Blogs

A new book simply titled Photographers was launched last night in London. Written by BPH's Michael Pritchard's it looks at photographers and their cameras. The photographers featured include well-known names from Picture Post and Life magazines, press photographers and names such as Cartier-Bresson, Bailey, Donovan, Eistenstaedt, Burrows and many others. The Leica, Nikon, Speed Graphic cameras are amongst those shown.

The book is published by Reel Art Press and is available at a pre-publication price of £30. See: http://www.reelartpress.com/catalog/edition/47/photographers

Image: Michael Pritchard, left, with publisher Tony Nourmand. 

London auction house Bonhams has closed its London Photographs Department as part of a wider reorganisation. In future photographs will be handled by the Book department. The department was established in 2009 under the leadership of Jocelyn Phillips and it had held a number of successful sales, establishing Bonhams as an leading place to sell photography in the United Kingdom. Prior to 2009 photography had been sold across multiple departments.

Christie's and Sotheby's have realigned their own departments over recent years to concentrate on specific areas of the market such as fashion and contemporary photography. Sotheby's moved its department from London to Paris.

Prior to joining Bonhams Phillips spent over five years at Sotheby’s, working on single owner sales of the collections of Dr William K Ehrenfeld and Marie-Thérèse & Andre Jammes. At Bonhams she had held a selling exhibition of David Bailey's photographs of the 1960s as well as regular photograph auctions. Phillips is the author of Collect Contemporary Photography, published in 2012 by Thames and Hudson. .

Australian photos sent to c19th world fairs which stayed in European/American collections. I am researching an exhibition on the history of the photograph in Australia 1840s - now, for 2015. Most of the photographs Australia sent to world fairs in the 19th c stayed overseas. We are trying to track these down.

If anyone has 19th century Australian photos in their collection please do get in touch on my work email judy.annear@ag.nsw.gov.au

Best wishes and I hope to hear from you

Judy

It is with great sadness that I inform the community of the death of Seán MacKenna, a photographer and historian whose work with historic processes made a major contribution to the understanding of the field. 

Originally an archaeological conservator at the Museum of London, Seán was regarded as the first person in the UK to actively use the wet-plate collodion process when he first started making ambrotypes and negatives some 15 years ago.

His knowledge and enthusiasm for early photography are reflected in the many years he spent as an American Civil War re-enactor and photographer, learning from contemporary US practitioners, original source material, and always striving for the utmost in authenticity.

Seán was still building his own cameras right up until his passing, and his knowledge of Dallmeyer lenses in particular made him an acknowledged expert within the community. He was known for his generous nature, and for his energy, passion and enthusiasm in passing on the knowledge to those starting out with historical processes. Thoughts are with his family at this time.

The Photographers' Gallery is looking for a new Head of Individual Giving. For more information on the role and how to apply, visit http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/vacancies.

Publishers are invited to submit up to ten of books published in 2012 for the Best Photography Book and the Best Moving Image Book categories of the 2013 Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards. The author/s of the winning book in each category will receive a cash prize of £5,000. The initial submissions deadline is 5^th December 2012.

Books on photography or the moving image (including film, video or television, digital imaging and animation) published between 1 January and 31 December 2012 may be eligible for the 2013 awards. Please refer to the rules and conditions attached for further details. 

To be considered, one copy of each of your submissions must be mailed together with the attached entry form to me here at the World Photography Organization, 9 Manchester Square, W1U 3PL, with a deadline of Wednesday 5^th December 2012.

Kraszna-Krausz Foundation chairman Michael G. Wilson, renowned film producer, photography collector and founder of Wilson Centre for Photography, is delighted to announce that the Book Awards will, for the third year, be presented at the 25^th April 2012 Sony World Photography Awards. 

For further information visit the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and World Photography Organization websites:

http://www.kraszna-krausz.org.uk

http://www.worldphoto.org

The National Media Museum (NMeM) in Bradford is undertaking a three week consultation as it launches a spending review as part of a wider restructure designed to cut running costs after visitors numbers halved in 10 years (see http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/2680769:BlogPost:55593).The review aims to bring down the running costs while also looking at ways to increase visitor numbers through improved public exhibitions, events and cinema programme. There will be job losses amongst staff, including curatorial and collection support roles, and a number of staff are having to apply for a smaller number of roles. 

Heather Mayfield, deputy director of the Science Museum Group - to which the NMeM belongs - announced a 'back to basics' review to 'reconnect the museum to its audiences'. She added: 'We recognise that this is an extremely difficult time for staff and will ensure that consultation will be conducted with the utmost consideration for any staff member affected.'

In a statement, the museum added: 'Visitor numbers have seen a decline from a peak of almost one million in 2001 to 500,000 in 2011 - although this decline has been stabilised over the past 12 months with the opening of the new Life Online gallery and an improved family offer at holiday periods. 'The review aims to deliver an improved public exhibition, events and cinema programme, which appeals more to audiences locally and nationally, supports its status as a national museum and increases access to its world famous collections of film, photography and television.'

A recent review carried out by the museum’s parent organisation, the Science Museum Group, found that average costs per visitor at the National Media Museum were 30% more than at the Science Museum in London, the National Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the National Railway Museum in York.  

The museum has been based in Bradford since opening in 1983 as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. Despite reports of an 'axe' hanging over the museum the review may represent an attempt to take it back to a focus on its world-class collections under its new Head Jo Quinton-Tulloch as it addresses the relationship between Bradford and the London-based Media Space. Sadly, it seems that job losses amongst curatorial staff will make it far more difficult to realise the review outcomes which will inevitably require better curatorial support.

Update2: A report in Amateur Photographer today (see: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/photo-news/539224/media-space-project-at-heart-of-cash-strapped-nmm) quotes a museum spokesperson as saying that Media Space remains at the heart of the museum's strategy to open up the Collections despite the review.

As the full funding for Media Space has not been secured this suggests that some of the savings made in Bradford through cutting staff and services will be used to underwrite Media Space's future costs. 

A member writes...Mr Paul Bucherer-Dietschi harbours a rare collection of historical images of Afghanistan, among them a large collection of images created by the Royal Engineers in the Afghan wars. I was fortunate to do approx. 1 year's voluntary work at the Swiss Afghanistan Institute to assist in transcribing English letters of the Royal Engineer photographers and artists and assessing the photographic material. This collection also includes a wonderful set of albums called the "souvenir d'Afghanistan". The online collection can be found here: http://www.phototheca-afghanica.ch/index.php?id=33&no_cache=1

Jerusalem, October 19, 2012 – The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, has awarded John Jacob with the second Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography. Selected from over 50 proposals from candidates in fifteen countries by a jury of leaders in the field, Jacob will receive $45,000 to support his original theoretical project “Reliquum: That Which Remains,” which will investigate the lingering material presence of the past throughout the history of photography and which he then plans to develop into a publication. Created in partnership with the Israel Museum, the biannual Shpilman Prize aims to catalyze and support international research projects exploring theoretical and practical issues in photography. Jacob was nominated by Dr. Monika Faber, Director of the Photoinstitut Bonartes in Vienna, Austria.

The Shpilman Prize Committee, which selected Jacob as this year’s Shpilman recipient, was comprised of a jury of international experts in the field of photography, including:

• Nissan N. Perez (Chair), Horace and Goldsmith Senior Curator, Noel and Harriette Levine Department of Photography, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
• Prof. Dana Arieli-Horowitz, Dean of the Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel
• Prof. Hanan Laskin, Founder of the Photography Department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and academic advisor to art schools and cultural institutions in Israel, Tel Aviv, Israel
• Prof. Dr. Bodo von Dewitz, Deputy Director, Curator, Department of Photography, Museum Ludwig, Köln, Germany
• Anne Wilkes Tucker, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

The members of the jury also awarded honorable mentions to two runners-ups—British artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, and Italian scholar Dr. Katia Mazzucco—whose proposals the jury deemed of special relevance to current artistic and theoretical research.

About the winner

John Jacob (b. 1957) began his career as an artist and freelance curator, working mostly in Eastern Europe and the FSU. In 1992, he was appointed director of exhibitions at Boston University and a year later, executive director of the Photographic Resource Center. From 2001 to 2003, Jacob worked as an adjunct professor of fine arts at the College of the Atlantic, Bar Arbor, Maine. In 2003, he was a founding director of the Inge Morath Foundation in New York City. In 2011, he joined the Magnum Foundation as director of Legacy Programs, developing projects and partnerships related to Magnum's estate members. Jacob works as a consultant to museums, archives, and artists' estates worldwide and has contributed to a number of books and other publications.

John Jacob summarized his prize-winning theoretical research project as an exploration of photography’s performative qualities, using Roland Barthes’s theories of photography as a framework. Jacob will pay particular attention to vernacular images, including spirit photographs, tintype portraits, and found pictures.

David Bruce writing in the Scottish Society for the History of Photography's (SSHoP) newsletter SSHoP Talk reports that the ambition of building a dedicated centre for Scottish photography at the former Royal High School on the Calton Hill in Edinburgh was not likely to be realised and the vehicle to do it, Hill Adamson Ltd, has been wound up.

The project proved to be beyond reach, financially, and a subsequent attempt to create a network of interested galleries and local institutions failed to meet Creative Scotland’s approval. David discusses the project and what it has achieved as well a potential beacon for the future. Despite the failure of the Calton Hill project Scottish photography both old and new is well and truly on the map.  

SSHoP can be found here: http://sshop.org.uk/

Read more of the history of the SNPC here.

The National Gallery has a number of events around its Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present exhibition which runs from 31 October 2012 - 20 January 2013.

• 27 October there is a colloquium in the exhibition space in the Sainsbury Wing on Level -2. Numbers are very limited and by invitation only.    
• 1 November, Hope Kingsley, co-curator, will give a free lunchtime lecture in the Sainsbury Wing lecture theatre: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/calendar/lunchtime-talk-1-november-2012
• 9 November Chris Riopelle and Hope Kingsley will be 'in conversation' 
• 14 November at the Courtauld is a free research seminar. This is not bookable so arrival early to secure a place. http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/events/2012/autumn/nov14_HistPhoto.shtml
• There will also be artist's talks and workshops on other dates 

Full details are available below and further events will be added throughout the exhibition's run.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/seduced-by-art-photography-past-and-present/*/tab/2 

I have attached an article on William England I wrote for the current issue of “Stereo World” magazine. Please have a look at it –  maybe you can help answer some questions.

Article reproduced by kind permission of http://www.stereoworld.org/

Thanks and best regards

Gerlind

Stereo%20World_Wm%20England.pdf

Expanded Photographies is a two-day symposium exploring ideas of photographic technology, notions of 'expanded' practice and rethinking photography within this context. It takes place on 25-26 October at Southampton Solent University. Amongst the speakers is Charlotte Cotton. See: http://www.expandedphotographies.com

Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales and the European Centre for Photographic Research (eCPR), University of Wales, Newport are pleased to announce a series of free lectures reflecting on photography and the Museum. To launch the series, leading Spanish artist Joan Fontcuberta, reflects on his edited anthology ‘Photography - Crisis in History’ of 2002 on 17 October 2012. The book explored the significant challenges of producing histories or archaeologies of photography. For this lecture he will offer a fresh perspective - 10 years on - of these complex relationships in a new age outlined by the internet and digital culture.

With nearly four decades of dedication to photography, Fontcuberta has developed artistic and theoretical work that focuses on conflicts between nature, technology, photography and truth. The lecture series accompanies a major project being undertaken by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections – a project made possible through a major gift from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. 

In partnership with the eCPR, at University of Wales Newport, the lecture series will reflect the exciting work that the Museum is undertaking from 2012 to 2015.

A full programme of forthcoming lectures will be available shortly.

For further partner details visit:
http://www.newport.ac.uk/research/ResearchGroups/ecpr/Pages/eCPR.aspx
http://www.museumwales.ac.uk

Doors to the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre open from 5.15
The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited.
To reserve your place, please email: Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk

Photography is an art form of modern times, but it also arises from artistic traditions that long predate its advent. The new National Gallery exhibition, Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present, is a three-way project which argues that historical art was an engine for early photographic invention, and that both those precedents inspire today’s photography.

This exhibition takes a different tack to surveys of well-known relationships between fine art and photography. This is not a review of photography’s many ruptures with the past, nor does it inventory the coincidences with contemporaneous art, whether Pre-Raphaelite, impressionist, or surrealist. Photography’s debt to historical art is more than imitation or homage; historicism validates new art in the conventional terms of the old. Seduced by Art aims to develop an artistic dialogue between past and present, and this seminar will address that axis with an introduction to the exhibition.

Details can be found here.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Modernism and Modernity - The circle of photographers Gustave Le Gray (1850-1860) - details of which can be found here.

The photograph was just ten years ago, when a generation of men and women under the umbrella of Gustave Le Gray, painter, chemist, "photographiste" inventor sets a new artistic language in complete break with the traditions inherited from Renaissance.

Accommodated in a large house phalanstery limits of Paris by a benevolent master, these practitioners of the new art lovers from the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie easy for most, design instinct irrevocable identity of the new medium. As in the construction of images in the treatment of the subject, their recognizable style allows the concept of school. In this period so fruitful beginnings of the Second Empire (1850-1860), well before the daring celebrated impressionism, photographers circle Le Gray will foreshadow the revolutionary vision of the next century.

They shed new light on the works of Henri Secq, Charles Adrien Tournachon or Negro, Anne and Marc Mondenard Pagneux, with access to public and private collections of the most prestigious, reveal a body recently discovered unpublished authors: the revelation of the production and Count Alphonse Delaunay Du Manoir disrupts long fixed hierarchy. Linking parts and unknown masterpieces found in 193 events can be held about one argued. A directory of authors, due to Vincent Rouby, brings an amount of new information that will identify future appearances ...

The authors, historians and critics of the photograph "primitive" by their texts thematic profiles, engage in uninhibited reading the origins of photography.

Photographers celebrates the truly innovative men and women behind the camera; trailblazers in their field, who captured and immortalised our world.

This definitive edition shows rarely seen photographs of some of twentieth-century photography’s greatest names. From Henri Cartier-Bresson and Weegee, to David Bailey and Richard Avedon by way of the men and women ofLife and Picture Post magazines as well as anonymous pressmen, they are all shown at work with their camera. Photographers shows photographers with their celebrity subjects, who range from the best-known Hollywood stars to players of sport, musicians and politicians. It also shows some of those same celebrities turning the camera back on to the photographer.

Photographers shows off the classic cameras used by the press, photojournalists and fashion photographers. The Leica, the Nikon, the Pentax, the Rolleiflex and Speed Graphic are among the cameras shown in use. A section on wartime photographs shows aerial cameras in action.

Amongst the photographers shown are: Antony Armstrong-Jones, Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Terence Donovan, Philippe Halsman, Bert Hardy, Annie Leibovitz, Tony Ray-Jones and Weegee. Stars include Sean Connery, Sammy Davis Jr, David Hemmings, Audrey Hepburn, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Peter Sellers, Terence Stamp, James Stewart, Robert Vaughn and John Wayne; and subjects such as the Beatles, Christine Keeler, Bobby and John F Kennedy, and shots on film sets.

An introductory essay by one of the world’s leading photographic specialists, Michael Pritchard, sets the photographers and their cameras within a wider context of the rapid growth in demand for photographs of celebrities from the 1890s and the development of celebrity culture associated with the rise of the movies from the 1920s.

Produced in association with Getty Images, one of the world’s leading collections of photography, Photographers reproduces each of the images to the highest standards supported by detailed captions.  You can pick up a copy at a special pre-launch price of £30, instead of £45, at the publisher's website here.

Media Space's Gala Opening has been put back to June - on a day yet to be confirmed - according to information published by the Science Museum for its Patrons. The brochure notes: 

Media Space gala opening
Date to be confirmed
Join us for the gala opening of our new flagship gallery. Using the unrivalled collections of the National Media Museum, Media Space will present photographers’ and artists’ perspectives on science, technology, photography and visual media through a rich programme of exhibitions and events.

This represents a change from the previously published March or 'Spring' opening previously publicised.

BPH exclusively published the first photograph of Media Space recently (http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/michael-wilson-honoured-and-media-space-revealed) 

In 1889, upon returning from a trip home and after finishing his term working for his brother-in-law in Lucknow, Bremner set up on his own in Karachi. Over the years he based himself in studios from Karachi to Lahore during the winter, moving to mountainous towns such as Simla during the stifling summers.

Like many commercial photographers in India he relied on portraiture to keep his business operating on a day-to-day basis but he still found time to complete personal projects. In 1900, he produced a collection of photographs called ‘Baluchistan Illustrated’, showing the diversity of the landscape and local customs. Several of his photographs depict apparently everyday scenes, although on closer inspection many are artfully arranged compositions.

Bremner produced several photographs of Indian artisans at work which hint at the abundance of material wealth that placed India at the heart of Britain’s colonial economy. Such images satisfied the huge interest in the subcontinent that had been fuelled by the International Exhibitions of London (1886) and Glasgow (1888). Displaying a rich selection of art wares, fabrics, carpeting, carved furniture and curiosities, these major events catered to the European consumer’s conception of India. The 1888 Exhibition, which included demonstrations by native craftsmen, presented Victorian Glaswegians with the opportunity to observe at close quarters some of the more ‘exotic’ subjects of their Empire.

Throughout his travels Bremner was struck by the expanse of the Indian landscape. His photographs often used the familiar European visual language of the Picturesque, nowhere more so than in Kashmir. Travelling there in 1896, he was following in the footsteps of poets, artists and early photographers. Like countless others before him he compared the scenery to that of Switzerland, writing: ‘Switzerland is without the charm of oriental life, the quaint manners and customs of the people . . . which all add to the attractions of a trip to the Valley of Kashmir’.

Details of the exhibition can be found here. On 8th November, Sheila Asante, Migration Stories Curator, gives an insight into this photographic display which explores the work of Bremner and his forty years working on the Indian subcontinent.

Since 1978 the History and Archives department of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) has given an award that recognises scientific research into the history and theory of photography. A call for the 2012 award has been made.  

The Erich Stenger Award was initially aimed exclusively at published books, it was transformed into an advancement award in 1981.

 Its present reorientation as the DGPh Research Award for the History of Photography emphasizes the award’s international, broadly-based orientation to all elements of the photographic. Besides traditional history and theory of photography, topical areas are thereby also addressed that deal with photography’s societal significance and the traces that it has left behind, beyond its own object, in societal life.

The award is aimed at researchers from all fields of the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences whose scientific work represents an autonomous, innovative, and original contribution to these areas.

Applications and manuscripts for the DGPh Research Award for the History of Photography may be submitted in either English or German. It is possible to divide the award into two halves. Allocation will be the decision of an expert jury, whose decision will be published. The jury may hand the award to one applicant or to two applicants in equal parts. The jury’s decision will be final and binding.

The award is worth a total of 3,000 Euro and will be handed over at a public ceremony.

Required submissions:

• a completed manuscript in paper form () and in electronic file form (pdf). 
• The final date for submissions is 1 December 2012 (date of postmark). Recipient’s address is: Geschäftsstelle der DGPh (Overstolzenhaus, Rheingasse 8-12, D-50676 Cologne, dgph@dgph.de).

To be enclosed with the application:

• An abstract of the submitted work (approx. 3,500 keystrokes), including information regarding the status of the manuscript (dissertation, research project – funded or not funded), essay (accepted in specialist magazine or not accepted); is there already a publisher for this manuscript (target publication date); has publication of the manuscript already been funded by another body?
• A Curriculum Vitae (résumé)
• A list of publications

More information about the German Photographic Society: www.dgph.de