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Sotheby's is to offer an autograph letter from William Henry Fox Talbot, signed, in French to Antonion Bertolini, referring  to  the  latter's  Flora  Italica  and  discussing  some  specimens  he  has  collected. The letter will be sold on 10 July 2012 in London and is estimated at £4000-6000. The full catalogue entry can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/bny4b39

UPDATED: The lot sold for £11,250 including buyers premium.

The catalogue description and text is reported here:

TALBOT,  HENRY  FOX.  

AUTOGRAPH  LETTER  SIGNED,  IN  FRENCH,  TO  ANTONIO  BERTOLINI 

referring  to  the  latter's  Flora  Italica  and  discussing  some  specimens  he  has  collected,  2  pages,  4to,  Nice,  12  November  1833,  integral  address  leaf

[with:]  two  autograph  letters  signed  and  one  autograph  letter,  to  Robert  Hunt,  on  a  publication  in  the  Athenaeum  and  a  dispute  with  Dr  Woods  on  photographic  techniques,  6  pages,  8vo,  Lacock  Abbey,  23  December  1851  to  29  January  1852,  one  letter  incomplete  lacking  second  leaf;  [and:]  autograph  appointment  note  making  an  appointment  with  Dr  Buckland,  1  page,  8vo,  Angel  Hotel,  29  July;  and  with  one  later  letter

[also  with:]  Cros,  Charles.  Solution  Générale  du  Probléme  de  la  Photographie  des  Couleurs.  Paris:  Gauthier-Villars,  1869;  Essai  de  Théorie  Daguerrienne  et  Résultats  Pratiques.  Paris:  J.-B.  Gros,  1844;  A  Description  of  the  Instruments  employed  in  the  Gallery  of  Natural [also  with:]  Cros,  Charles.  Solution  Générale  du  Probléme  de  la  Photographie  des  Couleurs.  Paris:  Gauthier-Villars,  1869;  Essai  de  Théorie  Daguerrienne  et  Résultats  Pratiques.  Paris:  J.-B.  Gros,  1844;  A  Description  of  the  Instruments  employed  in  the  Gallery  of  Natural  Magic.  London:  G.H.  Davidson,  1839,  an  exhibition  catalogue  citing  the  "Ingenuity  of  M.  Daguerre  and  Mr.  H.  Fox  Talbot"  and  with  a  sonnet  in  praise  of  Fox  Talbot

LITERATURE
The Correspondence of Henry Fox Talbot (http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/project/project.html) includes a summary of the
letter to Bertolini and transcriptions of early drafts of the letters to Hunt, from Talbot's Letter Book.

‘What a blessed invention photography is!’ Queen Victoria, 20 March 1859.

Host to the late Stuart and early Hanoverian courts, as well as the childhood home of Queen Victoria, Kensington Palace will celebrate 2012 with an exhibition on Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897, as well as holding a series of adult learning workshops which includes Early Victorian Photography and Street Photography 1897 and 2012.

Of course, the one to be sold out first is the 18th Century Wine Tasting! Details can all be found in the Events section of BPH.

The  Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums have recently published on-line what is thought to be the last surviving album of Victorian criminal photographs from the Newcastle area, ranging from ragamuffin children to the elderly and infirm, of all ages.

These sepia images, to help with the identification of criminal classes and to support theories about criminal physiology, were taken at the Newcastle City Gaol and House of Correction Collection between December 1871 and December 1873. The youngest of the criminals was 11 year old, Ellen Woodman, who was caught stealing iron and given 7 days hard labour.

You can view them on their flickr account here, or there is a book published a few years ago entitled Victorian Villains, by Barry Redfern, which gives further information on the individuals who were convicted. If interested, you can purchase the book using the Amazon link on the right. 

London's excellent and little known Cinema Museum is holding a special evening event on 12 July celebrating the Hollywood movie still. Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe… It is through the eye of the stills camera that we experience and recall some of the cinema’s most memorable events and faces.

Joel W. Finler traces the origin of stills photography during the silent era and the early development of the star system, through to the rise of the giant studios in the 1930s and their eventual decline, focusing on the photographers, the stars they photographed, and key films and filmmakers. The evening will include rare and unusual stills from Finler’s own collection, not only portraits and scene stills but also production shots, behind-the-scenes photos, poster art, calendar art, photo collages and trick shots, together with images showing the stars’ private lives and special events in Hollywood. In addition there will be some fascinating insights into unfinished projects and changed film endings.

This event coincides with the publication of a lavishly illustrated new edition of Joel’s book Hollywood Movie Stills: Art and Technique in the Golden Age of the Studios, published by Titan Books; signed copies will be available.

• ”A delightful book filled with little-known facts about the evolution of movie stills and enough rare photos to keep one smiling” (American Cinematographer)
• “More than just another selection of gorgeous films stills, this offers a comprehensive survey of the studio photographer’s craft” (Premiere)
• “Unlike most photo books, Hollywood Movie Stills actually has a text worth reading, filled as it is with acute observations” (New York Magazine)

Thu 12 Jul 2012 @ 19:30 · See: http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/topics/events/

Doors open at 18.30 for a 19.30 start, and the event is expected to end at 22.30. Refreshments will be available.

Ikon, one of the UK’s leading international contemporary art galleries seeks to appoint a  dynamic and creative individual to the post of Curator. They will work with the Director to initiate and deliver an ambitious exhibition programme at the gallery and off-site. The successful candidate will have at least five years’ experience of working with contemporary visual art from around the world, have considerable experience of writing and publishing, and will be concerned at once with audience development and with the promotion of visual artists locally, nationally and internationally.
This post is offered on a full-time permanent basis.

Deadline for applications: Monday 30 July - noon
Interviews: Monday 3 September 2012

Curator  £30,345 - £33,054

Full details, including application, can be found here.

The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is a major center for the study, interpretation, presentation, and collecting of photography, with over 27,000 photographs in the collection offering a comprehensive international history of the medium from its origins in the 1840s to the present. The Museum is committed to continuing its legacy and history of achievement through the appointment of the next Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography to hold the position endowed in Bunnell's honor in 2011. The position will be filled at the rank of professional specialist or associate professional specialist.

The Museum seeks an experienced person with impeccable credentials who has the ability to formulate and advance a vision for a university museum with an historic commitment to photography as a core component of its program. Reporting to the Associate Director for Collections and Exhibitions, and in close coordination with the Director, the Curator will be responsible for:
- formulating a collecting strategy in this area and securing significant new acquisitions for the collections through both gifts and purchases, drawing on considerable purchase resources;
- regularly developing wide-ranging installations from the collections for the collections galleries, both in photography-specific gallery settings and commingled with works from other media, including the development of rich didactic materials in collaboration with the Museum's Education Department;
- organizing a range of special exhibitions ranging from ambitious international touring projects to smaller, more focused exhibitions, including project management and budget oversight for these projects;
- undertaking major object-based research and publications projects, related both to the exhibition program and to the collections;
- developing important public education programs including lectures, artist's residencies, colloquia, and symposia, in partnership with the Museum's Education Department;
- fostering collaborative relationships with other museums, with colleagues in Princeton's Department of Art & Archaeology, and with academic colleagues across the Princeton University campus;
- facilitating faculty, student, and other scholarly access to and research from the Museum's photographic holdings;
- supporting the University's teaching needs in the history of photography and occasionally teaching or co-teaching courses subject to approval by the Dean of the Faculty; and
- overseeing the care and coordinating the conservation of the Museum's photographic holdings in concert with the Museum's collections and registration staff.

Further details can be found here.

Just released information discloses that the Matthew R. Isenburg Collection of early photography has sold to the Archive of Modern Conflict (AMC) for a record $15 million, and has now been moved to its new home in Toronto, Canada where a new museum facility is being designed for its future display.  This is the most significant, and historically important, sale of photographic material of the last 50 years; a deal that was conceived and brokered by vintage photography dealer, Greg French, of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

In the quiet town of Hadlyme, Connecticut, the largest single private purchase of vintage photographs, and early photographic equipment and ephemera, was consummated with the simple shake of the hand this past April.  No paperwork, no written agreement, no lawyers present - just a handshake between like-minded people who understood the importance of keeping a historical collection together, and not splitting it up. They met for the first time at two o'clock in the afternoon, and by 2 a.m. the next morning "they had a deal," Isenburg said. "There was an instant trust between all of us."  Weeks later, papers were officially signed to legalize the deal, but it was the handshake that sealed the deal for Isenburg, and what he put his trust in.

$15 million is the largest amount ever paid for a single 19th century private photographic collection, and far surpasses the combined total of $8 million paid in 1994 and 2007 for two separate photographic collections assembled by the late, Jack Naylor, of Chestnut Hill, MA.  Even the $250,000.00 paid in 1963 by the Harry Ransom Center in Texas for Helmut Gernsheim's historically important photography collection (it contained the world's first photograph), would only translate into less than $2 million in today's dollars, although the collection is undoubtedly worth much more in today’s market.

Isenburg's collection is significant to the history of photography because it contains so many early and important daguerreotypes (the first practical photographic process), created by the earliest and best photographers in America - when photography was in its infancy in the 1840s and 1850s.  Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, 1787-1851, the inventor of the daguerreotype, announced his new process to the world on August 19, 1839 in France.

The collection also contains the largest number of early American daguerreian cameras (more than two dozen) ever assembled by anyone.  The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY has only eight American daguerreian cameras in their collection.

To characterize Isenburg's collection in a few words, it's the best of the best; an unparalleled assemblage of over 20,000 individual items, focused mainly on the early years, that together chronicle photography's humble beginnings - through not only important images and cameras, but through all the various accoutrements of the trade - also including advertisements, diaries, books, journals and all manner of photographic ephemera imaginable. Isenburg has often said, "I paid premium prices for best of breed, best in class.”

The 85-year-old Isenburg has owned numerous Ford auto dealerships in the past, whose success afforded him the opportunity to collect.  He isn't just a collector though; he's a photo historian who's always been more interested in piecing together the story behind an object or image, than he is about just owning something.  He's a photographic compendium who's spent the last fifty years seeking out history through photography.

In the third floor museum (now empty) in his home, a priceless daguerreotype would be displayed next to a tattered receipt and a handwritten letter or diary because they relate to one another and tell a compelling story.  He owned the posing chair from America's premier daguerreotypists, Southworth and Hawes of Boston, in addition to the largest collection of Southworth and Hawes full-plate daguerreotypes (over 40) in private hands.  Along with the chair, many other Southworth and Hawes items - from family photos and letters, to paintings, bills of sale, a partnership agreement, advertisements and ephemera, help to reveal the story of what it was like to be a photographer in the 1850s.

Highlights of Isenburg's vast collection include one of the earliest surviving daguerreotypes (there are only two others known) showing the US Capitol in 1846, by daguerreotypist John Plumbe Jr., along with the two earliest daguerreotypes depicting New York City.  He also owned the earliest extant, and complete, example of an American daguerreotype camera outfit - built by William H. Butler in 1841, and containing its original sensitizing and developing equipment, all housed together in a single wooden box.  His collection of California Gold Rush daguerreotypes, with related letters and ephemera, is unparalleled, and his photographic library was probably the most comprehensive in private hands.  Another unique item was Isenburg's one-of-a-kind c. 1855 exquisitely hand-carved-and-painted American eagle with a greater than eight-foot wing span which is sitting atop the carving's framed centerpiece - a full-plate outdoor daguerreotype depicting a Massachusetts military company in full dress uniforms.  The daguerreotype is surrounded by additional military-themed-carvings depicting an American flag, sword, cannon, cannon balls and a drum.

The packing and shipping of the collection took a crew of anywhere from five to nine people - five full weeks to complete over the past two months (all paid for by AMC), and a cherry picker had to be rented in order to remove the over eight-foot-wide carved American eagle and other objects from the third floor museum.

The task of unpacking, cataloging and photographing every item has begun in Toronto, and is being carried out by AMC's newly-appointed curators of the collection, Jill Offenbeck and Amanda Shear, both of Toronto. The AMC’s chief photography buyer in North America, Neil MacDonald, also from Toronto, was instrumental in convincing AMC that the Isenburg Collection was essential to their vision.  Toronto native and Daguerreian Society President Mike Robinson has been recently appointed as AMC's Director of Education and Research Programs and will oversee the organization and cataloging of the collection.

With offices in both London, England and Toronto, AMC's collection of well over three million images contains primarily vernacular photographs that tell mankind's forgotten stories through the personal photographic albums and images created and preserved by the common man; an un-bandaged reality, rarely seen, and too often discarded by ensuing generations.  Images of 20th century conflict, war, political unrest, social revolution, cultural traditions, etc. were AMC's primary focus when they began collecting in the 1990s, but that soon expanded to include 19th century images as well as manuscripts and objects.  The addition of the Isenburg Collection, adds a formidable dimension to AMC's holdings, much as the Gernsheim Collection added early photo-history to the Harry Ransom Center in Texas.

A PhD thesis examining the growth of British photographic manufacturing and retailing between 1839 and 1914 has won the Association of Business Historian's 2012 Coleman Prize for the best PhD in business history. Named in honour of the British Business Historian Donald Coleman, the prize is awarded annually to recognise excellence in new research in the field and is open internationally.

Michael Pritchard's PhD thesis was undertaken at De Montfort University between 2007 and 2010 under the supervision of Professor Roger Taylor. A revised version of the thesis will be appearing in book form. 

The Museum für Fotografie is exhibiting a collection of around 280 portraits taken in India and Sri Lanka during the second half of the 19th century, at the height of Britain’s imperial might.  The collection, which belongs to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, was thought to have been lost during the Second World War and only came back to Berlin after Germany’s reunification in 1992. 
Works include images by famous photographers such as Samuel Bourne and John Burke, as well as lesser-known artists. Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Photo: Shepherd & Robertson, Goldsmith, 1862-63

As in past years BPH is able to report the latest Association of Leading Visitor Attractions visitor numbers survey (see: http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423&year=2011). The National Media Museum, Bradford, saw visitors of 446,668 a fall of 7.6% compared to 2010.

In summary recent visitor numbers for the museum have been: 

2011 - 486,668

2010 - 526,914

2009 - 613,923

The National Museum of Science and Industry's Annual Report for 2011 reports an attendance for 2010-11 of 502,000 visitors, 19% down against 2009–10 and 25% lower than the five-year average. The Report comments: 'The reduction was mainly due to a big drop in people watching full-length IMAX films (partly because of the films available but also because there was a month-long closure of IMAX following the discovery of a leaking roof), continuing disruption in the city centre with the construction of a new city centre park and some exceptionally warm weather in the spring. However, it also brings into sharp relief the need to make improvements to the day-today programme and to accelerate the refreshing of galleries.' See: http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1012/hc12/1238/1238.pdf

The numbers for 2012 should see an improvement with the opening of the Life Online gallery and more accessible and critically acclaimed exhibitions notably In the Blink of an Eye (extended until 14 October 2012). In addition the issues cited as reasons for the decline over 2010-11 have all been resolved.

The decline in visitor numbers suggests that the new Head of museum with her senior management team will need to focus on the Bradford site as well as the new London Media Space presence which is due to open in March 2013.

A new photo exhibition on the "Orientalist" Land of Israel will include images of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Monastery of St. John in the Wilderness located south of Jerusalem taken from a book by Jerusalem's city engineer, Ermete Pierotti, who lived in Ottoman Palestine between 1854 and 1861.

The photos in the book, however, are more than historical treasures; they were also evidence in the first-ever case of copyright infringement in the Holy Land, when Pierotti, published them and apparently falsely claimed ownership of them. This is because Dr. Nirit Shalev-Khalifa, a researcher at Yad Ben Tzvi who is studying the manuscript, believes they were the work of Mendel Diness, who is known as the first professional photographer in Israel to capture images in natural daylight, and not Pierotti.

Diness, a Jewish watchmaker of Russian origin who settled in Jerusalem, was converted to Christianity by the British consul in Jerusalem, James Finn. Finn's wife, Elizabeth, was one of the pioneers of photography in the Holy Land, and she was apparently the one who introduced Diness to photography. Elizabeth Finn had photography equipment delivered from London, and was assisted by the Scottish photographer James Graham. Diness was Graham's assistant, and according to one theory he was the first to learn photography in the Holy Land, thus earning him the title of the country's first professional photographer.

Pierotti's manuscript will be on display as part of the "Jerusalem Days" conference being conducted at Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi in Jerusalem this week. The full news article can be found here.

Olympics Through Media traces the evolution of the modern Olympics through the development of photography and motion pictures from the eighteenth century to today has opened in Doha. The exhibition, organised to coincide with the 30th Olympiad in London, and is a collaboration between the Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum and the Qatar Museums Authority’s Media Collections department.

Around 200 exhibits including a series of rare archive documentaries and films of the Olympic Games since 1896 as well as a collection of media equipment used in those days to capture sporting events and activities during Olympics, are being featured in the exhibition. The exhibition also include historical Olympic objects, photographs and photographic equipment and other visual imagery to place sports and media in a broader context.

All of the historical artifacts and visual materials being showcased at the exhibition were sourced from the collection of the Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum as well as the QMA’s media collection.

Despite that both the modern Olympic Games and motion pictures emerged in 1896, the synergy between the Olympic games and the media did not grow into worldwide phenomena it is today until the advent of television. The Olympic Through Media exhibition showcases milestones of co-evolution of Olympics and media such as the first Olympic Games that were broadcast on coloured television in Mexico City in 1968 and the first Olympic Games that utilised the Internet in Atlanta 1996.

Major exhibits being featured include one of the last 10 surviving first motion picture machine Kinetoscope invented by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and Thomas Alva Edison and manufactured by Edison Manufacturing Company, US in 1894. The machine numbered 141 was one of the 50 such machines shipped to London in September 1894 and was used to capture the first and oldest motion picture made in 1894, which lasted only 20 seconds.

Among other exhibits are: Cinematographe – the first cinema/movie theatre through a projector by Auguste and Louis Lumiere; early motion picture projector; first television set from 1930, world’s first TV journal (1928); Leica Rifle camera outfit – rangefinder camera; first polaroid camera; valve table radion (1952); miniature speed graphic (1946).

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum director Dr Christian Wacker described the exhibition as first of its kind in the world, which is bringing stories from the two fields of media and sports together. “The exhibition tells new storyline never been told before and the information they contain can’t be found elsewhere as the materials are researched and developed by the team in Qatar,” he noted.

The exhibition will open daily before and after the month of Ramadan from 9am-12pm and 5pm -10pm. 
On Fridays timings are from 7pm-12am. During Ramadan timings are 9am to 12pm and 7pm to 12 am from Saturday to Thursday and from 7 pm to 12 am on Friday.  

Admission to the exhibition held at QMA Gallery, Building 10, Katara Cultural Village and educational activities is free

Jillian Edelstein in conversation with Sue Steward

17 July  6:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Foto8

£8

PhotoVoice and Foto8 are offering you a rare insight into the thoughts and motivations behind the work and methodologies of an acclaimed award winning press and documentary photographer.

Regarded as one of the foremost documentary photographers of our time, Jillian is perhaps best known for her long term project documenting South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission resulting in the acclaimed book Truth and Lies.

She is currently working on the publication of her next book Here & There: An Expedition of Sorts which is due out in 2013.

Edelstein's latest body of work, commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery  - The Road to 2012 - is from a three-year collaboration with BT celebrating those making the Olympics happen. It includes 17 portraits which will be exhibited from 19th July 2012.

Jillian will be discussing her editorial and commercial photography with acclaimed photography reviewer and critic for London’s Evening Standard newspaper, Sue Steward. Steward often appears as an arts critic on the BBC Radio 2 Claudia Winkelman show, and is an occasional Arts commentator on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Front Row, and BBC World Service.

Click here for more information

To ensure a place at this exclusive evening engagement book your tickets now

The world's largest and most comprehensive film poster archive needs a new home. Please see: www.dwightclevelandposterarchive.com

Best suited for a museum or library hoping to attract an entirely new audience who may never have visited before. Movies are loved the world over and these posters are sure to create a buzz.

" This rather rare children's book of poetry and lithographic illustrations relating to various kinds of employment - some quite unusual - was first published in Fleet St in London in 1900"

This is an exciting opportunity for a talented Press Officer, with proven contacts from within the arts media, to join the Press team in one of the world's most prestigious museums, the Science Museum in London. Our enthusiastic and committed Press team is constantly devising new, innovative ways to promote the Museum, its exhibitions and programmes. We create campaigns that not only win awards, but attract visitors and reflect the cutting-edge nature of this high-profile national institution.

You will develop and implement an integrated communications campaign for Media Space, an iconic new space in the Science Museum opening in spring 2013. Showcasing the world leading collection of the National Media Museum and the innovative Science Museum contemporary arts programme, the space includes a temporary exhibition space which will hold a charged offer as well as a constantly changing free offer.

In addition to your extensive contacts, you will bring substantial experience working within an arts-focused cultural environment. You must also be able to demonstrate experience managing the reputation of an organisation.

You’ll be able use your creativity and enthusiasm to the full - researching, structuring and managing Press and PR campaigns, building and maintaining strong relationships with the media, and proactively seeking opportunities to increase on and off line media coverage of the Museum’s activities. With proven journalism, PR or communications experience, you’ve got the writing, communication, planning, persuasion and “selling in” skills necessary to get first-rate PR campaigns up and running.

Evening and weekend work will occasionally be required as part of your core hours.

We offer excellent benefits. These include 25 days’ annual leave pro rata, BUPA dental and medical cover and a generous company pension scheme.

This role will be offered on a two-year fixed-term contract.
Closes Midnight 9th July

PLEASE NOTE: Interviews will be conducted on 17th July and you must be available to attend if shortlisted.Application Instructions:For the full job description and to apply, please visit www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/jobs

BPH has learnt that a major private collection of early photography - perhaps the world's best - is to be transferred to an institution. After briefly blogging this earlier today BPH was asked to remove the posting until the official announcement is made. Needless to say it is good news in that such a major collection will be preserved and made accessible. The collection owner describes the venue as "a wonderful home".

Watch this space!  

The 'world first photograph' will be loaned, along with 119 other images and photography-related items from the Harry Ransom Center’s Gernsheim collection, to the Reiss Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany, for the exhibition The Birth of Photography-Highlights of the Helmut Gernsheim Collection. The exhibition will run from September 9 through January 6, 2013.

The First Photograph has been removed from display at the Ransom Center to be prepared for its departure in July. The First Photograph will be back on display at the Ransom Center in February 2013.

The First Photograph was acquired by the Ransom Center as part of the Gernsheim collection from Helmut and Alison Gernsheim in 1963. Taken in 1826 or 1827, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras depicts the view from an upstairs window at Niépce’s estate, Le Gras, which is in the Burgundy region of France. Niépce’s photograph represents the foundation of today’s photography, film, and other media arts.

The First Photograph forms the cornerstone of Helmut Gernsheim’s photographic collection, which was the largest in the world when the Ransom Center acquired it in 1963. The Gernsheim collection is one of the seminal collections in the United States of the history of photography and contains an unparalleled range of more than 35,000 images. Its encyclopedic scope—as well as the expertise with which the Gernsheims assembled the collection — makes the Gernsheim collection one of the world’s premier sources for the study and appreciation of photography

In 2002, the Forum International Photographie at the Reiss Engelhorn Museum acquired Gernsheim’s later collection of contemporary photography, along with his own photographs and archive. For the first time in half a century, major portions of both Gernsheim collections are being reunited: the historical material housed in the Ransom Center and the contemporary collection in the Forum International Photographie at the Reiss Engelhorn Museum.

While the First Photograph is on loan, the photographic print View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826, 2009 by Adam Schreiber will occupy the display in the Ransom Center’s lobby. The photograph depicts the Niepce plate in situ in the museum display, as photographed by Schreiber in 2009. Schreiber is a member of the Lakes Were Rivers artist collective, a group of artists who work primarily in photography and video. In summer 2013, the Ransom Center will host an exhibition in which members of the collective will display their original works paired with Ransom Center collection material that inspired them.

The European Centre for Photographic Research (eCPR), Newport, is offering two PhD studentships in conjunction with other partners: 

Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru-National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, is offering one PhD studentship full-time maintenance grant of £13,590 plus tuition fees from September 2012 for up to 3 years. The studentship is designed to support research undertaken within the photographic collections of the Library in relation to eCPR’s research strands.

The Library has extensive photographic holdings particular to the social documentary of Wales ranging from pioneering experiments in the medium during the 1840s and 50s, to date. It is expected that the successful candidate’s research will contribute to the interpretation, cataloguing and digitisation of the Library's extensive collections. Candidates for the studentship should have strong interests in the multiple currency of photographs within libraries and have already undertaken work in museums, libraries or archives at post-graduate level. An interest in either: photographic histories and wider visual cultures of Wales, curating, photography and the book, digitisation, and the representation of nationhood would be advantageous.

Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales offers one 3-year full-time PhD studentship of £13,590 per year, plus tuition fees, from September 2012. The project will link key strands within eCPR’s research expertise to the historical photographic collections of the Museum. With the support of a major gift from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Museum has recently begun a significant programme of research, digitisation and public dissemination centred on a wealth of hitherto unresearched historic photographic holdings. The successful candidate’s research will contribute to the interpretation, cataloguing and digitisation of this diverse and unique resource.

Candidates for the studentship should have strong interests in the evolving and shifting status of photographs within museums as art, artefact and document, and experience of postgraduate-level work in museums or archives. An interest in either: photographic histories and wider visual cultures of Wales, curating, photography and The Museum, digitisation, and the representation of nationhood would be advantageous.

Further details of eCPR’s research activity can be found here: www.newport.ac.uk/research/ResearchGroups/ecpr
The successful candidates will be expected to submit a completed PhD by the end of the award period in September
2015. There will be need for extensive work on site in both the Library and the Museum and to participate in eCPR’s research community. A willingness to engage with the Welsh language would also be welcome.

The doctoral supervisory team will include: Russell Roberts (russell.roberts@newport.ac.uk), Mark Durden and Ian Walker.

Application deadline: extended to 31 July 2012

Applications should be in the form of a single document (Word or PDF) including:
- CV
- Statement of proposed research (max 1,000 words)
- Personal statement on how the proposed research relates to your previous experience and
interests (max 500 words)
Please note only shortlisted candidates will be notified and interviews are expected to take place in
July
Applications should be sent via email to: Joan Fothergill – joan.fothergill@newport.ac.uk

English Heritage has launched a four year project aimed at conserving 95,000 of the oldest and most valuable photographs in the Aerofilms collection, those dating from 1919 to 1953.  Once conserved, they’ll be scanned into digital format and made available online for everyone to see.

The new Britain from Above website was launched in June 2012 with thousands of images online. The website will give users the opportunity to share and record  memories of the places shown and to help English Heritage identify some of the locations and buildings.

The project will finish at the end of 2014.

See: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/archives-and-collections/nmr/archives/photographs/aerofilms/ and http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/