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During the month of February 2013 a Heritage Trail for the public around four major archives in Glasgow and the River-side Museum has been organised by participating partners in the Blueprint project. These visits will complement three coordinated exhibitions at Glasgow’s Trongate 103 visual art centre which focus on historical and contemporary practice in ‘alternative’ photographic technologies as well as lens based imagery in printmaking.

With the co-operation of Glasgow University Library Archives, the Glasgow City Archives and Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, the Heritage Trail will be referenced by a number of blueprints featuring engineering, botanical and architectural subjects, specially made for display at Trongate 103 by the project’s originators, Roger Farnham and Harry Magee.

At this stage the planned list of exhibits drawn from the above archives will include blueprints of the Class 15F locomotive at the Riverside Museum, the Queen Mary (pictured), the Russian Pavilion at the 1901 Glasgow Interna-tional Exhibition and reproduction cyanotypes of some of Anna Atkins’ images from her volume on British Algae, fa-mously recognised as the first ‘photographic’ book. Visitors on the Heritage Trail to the archives will have the opportunity to see the originals and other selected items, while Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department will be offering their visitors the sight of some prime examples of the early use of photography in printed books.

The project allows for many varied interpretations of the word ‘blueprint’, one of which will highlight the extraordinary number of associa-tions between engineering and the key alumni in the development of photography. Thomas Wedgwood, an early explorer of light sensitive materials, corresponded with James Watt about his discoveries, while Niépce, cred-ited with the first fixed image made in a camera, had previ-ously developed and patented an early internal combustion engine. The cyanotype process, invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842, became the preferred method of replicat-ing engineering line drawings well in to the twentieth cen-tury, the characteristic colour of the resulting copies leading to their designation as ‘blueprints’. Besides cyanotype, a range of other non-silver processes will also feature in the exhibitions.

An educational programme will include planned lectures by the Scottish Society for the History of Photography and demonstrations by participating artists and photographers will provide an historical and practical context. It is hoped the combination of visits to galleries showing contemporary photography and printmaking with the opportunity to view counterpart historical images in archives will attract new audiences to the richness of the resources held in care for the public and stimulate ways in which those resources can inform contemporary practice in the visual arts.

Roger Farnham and Harry Magee have been members of Glasgow Print Studio since 1978. Roger is a Consultant Sys-tems Engineer and has exhibited his photographs and prints internation-ally. He is currently a member of the Board of Glasgow Print Studio and a former board member of Street Level Photoworks. Harry was a Lecturer in Graphics before retiral and his prints are in corporate, public and private collections. He has served as Chair of the Glasgow Print Studio Board.

There is information here: http://tinyurl.com/c4otmfv and BPH will report on the programme as details become available. 

Image: Anna Atkins, Cyanotype

The following is an article by Graeme Brown that appeared in the Birmingham Mail which may be of interest to some of you BPH members out there. You can read the rest of it in this link here.

"Sir Benjamin Stone, born 174 years ago, collected and took photographs to create a historical record for generations to come as the world went through drastic changes during the rapid industrialisation of the late 19th century.

His passion took him from festivals in Abbots Bromley and Sutton Coldfield to Australia and China. Sir Benjamin spent more than £1 million in today’s money in a quest to create a vast visual encyclopaedia of the ancient and modern world.

It led him to amass 22,000 photographs, 2,500 lantern slides, 17,000 glass negatives and more than 100 albums and scrapbooks, which will soon be housed at the new Library of Birmingham – and earned him the nickname ‘Sir Snapshot’......... "

Anyone know much about Joan Craven? She shared studios with Walter Bird at Kinocrat House on the Cromwell Road, London. Below is a picture of Pamela Green by her. I run the Pamela Green website and before I post something I wanted to find out a bit more information. This picture was taken in the early '50s.

A special exhibition to mark the 75th anniversary of the Hampstead Photographic Society is being held at Burgh House, New End Square, Hampstead this month. The club, founded in 1937, will be exhibiting members’ work as well as a display on the history of the society.

The exhibition will be on until 27th August, and details can be found here.

Photo: Members of Hampstead Photographic Society at the opening of their exhibition at Burgh House 01.08.12. Copyright: Ham and High

Your confidence, customer focus and excellent presentation skills could help visitors get even more out of their day at the National Media Museum!  Working across ten galleries, including our changing temporary exhibitions, you'll deliver a range of engaging and educational presentations and activities to visitors.  You'll be asked to develop and devise a few presentations of your own too.  So this is a great opportunity to be creative!

With over 750,000 visitors visiting the Museum every year, you'll be giving presentations to a diverse audience.  So experience of working with the public in a similar role, supported by excellent communication, customer service and performance skills, is a must.  You should also have the ability to remember and present factual information, with a good understanding of photography, film, television, radio and/or new media, as well as an interest in science and technology.

Award winning, visionary and truely unique, the National Media Museum embraces photography, film, television, radio and the web.  Part of the SMG family of museum, we aim to engage, inspire and educate through comprehensive collections, innovative education programmes and a powerful yet sensitive approach to contemporary issues.  

JOB PURPOSE

Explainer’s educate, entertain and inspire visitors, interpreting and communicating information about the museum’s subject matter in unique, engaging ways.

Two roles:

full time: https://vacancies.nmsi.ac.uk/VacancyDetails.aspx?FromSearch=True&MenuID=6Dqy3cKIDOg=&VacancyID=216

part-time: https://vacancies.nmsi.ac.uk/VacancyDetails.aspx?FromSearch=True&MenuID=6Dqy3cKIDOg=&VacancyID=217

As update to an earlier BPH post here: 800 of the 4500 delicate glass plate negatives, located by a media team from the Seven network and purchased by Seven boss Kerry Stokes, have today been donated to the Australian War Memorial. They will form the basis of a new exhibition that opens on November 2.

Apparently about 3,000 of those plates are of British troops, as well as some Gurkhas, Indians, American and Chinese labourers. The future of these is still being determined.

These plates form part of the Louis and Antoinette Thuillier Collection uncovered in 2011 after sitting undisturbed for nearly a century in the attic of a farmhouse in the French town of Vignacourt. These glass-plate negatives feature Australian soldiers in informal settings. The discovery of these photographs represents one of the most important recent finds of material from the First World War. The donation is among the most significant to have been made to a cultural institution.

The Memorial has been working hard behind the scenes in preparation for the arrival of the Lost Diggers photograph collection. The collection of glass plate negatives provides a significant insight into the lives of troops in France while on rest from the front line.

Planned for November 2012, and followed by a national tour, the exhibition ‘Remember Me: the lost diggers of Vignacourt’ will showcase a selection of photographs from the large collection, along with stories and items from some of the men themselves. Whilst the photographs in the collection are largely unidentified the Memorial, and Channel Seven, have been busy researching and working closely with the public to shed light on who some of these men might be, and what their stories might reveal.

Currently, you can see the Lost Diggers photos on the Channel Seven Facebook page or on the Sunday Night program website. 

Photo: An unknown soldier with Robert Thuillier, the photographer's son.

I'm working with the Library of Congress on an exciting co-curation project which focuses on the photographic collections that are available on the Library's Flickr Commons account. Further details and ways in which to contribute to the project are outlined below:

The Library of Congress is asking for your help to curate a new set of photographs for Flickr Commons.

We’re eager to find out what interests you and would love for you to express yourselves visually by creating a personal gallery. The most popular pictures will form a new set on Flickr that reflects your diverse interests and expertise. Your input will help us select more gems from our collections that you would like to see uploaded in the future.

Here's how:

• First, create a new gallery in your Flickr account with the title My LOC Favorites.

• Add ten of your favorite images from the Library of Congress sets on Flickr. (Top ten only, please!).

• It would be great if you could explain the reasons for your choices beside each image. More detail can help guide our future selections for Flickr.

You have until Friday, August 31^st to create your gallery.  Once we have looked at everyone’s galleries, we will post a new Flickr set highlighting the top selections.

We have also started a discussion in the Flickr Commons Group and would love for you to tell us more about your interests and motivations for participating in the co-curation project in more detail.

This project is being coordinated by Prints and Photographs Division staff and Bronwen Colquhoun, a British PhD student from Newcastle University whose research focuses on how cultural institutions are using Flickr Commons to promote their photographic collections and support community engagement. She is carrying out a fellowship at the Library until September 2012 and has been doing similar projects with other UK-based Flickr Commons institutions including the National Maritime Museum and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.

More information can be found on the Library of Congress Picture This blog. We have also started a discussion in the Flickr Commons Group and would love for you to tell us more about your interests and motivations for participating in the co-curation project in more detail.

If you have any questions please make a comment on this post or contact us at flickrpilot@loc.gov.


We look forward to seeing your selections!

As mentioned in an earlier posting, details of this European exhibition is now available.

The birth of photography is now seen for the first time and exclusively for half a century back on European soil: the first photographic exterior shot of the world, the photogravure "View from the Window at Le Gras" by the Frenchman Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 . After her last presentation at an exhibition at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham 1898, the factory was more than five decades to be lost. Only after many years of investigative search Helmut Gernsheim felt the image stored in a 1952 steamer trunk in London again. This sensational discovery Gernsheim dated before the birth of photography to thirteen years, but until that time was the year 1839 as its official invention year.

Visitors will journey through the photographic trends of the 19th Century: from the artistically oriented pictorialism of the early war reportage to the time in this emerging travel photography. In addition to images from the early days of the photograph shows the presentation of thematically organized numerous icons of contemporary photography: On display are works from the fields of the act, architecture, travel, urban, landscape and portrait photography as well as experimental and journalistic images of world-famous photographers. The unique combination of the works from the historical and the contemporary part of the Gernsheim collection into a comprehensive overall view of the exhibition allows visitors a fascinating insight into the almost two hundred years of history of photography.

(Sorry, but blame the above on Google translation!). Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Christopher Penn writes...There is an interesting and beautifully displayed exhibition of photography - largely portraiture - from India in the nineteenth century running now in the Art Library for Photography in Berlin. Among other works it includes four Samuel Bournes, nine Bourne and Shepherds and eight Penns including 'Toda Man (Nicholas/Penn 48)' and 'Toda Woman (Nicholas/Penn 49)', as you will also see in the photo here. Some of the attributions are a bit weak, including three other Penns and two photographs attributed to Nicholas; but that is a small criticism of the first exhibition to dig deep into the extensive collection of ethnographic prints in Berlin.

The fine catalogue, in which a large number of the photographs are reproduced, includes an article by John Falconer, based he says on early research, which provides a good lead into the exhibition, and other articles largely related to the colonial theme.  The exhibition is well worth a visit.

The exhibition runs until 21st October.

Museum für Fotografie, Berlin
Fri 20 July - Sun 21 October 2012

http://www.smb.museum/smb/standorte/index.php?p=2&objID=6124&n=12

The Colonial Eye.
Early Portrait Photography in India

One of the world's most comprehensive and significant collections of portrait photography from India is on exhibit for the first time. The collection was originally thought to be lost during World War II, only gradually returning to Berlin's National Museums beginning in the 1990s.

Now, around 300 photographs from the second half of the nineteenth century offer a comprehensive overview of portrait photography from the Indian subcontinent. In addition to pictures by renowned photographers and studios such as Samuel Bourne, Sheperd & Robertson, A.T.W. Penn, and John Burke, works by lesser known artists are also on display. Popular and unexpectedly diverse ethnographic photography of the time stands in contrast to stylised street shots of artisans, as well as portraits of nobility, including Islamic princes and princesses, Maharajas, and clan leaders, taken in their own palaces or in artfully set studio scenes. 

One unifying aspect of many early portraits is a particularly European view - "The Colonial Eye". In the second half of the nineteenth century, in the name of science and colonialism, the land and its inhabitants were to be apprehended through observation and cataloguing, analysation and measurement. The fascination with India was especially evoked by the strange-looking indigenous peoples and the caste-system, as well as the splendour of the Indian nobility and the austere life of ascetics. 

Photo: Christopher Penn with two of his ancestor's photographs in the exhibition.

The National Media Museum held a conference in 2010 to present new research into three Niépce plates dating from c1826 from The Royal Photographic Society's Collection which is held at the museum (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/events/niepce-in-europe) The conference revealed new information about the plates and through scientific analysis by the Getty Conservation Institute began to explain the origins of the plates and how they were made.

The museum, with conservator Susie Clark and the GCI, has developed an oxygen-free display case and special lighting which will allow the plates to be shown to the public. The prototype case which is being funded by The Society, was shown to it recently.

The finished case, along with the conference proceedings, should be ready early in 2013.

Image: Philippa Wright, Curator of Photographs and conservator Susie Clark with the prototype case.   

In partnership with Bradford University and Bradford College, we are seeking to appoint a photographer, or artist working with photography as the 2012-13 Bradford Fellow in Photography.

We are looking for a mid-career photographer with experience of teaching, publishing and producing work for exhibition. The successful candidate would deliver an agreed number of lectures to the students at both Bradford College and Bradford University. They would also work with Museum staff to produce a gallery exhibition and associated events around the new or ongoing work to show in late autumn 2013. The exhibition will be part of the Ways of Looking photography festival in Bradford.

The Bradford Fellowship is a partnership between this Museum, Bradford College and Bradford University. Established in 1985, the Fellowship supports established photographers to develop their professional practice, while working with the institutional partners to enhance the cultures, practice and knowledge of photography.

The commitment of the partners to the Fellowship has resulted in significant legacies, both in allowing photographers to create important new bodies of work, and enriching the National Photography Collection through the acquisition of Fellow's work.

The Fellowship seeks to deliver the following outcomes:

1. To enable a photographer/artist to explore their personal artistry and ideas to produce a new body of work.
2. Production of an exhibition to be shown at the National Media Museum during autumn 2013. The exhibition may travel to other venues.
3. Work with students at Bradford College and University to give an insight into the artist's working practice and to encourage the development of the students own practice.
4. To enrich the Fellowship Collection held within the National Photography Collection with prints acquired from the commission.

The closing date for applications is Monday 3 September 2012. Interviews will be held on Tuesday 18 September 2012 at the National Media Museum, Bradford. Full details, including application etc, can be found here.

I have an old slide projector, probably from a school, and a couple of boxes of glass slides The slides seem to be in sets, covering 'London' ' Windsor Castle' etc, and are about 3'' square,. The quality of the black-and-white images is amazing, especially the interior scenes at Windsor Castle. However, I have no way of projecting them, so I am wondering if anybody would be interested in them.
Terry Pattison

Samuel Johnson famously said that: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” London’s remarkable history, architecture, landmarks, streets, style, cool, swagger, and stalwart residents are pictured in hundreds of compelling photographs sourced from a wide array of archives around the world. London is a vast sprawling metropolis, constantly evolving and growing, yet throughout its complex past and shifting present, the humor, unique character, and bulldog spirit of the people have stayed constant. This book salutes all those Londoners, their city, and its history. In addition to the wealth of images included in this book, many previously unpublished, London’s history is told through hundreds of quotations, lively essays, and references from key movies, books, and records.

From Victorian London to the Swinging 60s; from the Battle of Britain to Punk; from the Festival of Britain to the 2012 Olympics; from the foggy cobbled streets to the architectural masterpieces of the millennium; from rough pubs to private drinking clubs; from Royal Weddings to raves, from the charm of the East End to the wonders of the Westminster; from Chelsea girls to Hoxton hipsters; from the power to glory: in page after page of stunning photographs, reproduced big and bold like the city itself, London at last gets the photographic tribute it deserves.

Photographs by: Slim Aarons, Eve Arnold, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Bill Brandt, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Anton Corbijn, Terence Donovan, Roger Fenton, Bert Hardy, Evelyn Hofer, Frank Horvat, Tony Ray-Jones, Nadav Kander, Roger Mayne, Linda McCartney, Don McCullin, Norman Parkinson, Martin Parr, Rankin, Lord Snowdon, William Henry Fox Talbot, Juergen Teller, Mario Testino, Wolfgang Tillmans, and many, many others.

You can purchase this book through the Amazon link on the right.

If you click on the link at the right about Frederick Scott Archer you can read a fascinating story about a man who generously gave this ground breaking process free to the world. Maybe it is because I watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics but I was reminded of Tim Berners-Lee and his generosity.

Wet Collodion Process

Americas through a lens are images from The National Archive's Colonial Office's Photographic Collection and include some of the earliest known photographic depictions of Canada dating back to the 1850s. Some of the images have accompanying background information to give them context. The photographs have been uploaded to the photo-sharing website Flickr so that they can be tagged and comments and suggestions added to help improve the descriptions.

The latest online release of pictures from the Colonial Office collection follows the successful launch last year of Africa through a lens - an online showcase for the African images in the collection. The project was inspired by Project Naming, a Library and Archives Canada (LAC) initiative to help identify Inuit portrayed in its own photographic collection.

Hello, I am interested in the Irish born New Zealand photographer John Robert Hanna (c1850-1915). The “Photogram,” of May, 1894, devoted three pages to Mr. Hanna, his studio and his work, I wonder if anyone has a copy of this edition? 

I understand his photographs "were so beautiful that they were shown to the Photographic Club, and to the London and Provincial Photographic Association. The verdict was that no man in Britain was doing better all round portraiture, and Mr. Thomas Fall, the president of the Association, wrote to say that he had never seen such lovely work."

There is more information on John Robert Hanna on my website -

http://canterburyphotography.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/hanna.html

John Robert Hanna 

Observer (NZ), Volume XV, Issue 828, 6 October 1894, Page 3

Inspired by the Albert Beaney collection of 40,000 photographs of Swindon residents in the 40s, 50s and 60s, 130 young people aged between 11-16 will be using these images to create their own exhibition about Swindon’s community history. 

Funded by a £25,000 award from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Back to Black and White project is a partnership between Swindon Borough Council’s Create Studios & Swindon Museum and Art Gallery and Swindon Youth Forum. The Youth Forum members– all completing their Arts Award – are working alongside professional artist Dani Landau to create their exhibition and gain a range of new skills including photography, digital media, photograph handling and curatorial skills. Their exhibition will take place at Artsite’s Post Modern gallery on 1-7 August.

The full news report can be found here.

To get into the swing of things, Kingston Museum will be showcasing the work of their local boy, Eadweard Muybridge, who was a pioneer in capturing motion in sequence photography. The exhibition will include not only a display of his motion experiments of humans and animals carried out in 1887, but also contemporary artist David Michalek’s own take in HD. 

The Museum will also be focussing on 21st century techniques, including the use of sport biomechanics to measure and correct technique and injury rehabilitation, as well as screening a video inspired by Muybridge’s iconic motion sequence and features 300 gymnasts, dancers and athletes creating a chain of human cartwheels. It is created by Charlie Murphy and called the Kingston Big Wheel (courtesy of the Stanley Picker Gallery).

Details of the exhibition can be found here.  Go Team EM! (yes, it does sound corny ...)

Brian May will be presenting his 3D documentary 'Brief History of 3D' at the National Stereoscopic Association's 38th annual convention this weekend in California.

His talk will be based on a historical look at the attempts to make 3D mainstream, from the Victorian era up to the present day. The documentary first aired on Sky 3D in July last year and included a look at the process of authoring his book, 'A Village Lost and Found.'

Details of the event can be found here.

Photo: Copyright 3D Focus.

Hello, this Woodhorn Museum http://www.experiencewoodhorn.com/ introducing our new Facebook page about Canon Roderick Charles MacLeod, an amateur photographer who lived in Northumberland at the turn of the 20th Century.

The MacLeod collection is housed within the Northumberland Archives at Woodhorn, and this facebook page is a new way of sharing our digitised photographic collections. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canon-R-C-MacLeod/241832632582028?ref=hl

Several hundred of Canon MacLeod’s lantern slides were rescued and deposited in Northumberland Archives by George Brown of Mitford when the old vicarage was being demolished. Countless others have been lost, although some have turned up over the years in other collections. They provide a fascinating glimpse into a corner of rural Northumberland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This Facebook page will be updated throughout 2012/13 by Woodhorn Museum & Northumberland Archives. We will be posting on a different theme each month, as well as including the occasional 'wildcard' photo to keep you entertained.

If you would like to share relevant information about the photography, the MacLeod family & Mitford in general, please do so, we welcome your insights and opinions!