trust.

Other portraits on display will include photographs of the painter Sir John Everett Millais in his studio with unfinished paintings as well as portraits of sitters used by Millais for his paintings, including his daughter Effie and statesman John Bright. Constantia Nicolaides, Photographs Cataloguer, National Portrait Gallery, says: ‘Rupert Potter was taking photographs at a time when the medium was still very technically demanding, so that the proliferation of his images to be found in various collections today is astounding. Meanwhile, his subjects are of great historical interest, and we are thrilled to add these two self-portraits, also showing his talented daughter Beatrix, to our existing collection of his photographs of distinguished Victorian figures at leisure, and his work for Millais. This display will provide an opportunity to see fine examples of these.'

Images: 

Top: Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt in his studio at 2 Palace Gate, Kensington by Rupert Potter, July 1886 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Above: Rupert Potter, Beatrix Potter and Bertram Potter in Lennel, Coldstream by Rupert Potter, 1894 © National Portrait Gallery, London

For further information, please visit www.npg.org.uk and http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2014/the-world-of-rupert-potter-photographs-of-beatrix-millais-and-friends.php

The World of Rupert Potter: Photographs of Beatrix, Millais and Friends, Room 28, 13 May-16 November 2014, at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Admission Free

Bonhams is to sell on 4 June in New York a collection of 98 photomicrographs of snowflakes by Walter Bentley, 1890s-1920s. 

See: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21652/lot/113/

Bonhams is to sell in New York on 4 June an extensive collection of material from the archive of John David Zumbrun and Camera Craft, Beijing, [1910-1929], including approximately 2000 gelatin-silver photographs, autochromes, panoramas, lantern and glass slides, postcards, colotypes, and negatives.

See: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21652/lot/7/

Its been a fantastic week in tracking down more information about the Daily Mirror's First World War photographers, especially George Mewes.

George went to Russia at the beginning of the war and became a Official Photographer with the Russian Imperial Army. As well as making a photographic record of the fortunes of the Russian army he wrote a series of articles which were syndicated around the world.

His description of the fall of Warsaw, the cost to the city and the soldiers that defended it is incredible. Keeping in mind that all the images and articles he wrote and took had to be sent overland back to Petrograd. Then a search for a traveller going back to the UK had to be found to personally hand articles and glass plate negatives in to the Daily Mirror offices in London.

After the war George return to Russia to make what can only be described as the first charity appeal film for Save the Children highlighting the Russian famine of 1921. The sole remain copy of this film is held by the Bfi.

In 1926 George created the worlds first stock photography agency the Photographic Advertising Limited.

If any members have further information about George and his adventures in Russia and want to share them with me, please drop me an email at johnm@mirrorpix.com.

Image below is of George Mewes relaxing in the offices of the Daily Mirror 1914

Rob Ball has alerted BPH to a project he has been undertaking since January documenting Dreamland, Margate, with the ferrotype or tintype process. Dreamland was one of the country's oldest amusement parks; at one time, the 16-acre site held a zoo and miniature railway, a cinema, cafes, restaurants, bars, shops and a 2,000-capacity ballroom, not forgetting that in later years it was home to Europe's largest big wheel.

You can follow progress of Rob Ball's work on the Dreamland site. For those interested, the South East Archive of Seaside Photography is well worth a look. Rob Ball is the deputy director.

The project was featured on the BBC website here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-27210062

A blog posting from The National Archives, Kew, discusses E O Hoppé and his naturalisation papers. It also provides a link to a useful guide to photographs at TNA.  In addition to these TNA holds copyright, limited company and design records amongst many, many, others that all have important references to photography, photographers and photographic companies.

In addition, Kew is a great place to conduct research and user friendly with no restrictions on making your own digital camera copies - so much so that copy stands are provided. A marked contrast to some of our other research centres.  

See: http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/travelling-photographer-emil-otto-hoppe/

Bloomsbury has announced the development of a field-defining book series on photography and history which will create a platform for new visual historiographies and methodologies.

Photographs have been formative in political movements, commercial and industrial development, colonial and imperial expansion, geo-politics and international relations, legal practice, the formation of modern national and personal identities and in public narratives of the past. Volumes in this radical and original series will bring photographic practices into the centre of historical analysis and explore their integral role in global histories from the mid-19th century to the current day.

Call for book proposals:

The editors are currently seeking proposals for single-authored volumes of 80,000–90,000 words based on innovative case studies. Titles might cover a wide range of subject matters and photographic practices, but the emphasis must be on the integration and demonstration of empirical, theoretical, methodological and historiographical significance so that the volumes have the widest impact in history more generally.

Studies must demonstrate the ways in which photographs both shape and reflect historical experience and might focus on a range of processes – production, dissemination, remediation, collecting -  of the photographic within history. Exceptional PhD theses will be considered but the proposal must clearly demonstrate how the author intends to develop the work into a book.

The series will be interdisciplinary and welcomes scholars from all disciplines and backgrounds, whether historical, art historical, anthropological, sociological, history of science, archival or curatorial studies.

Series editors:

Professor Elizabeth Edwards, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK; Professor Patricia  Hayes, University of Western Cape, South Africa; Professor Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University, USA

Contact:

Please email new proposals to Davida Forbes, Photography Editor, davida.forbes@bloomsbury.com. For more information about Bloomsbury Publishing see www.bloomsbury.com. 

BPH has learnt that Philip L Condax, former Curator of Technology at George Eastman House, died on Monday, 21 April 2014. Phil Condax was born on 24 May 1934, the son of Louis M Condax (1897-1961) and Constance W. Condax. Louis invented a dye-transfer colour process which was commercialised by Eastman Kodak Co in 1945. 

Phil joined the then International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House under Director Beaumont Newhall in 1971, where he curated the Technology Collections starting as 'Assistant Curator, Equipment Archive'. When the Philadelphia-based American Museum of Photography became available after the death of its founder, Louis Walton Sipley, Phil was involved with the then Director and other staff members in securing it for GEH where it filled important gaps. 

Two highlights from his career include the 1980-1981 exhibition Selections from the Spira Collection: An Exhibition at George Eastman House - the first time GEH had held such an exhibition from outside of its own collections; and the 1984 joint IMP/GEH and JCII exhibition The Evolution of the Japanese Camera which showed in Rochester, NY, and Tokyo. He was also in post when the new Mees Gallery - it has since been replaced - was opened in 1992. He attended Photokina regularly where he was able to source material for the GEH collections. 

When Czechoslovakia was firmly behind the Iron Curtain, Phil managed to visit regularly. There were suggestions that during his military service and afterwards he was working for the CIA. He came to know Jan Sudek and bought many important prints for the museum and for his own personal collection.

Condax, along with other senior curators, was made redundant in 1994, in his case over a dispute with the Director, a fact over which he continued to remain bitter. After GEH Phil undertook some museum and photo-history consultancy work, in particular he developed and curated the photographic collection of the Museum of Imagery Technology operated by Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. He co-authored The Photographic Flash: A Concise Illustrated History with Pierre Bron (of Bron Elektronik AG) in 1998.

Jonathan Spira commented: 'I am deeply saddened by the death of Phil Condax, a close family friend.  Not only did he help popularize photography's history but he helped lead the George Eastman House during a very tumultuous period.'

I met Condax several times at his Rochester home and despite a difficult relationship with a demanding father he was a great enthusiast for the work that his father had undertaken on colour. He maintained an extensive archive of his father's work. An example showing Louis Condax with an example of the dye transfer process, from Phil's personal archive is shown left.

He had an affection for Britain and he travelled extensively, particularly to South East Asia. 

Dr Michael Pritchard

• Revisions made 6/5/2014. 

The History and Theory of Photography Research Centre at Birkbeck, London, is holding a series of free events, open to all, at 43 Gordon Sq, London WC1H 0PD. You might need to book to attend some of them, as they contribute to Birkbeck Arts Week 2014.

Tuesday 6 May 2014, 18:00-19:30

Peltz Gallery, Ground Floor

Exhibition and panel discussion: ‘Print Dialogues’.

Victoria Ahrens’s work explores the interstices between photography and printmaking in the depiction of the lost landscape. Working initially from rediscovered analogue snapshots of the Parana River in South America, she reworks the imagery through various screens (silkscreens, projections), questioning the fragmentary nature of memory and the possibility of the ruin in her contemporary print installations. On Tuesday Victoria will be talking about her work with Gabriel Koureas and Patrizia Di Bello. The Gallery will be open from 10:10.

Tuesday 20 May 2014, 18:00-19:30

Room G01

Panel discussion, ‘Working with Photographs: Archives’

From domestic attics to national institutions, photographs are part of many archival collections, where they play a variety of roles as precious specimens, assets to be exploited, or miscellaneous ‘stuff’ taking up too much room. In this informal discussion, Graham Head, who as Head of Information Services at the British Museum led their image and photography programmes, Heidi Hudson from the Kennel Club Picture Library, and Stefan Dickers, Head of the Library and Archives at Bishopsgate Institute, will talk about their experience of working with photographs. Reserve your place for 'Working with Photographs' here.

Thursday 22 May 2014, 18:00-19:30, followed by drinks.

Room G01

Sarah Thomas, ‘Curating “Empire” at Tate: Dissonance and British Art’.

Can works of art – including photographs – confront the troubling legacies of Britain's imperial past? In this talk Sarah Thomas discusses some of the challenges encountered during preparations for a major exhibition planned at Tate Britain for 2015. After the talk there will be an opportunity for prospective students to meet the Course Director for MA History of Art with Photography. Reserve your place for Curating 'Empire' here.

Wednesday 11 June 2014, 18:00-19:30

Keynes Library (Room 114)

Sarah Knelman, ‘A democracy of images? Exhibiting photography in a digital culture’.

Thursday 19 June 2014, 18:00-19:30

Keynes Library (Room 114)

Reading Group

This term we are discussing Steve Edwards, 'The Story of the Houyhnhnms: Art Theory and Photography, part 1', The Making of English Photography (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), pp.119-164. 

3 July - 25 July 2014

Peltz Gallery, Ground Floor, daily 10:10-17:00

Exhibition, ‘Family Ties: Reframing Memory’

Six artists address the representation of family memory through lens-based works. Suze Adams navigates the borders of fact and fiction in an exploratory re-tracing of her maternal ancestors.  Nicky Bird draws on family albums belonging to others to illuminate personal, political memories connected to place. Jacqueline Butler’s poetic approach alludes to sensory memories prompted by public photographic collections and her personal archive. Rosy Martin re-enacts a lost past as she embodies both of her parents in their family home and evokes a sense of haunting using projections. Lizzie Thynne’s experimental documentary reflects on her mother’s life as well as the inter-subjectivity of all biography and choreographs memories of family and relationships from the Women’s Liberation Movement.  Sally Waterman recalls traumatic memories of family conflict through literary adaptation and staged re-photography. This exhibition responds to themes of the conference Picturing the Family: Media, Narrative, Memory.

Friday 11 July 2014, 10:00-17:00

‘Colours of Memory’: an International Conference on the Writing of Geoff Dyer

For further information email: geoffdyerconference2014@gmail.com of follow @gdyerconference on Twitter.

This autumn the V&A will present the definitive retrospective of the work of Horst P. Horst (1906-99), one of the 20th century’s master photographers. In a career that spanned six decades, Horst photographed the exquisite creations of couturiers such as Chanel, Schiaparelli and Vionnet in 1930s Paris, and helped to launch the careers of many models. In New York a decade later, he experimented with early colour techniques and his meticulously composed, artfully lit images leapt from the magazine page.

This is the biggest ever UK retrospective of Horst's photography and will explore a career that lasted 60 years and one which took in fashion, art, reportage, design and high society. The show will include some of his most famous photographs for Vogue.

The exhibition will display more than 250 of Horst’s best known photographs alongside unpublished and rarely exhibited vintage prints, conveying the diversity of his output, from surreal still lifes to portraits of Hollywood stars, nudes and nature studies to documentary pictures of the Middle East. It will examine his creative process through the inclusion of original contact sheets, sketches and archive film footage.

See: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-horst-photographer-of-style/about-the-exhibition/

Horst: Photographer of Style
6 September 2014 – 4 January 2015

Image: Salvador Dalí’s costumes for Leonid Massine's ballet Bacchanale, 1939. © Condé Nast/Horst Estate

Newsreel archive British Pathé has uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films, in high resolution, to its YouTube channel. This unprecedented release of vintage news reports and cinemagazines is part of a drive to make the archive more accessible to viewers all over the world.

And here's the one they did celebrating 100 years of photography back in 1939!

Luke McKernan's historical study of Charles Urban has won the best moving image book at the 2014 Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards which were announced last night. The winner of the best photography book was Sergio Larrain: Vagabond Photographer. 

The Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards are a partner of the Sony World Photography Awards and the two books share the awards’ £10,000 prize for the best photography and best moving image books of the year. 

• Best Photography Book Award: Sergio Larrain: Vagabond Photographer by Agnès Sire and Gonzalo Leiva Quijada (Thames and Hudson)

• Best Moving Image Book Award: Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-Fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897 - 1925 by Luke McKernan (University of Exeter Press)

Based on original research from Charles Urban’s own papers, McKernan's book is the first biography of this influential film maker and innovator. It is also a historical study of the development of the non-fiction film in Britain and America in the early years of cinema, told through the experiences of the leading pioneer of the form. 

The jury commented:

"The jury thought Luke McKernan's 'Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-Fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897-1925' was a meticulously researched study of a hitherto neglected, significant figure in the early development of British cinema. In an engaging and spirited fashion, McKernan sheds new light on an important individual while using Urban's story to illuminate wider trends and changes in the cinema of the time. He brings a personality and a period alive. The jury warmly congratulates Luke McKernan on winning this year's prize."

Charles Urban was a renowned figure in his time, and he has remained a name in film history chiefly for his development of Kinemacolor, the world’s first successful natural colour moving picture system. He was also a pioneer in the filming of war, science, travel, actuality and news, a fervent advocate of the value of film as an educative force, and a controversial but important innovator of film propaganda in wartime.

The book uses Urban’s story as a means of showing how the non-fiction film developed in the period 1897-1925, and the dilemmas that it faced within a cinema culture in which the entertainment fiction film was dominant. Urban’s solutions – some successful, some less so – illustrate the groundwork that led to the development of documentary film. The book considers the roles of film as informer, educator and generator of propaganda, and the social and aesthetic function of colour in the years when cinema was still working out what it was capable of and how best to reach audiences. 

Luke McKernan is Lead Curator, News and Moving Image at the British Library and also curates a web resource on Charles Urban at: www.charlesurban.com The National Media Museum, Bradford, holds Urban's archive and a display of material from the archive is currently on display. 

A portrait of the infamous Ellen Byrne, who was tried for her husband’s murder in 1842 after his badly decomposed body was found in their shared bed; photographs of 1916 leader Tom Clarke, his wife Kathleen and family; and posters documenting the suffragette movement are just some of the 10,500 newly digitised items released by the National Library of Ireland (NLI)

De Montfort University has published two new online resources: Members of the Royal Photographic Society 1853-1901 which provides the most comprehensive source of information on some 3000 Photographic Society and RPS members to 1901; and Roger Fenton’s Crimean letterbooks which publishes faithful reproductions and transcripts of letters sent originally by Roger Fenton and subsequently copied out by family and friends during his "Photographic Trip to the Crimea" in 1855.

There is additional work taking place on the RPS members to extend the date range and to add further biographical information on those listed. 

The resources are fully searchable and compliment De Montfort University's existing online databases: 

 Photographs Exhibited in Britan 1839–1865

A research database containing individual records for over 20,000 photographic exhibits drawn from forty exhibition catalogues published between 1839 – 1865. Most of the images created by Fenton in the Crimea are listed.

 The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot

The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot is a comprehensive database of all the known letters to and from Talbot (1800-1877), the Wiltshire polymath best known for his invention of photography. It contains over 10,000 letters.

 Roger Fenton’s Crimean letterbooks

Roger Fenton's letters from the Crimea is a collection of all 25 of the known letters written by Roger Fenton during his pioneering wartime photographic expedition to the Crimea.

 Exhibitions of Royal Photographic Society

Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870–1915. Catalogue records from the annual exhibitions.

 The journal of Amélina Petit de Billier

The journal of Amélina Petit de Billier was written in French, with a few entries in English or Italian. It has been preserved at Lacock Abbey since she wrote the last volume in 1835 and is now being transcribed and translated for the Fox Talbot Museum with the permission of the owners of the journal, Janet Burnett–Brown and Petronella Burnett–Brown of Lacock Abbey.

It has often been said that an architectural education gives a particular and effective ‘eye’, and sometimes that architects are the best photographers of architecture. Eric de Maré was at the AA from 1928 to 1933, and like many AA graduates developed a career outside architectural practice. While he wrote prolifically- there are some 20 books for which he is credited as author- it is as a photographer that he developed a towering reputation in the 1950s. His photographs for the Architectural Review introduced a new way of seeing buildings and the urban landscape: his archive, held by the AA Photo Library, is one of its principal collections. This talk will consider his contributions to the art of architectural photography and to the contemporary culture of architecture.

Andrew Higgott

Eric de Maré: Photography framing architecture

Date: 13/5/2014 
Time: 18:30:00, Admission Free
Venue: Soft Room, Architectural Association

More here: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=2569 

Andrew Higgott taught architectural history and theory at the AA from 1989 to 2002, and at the University of East London and elsewhere; earlier he was the AA’s photograph librarian. His publications include Mediating Modernism: architectural cultures in Britain (2007) and Camera Constructs: photography architecture and the modern city (2012). 

Image: Eric de Mare: Stanley Mill, Stroud from Functional Tradition (1958)

Exhibiting your work in a gallery or public context presents its own challenges as it is such a different format of disseminating work, as opposed to the book or presenting a portfolio. As a curator of photography shows Camilla Brown has extensive experience of working with photographers and designing exhibitions and was senior curator at The Photographers Gallery, London. Using examples of exhibitions she has curated, Camilla will discuss the issues faced when displaying work. This should provide an informal context for the group to spend some time thinking about exhibitions.  It would be great to talk about photography exhibitions that have made an impact on you and why, alongside people discussing their ideas about presenting their own work.

Camilla trained as an art historian completing her MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is a curator, writer and lecturer on contemporary art, specialising in photography. For ten years she worked at The Photographers’ Gallery, London and before that was Exhibitions Curator at Tate Liverpool. She now has an academic post at Middlesex University. She regularly writes for artists monographs and contributes to history of photography books, alongside her work as an art critic for Photomonitor.co.uk. Examples of her work appear on her website at www.camillaebrown.co.uk <http://www.camillaebrown.co.uk/> .

If you have any images you would like to share that evening in our 5 X 5 slot, email paul@hillonphotography.co.uk.

EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHS

Camilla Brown

Wednesday, April 30^th, 2014

The Box, QUAD, Cathedral Quarter, Derby DE1 3AS Tel. 01332 290606

6.30 – 8.30       £ 3

Founded in 2012 by Valentina Abenavoli and Alex Bocchetto, Akina Books is an independent publishing house of hand-made photobooks based in London. Our guests will share some of their past and present projects, including the recent collaborative publication between FORMAT and Slideluck London Hungry Still, and discuss their working practices and processes in publishing. They will also discuss Akina Factory, a photobook production oriented laboratory; a space to conceive projects, manufacture books, share know-how and ideas. It can be incredibly difficult to figure out how to create and self-publish a photobook from scratch. It is time consuming and skill intensive: Akina’s Factory can help you through this creative and technical process. Following on from this, regular host Paul Hill will lead a Q+A session with Valentina and Alex.

PUBLISHING PHOTOGRAPHY

Tuesday 27th May

Details about Photoforums and booking a place can be found on

http://www.derbyquad.co.uk/regular-event/format-photoforum  

Explore the mysteries of nature and look beyond the physical nature of things during a weekend workshop with award winning photographer Paul Hill MBE, assisted by Maria Falconer FRPS.

Marking the Land alludes to Paul Hill’s photography of the Peak District, capturing the relationship between marks made on the land by man and nature and by the process of photography. 

 



Book your place to join Paul and Maria for a weekend exploring these ideas in the countryside and the city with two field work sessions, where you will have the opportunity to enhance your photographic techniques with hands-on tuition, and group feedback at Site on the photographs you have taken. This workshop is aimed at photographers of mixed ability and offers appropriate support and guidance to suit varied levels of experience.



£180.00 per person, limited spaces available. 
Although the price includes light refreshments and group transport, participants are encouraged to bring their own lunch.

Author of the highly influential book, White Peak Dark Peak, Paul (www.hillonphotography.co.uk) has been teaching photography in higher education for many decades, and was the first professor of photographic practice in a British university. He created the famous Photographers’ Place group workshops in Derbyshire, and has specialised in running photography workshops throughout the world.
A Derbyshire-based photographer, Maria (www.mariafalconer.co.uk) is also a very experienced teacher, whose work Keep Her Unnoticed, received much critical acclaim and resulted in her being awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.

To book, contact: http://www.sitegallery.org/archives/6994

For more details email Jane Faram (jane@sitegallery.org.uk) or paul@hillonphotography.co.uk

Site Gallery, 1,Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS Tel. 0114 2812077

MARKING  THE  LAND

Site Gallery, Sheffield

May 24th & 25th, 2014

A two-day photography workshop with Paul Hill and Maria Falconer



46 photographs, which form part of the 19th century China Magazine, depicting life in the Far East during the 1860s, have sold for more than six times their estimated value when they recently went under the hammer at Dominic WInters.

Dropped off by a couple from Cumbria who happened to be in the area, the auction house originally priced the photos at £2,000 but a huge amount of interest among bidders saw the photos snapped up for £12,000 from an anonymous buyer in London on Thursday, April 10. The photos, which are among the earliest ones to have been pasted into a publication, were taken from the China Magazine which ran for two years between 1868 and 1870.

Further details can be found here.

The National Media Museum, with the financial support of The Royal Photographic Society, has rehoused the three Niépce plates from the RPS Collection in a purpose-built case. The case and plates were shown publicly for the first time since 2010 yesterday to a group from the Society. More information on the case how the plates can be viewed will be made available by the Museum shortly.

The three plates - the earliest and rarest photographic artefacts in the United Kingdom and of international importance - were the subject of a collaborative project between the Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute. This culminated in a conference in 2010 at which new discoveries about the plates and how they were made were unveiled.

The conference proceedings are still available from the RPS:  http://rps.org/shop/publications/niepce-conference-proceedings