Blogs

Join Photoworks, the University of Portsmouth and Pompey Darkroom at this one-day event reflecting on the role of archives in photographic practice. The day features keynote presentations from artists Sunil Gupta and Julian Germain (also leading workshops), talks from artists and curators including Portsmouth based Maya Brasington, Patti-Gaal Holmes, Evangelia Hagikalfa as well as Amin Yousefi (Photoworks), Dana Ariel and Vera Hadzhiyska (University of Portsmouth).

Drinks refreshments provided, lunch available to purchase on site/nearby.

The event includes workshops, a social gathering and Photobook space (hosted by Pompey Darkroom) presenting a range of photobooks that connect with archives, and access to the exhibition The Bears by Alejandra Carles-Tolra.

Details and programme: https://photoworks.org.uk/whats-on/photography-x-archives/

Image courtesy of the artist and Hales Gallery Materia Gallery-Stephen Bulger Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery. © Sunil Gupta.

Birmingham Colmore is seeking to appoint an outstanding visual artist for a paid, two-dimensional commission to create a design for a new public artwork. The artwork will use visual storytelling to communicate the contribution of early photographer George Shaw (1818–1904) to the development of photography in Birmingham.

Commission Fees:

• A small number of shortlisted artists will be paid £500 to develop a design that will be shared with a panel of experts and a public vote.
• The final selected artist will receive £3,000 to work up their design to the production stage, collaborating with the project curator and expert glass manufacturers.

George Shaw was a patent agent, chemist, photographer, and artist who contributed to civic life in nineteenth-century Birmingham. He was an expert in electrometallurgy, worked closely with manufacturers and industrialists, and shared technological expertise through public lectures and publications.

Coming from a family background in glass manufacture, Shaw advised inventors, created artworks in the landscape, and produced early daguerreotype photographs. He served as a juror for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and International Exhibition of 1862, vice-president of the Mechanics Institution, and Professor of Chemistry at Queens College on Paradise Street, Birmingham.

See more about the George Shaw project here.

The Commission Brief

The successful artist will create a design that reflects elements of George Shaw’s story. The design should be sympathetic to the heritage environment in which it will be installed. Please see the enclosed inspiration document for guidance.

We encourage a diverse range of applicants and are actively seeking applications from a wide range of individuals to reflect the diversity of our city.

Expression of Interest Requirements

Expressions of interest should include:

• An outline of your approach to the brief and sources of inspiration (300 words or a 3–5 minute video or audio recording – please contact Felicity Blades if you wish to submit your EOI in a different format).
• Images of previous artworks or rough sketched drawings that are relevant to the commission.
• A brief CV / bio.
• Links to view previous works or an online portfolio (website, Instagram, or other social channel).

We will hold an in-person workshop as an opportunity to ask any questions in a face-to-face environment. This will run on Wednesday 29 April at the BMI on Margaret Street between 12.30 – 1.30pm. Entry is open to anyone wanting to submit for this open call and free to attend.

Resources

• Inspiration Document PDF – download here.
• FAQ PDF: A downloadable document with further information about the commission and submission process will be available here.

The project team is Matthew Bott - Project manager; Dr Jo Gane - Researcher and curator; and elicity Blades - Marketing

Details: https://colmorelife.co.uk/george-shaw-open-call/

Image: Daguerreotype photograph by George Shaw, Francis Marrian, Die Sinker and Electroplater. c. 1844. Private collection.

Step by Step (1982–1989), is a study of girls and their mothers at a dancing school in North Shields, in the North East of England, and their later lives after leaving the school. First published in 1989 and long out of print, this new edition of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's classic book has been extensively revised by Sirkka. It will be printed in tritone to ensure the highest quality of the images in comparison to the original book.

Sirkka followed the lives of the dancing daughters and their dancing mothers over a six-year period, seeing how their dreams and their dancing came to sustain them in their tougher personal realities. In Step by Step their urban environments, which accompany their insightful and witty narratives along with their growing awareness of the challenges they face as women, stalk them with their own messages.

The publisher Dewi Lewis is crowdfunding £10,000 to ensure the publication of the book. 

Born in Finland, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen came to study filmmaking in London and became a founder member of Amber Film & Photography Collective, based since 1969 in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. Sirkka’s seminal documentation of Byker, the close-knit community of Newcastle upon Tyne that was her home for seven years while destined for wholesale redevelopment led to national recognition as a key photographic and filmic account of a rich working class culture on the eve of its destruction. Her other long term projects, developed as exhibitions, books, and/or films, include Step by Step/Keeping Time, Writing in the Sand, My Finnish Roots/Letters to Katja, the Coal Coast/Song For Billy, Byker Revisited/Today I'm With You and Still Here; Byker and The Writing in the Sand winning numerous awards at international film festivals. Already widely exhibited nationally and internationally, in 1980 her Byker exhibition was the first photographic exhibition from the UK to be taken to China by The British Council after the Cultural Revolution. In 2011 Sirkka’s photography and Amber’s films were inscribed in the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register as being of outstanding national value and importance to the United Kingdom. 

Details and background the publication here.

Following a call for new trustees made in November 2025 the Foundation has announced that Philip Prodger and David Tudor have been appointed effective from 7 March. The appointment process was delayed by Martin Parr's death on 6December.  The new trustees join Susie Parr, Ellen Parr, Fiona Parker, Song Tae Chong, Jenny Ricketts and Aaron Schuman. Susie Parr commented: '“We are confident that the Trustees will work closely with the MPF staff, who are so knowledgeable about Martin’s own work, his ambitions for the foundation and the day to day running of the organisation.” 

Philip Prodger is best known in the UK as the fomer head of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. He is a curator, author, and art historian, currently Executive Director of the non-profit Curatorial Exhibitions in Los Angeles.  David Tudor is a leading expert in ocean management with over three decades of global experience navigating the complex connections of society and the environment. While his professional career is focused on the sustainable future of the marine environment, his love of documentary photography has been an enduring and lifelong passion. He is also a trustee of Rewilding Britain. 

The mission of the Foundation remains unchanged. We will continue to support emerging, established and under-represented photographers, to maintain a lively programme of events and exhibitions - including BOP, the annual photobook festival - and to build its collection and library for the purposes of research. It will also continue to preserve and care for Martin’s own archive. The Foundation is currently showing Martin's exhibition The Last Resort - 40 years on. 

See: https://martinparrfoundation.org/ and https://martinparrfoundation.org/about/trustees-2/

Image: The Last Resort at Martin Parr Foundation. © Michael Pritchard

A blog looks at the photographic career of  Ellis Kelsey (1866-1939) and a companion blog introduced Kelsey's friend Arthur E Morton.  It also includes work by other Richmond photographers F.P. Cembrano, William J. Byrne (Byrne & Co.), and also Charles James Gunn and William Slade Stuart (Gunn & Stuart). The Kelsey blog explores the photographic activities and exhibitions in the area. 

Much of Kelsey's photography, including his colour work, is held in Seaford Museum.  

See: https://earlycolourphotography.blogspot.com/ and https://seafordmuseum.co.uk/about-us/links/

With thanks to Robert Albright for bringing this to BPH's attention. 

BBC Radio Berkshire have a 10 minute programme on Talbot's Reading printing establishment and Talbot's place in photographic history. Lorin Bozkurt explores how a humble Reading studio transformed the future of photography. It includes expert comment from Dr Martin Andrews, formerly of Reading University. The programme includes archive recordings which are particularly interesting.  

Secret Berkshire: Discoveries in The Reading Establishment
BBC Radio Berkshire
Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0myv4bg
Readers outside of the UK may find the content inaccessible without a VPN

Author Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra will present on her publication, Veins of Influence, to share on her journey of developing the ‘veins of influence construct’, including on how early photographs of colonial Ceylon reveal networks of influence that mirror hidden interconnections underlying visible life -  through over 450 early colonial era photographs, most published here for the first time.

By tracing how these images moved through collectors, institutions, and generations, the work uncovers subtle layers of memory, intention, and meaning. The session will consider photographs not merely as historical records, but as living artefacts whose evolving significance reflects the dynamic flow of human experience.

In doing so, we will explore how Veins of Influence invites a more expansive, spiritually attuned engagement with cultural heritage, perception, and the unseen forces shaping our shared history.

INVITE: West End Library, Washington DC Hosts Author's Talk, Veins of Influence
SATURDAY, April 4th, 4:30 pm – 5:30pm @ West End Library, Washinton DC, USA  -  (Large Meeting Room 1)

Bookstores UK:        Daunt Books (Marylebone) & online: https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/veins-of-influence/
Online:    Publisher Neptune Publications Pvt Ltd.:  www.veinsofinfluence.com

Author: sganendra@gmail.com

News reached BPH last night of the passing of Robert Hershkowitz on Friday, aged 81 years. One of the earliest and most successful dealers in photography of his era Hershkowitz was an American living in Sussex. He had been active as a dealer, researcher and writer in photography for more than fifty years, working alongside his partner, Paula, and latterly with daughter, Kate. A stalwart of Photo London since its inception, Hershkowitz's 2024 exhibition The Magic Art of French Calotype. Paper Negative Photography 1846-1860 was a beautifully curated show and a testament to his expertise and connoisseurship. His interests in vintage photography were focused on the early period from Talbot and Fenton to later masters such as P H Emerson who Hershkowitz described as being a key influence on both artists and photographers from Miller to Stieglitz.  

Robert Hershkowitz was a leading British dealer in fine early European photographs generally buying in Britain and Europe and selling to collectors and, especially, institutions, in the United States. He handled the estate of Tony Ray-Jones for a period and he curated The Essential Fenton show at Photo London 2019. He wrote a number of articles on P H Emerson, and was the author of The British Photographer Abroad: The First Thirty Years (1980). He and Paula were regular attendees at the various London photograph fairs and auctions over many years.

A profile published in 1980 in The Photographic Collector noted that 'he has a very fine personal collection' and he described himself there as a 'dealer's dealer'. One of his great loves was Roger Fenton and Hershkowitz spent a considerable time studying his photography and tracking down rare prints some of which were offered in his selling exhibitions. 

His clients included The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; The National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Getty; the Chicago Art Institute; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; and the National Gallery of Canada, amongst other major museums. In 1991 he presented Masterworks of Early European Photography at Hamiltons Gallery, London and in 1993 his company co-published Felix Teynard: Calotypes of Egypt with an essay by Kathleen Howe. 

See: The Classic no. 1 (Spring 2019) which carried an interview (p36-45) with Robert Hershkowitz: https://theclassicphotomag.com/wp-content/uploads/the-classic-01.pdf and https://hershkowitzgallery.com/

More to follow... 

Images: (top) Paula and Bobby Hershkowitz, courtesy of the Hershkowitz family; (left) Robert Hershkowitz (standing), Colin Ford and Sue Grayson Ford visiting the exhibition at Photo London; (below) The Magic Art of French Calotype at Photo London 2024; © Michael Pritchard.

Anne Strathie will give a talk about Bath’s own polar explorer, including images of examples from BRLSI’s Franklin Expedition artefacts. They and other objects are now held world-wide, in polar regions, museums, archives, private collections and public spaces. They reflect the contributions to our knowledge of polar expeditions, not only of world-famous explorers, but also of women, whaling captains, scientists, artists, photographers and other less familiar figures.

Anne Strathie has also written three biographies of members of Captain Scott’s Terra Nova Antarctic expedition. She had travelled widely for research and speaking engagements, including in Britain, the polar regions, and countries including New Zealand, Australia, North America, Japan and Norway. Originally from Scotland, Anne now lives in Gloucestershire, in the same home town of polar scientist-explorer, Dr Edward Wilson.

Anne‘s latest book, A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: from Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age, spans a period which is the bedrock of our multi-disciplinary knowledge of the polar regions.

A history of polar exploration in 50 objects
Anne Strathie
9 April 2026, hybrid
Bath, BRLSI, Queens Square
https://www.brlsi.org/whatson/a-history-of-polar-exploration-in-50-objects/

Images: (top) de Gerlache and Weddell seal stereoview; (right): HG Ponting and A S Newman.

Since its invention in the 1820s, photography has been used and understood in many ways: as a technology of seeing, a social document, a commercial transaction, a tool for communication, as a visual language and as a creative practice. It has undergone constant technological development from the analogue through to the digital age. But the power of the still image that seems to fix time remains. What and where is photography today? How can the mutable states of photography be fixed, exhibited and interpreted within the museum?

Photography has been collected and exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) since it was founded in 1852. The collection is now one of the most significant in the world. Martin will look at the contexts and power structures in which photography has been located within this museum of fine and decorative arts. He also considers why photographs as objects, and a visual literacy in the medium, still matter today.

Martin Barnes is Senior Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A). He began working there in 1995 after gaining an MA in Art Museum Studies from the Courtauld Institute of Art. His special interests include early processes, cameraless and experimental photography, industry, photography exhibitions and museology, nature and the environment. Martin has built the V&A collection, conceived the Photography Centre, and is currently lead curator for the digitisation and research project for the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection at the museum. He has curated numerous exhibitions with books, including: Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour (2006); Shadow Catchers: Cameraless Photography (2010); Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography (2011); Curtis Moffat: Experimental Photography and Design 1923-1935 (2016); Camera-less Photography (2018); Into the Woods: Trees in Photography (2019) and Maurice Broomfield: Industrial Sublime (2021).

Why Photography Matters: Changing Contexts at the V&A
Martin Barnes
St Andrews,  School Ill (in St Salvator’s Quad – behind the chapel on North Street).
25 March 2026 at 1600. Free
Organised by the Institute for Museums, Heritage and Society (IMHS)
Details: https://imhs.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2026/02/04/why-photography-matters-changing-contexts-at-the-vamartin-barnes-va-london/

The advent of photography revolutionised how we make and share images. The inventions of William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre were rapidly adopted, and by the mid nineteenth century, travellers, merchants and diplomats were travelling around the world with a camera.

BRLSI’s new exhibition explains the early origins of photography and the difficulties that early photographers faced in the field. It might seem that the cities of Shanghai and Bath stood ‘worlds apart’ at this time, but these two collections of photographs draw interesting parallels and place them together in surprising ways. Carefully composed and wonderfully evocative, the images capture our attention and transport us back in time.

Francis Lockey’s calotypes, made from paper negatives, explore the Bath of 170 years ago, with some spots barely recognisable and others barely changed. The historic prints have been enlarged and reprinted especially for the exhibition so that the finest detail is visible while preserving the unique qualities of the original images.

Low light levels in a specially constructed booth enable the display of some original fragile negatives of Bath scenes (surprisingly crisp and clear considering they come from a time when photography was still in its infancy). Despite the many thousands of miles that separated the photographers in Bath and China, they were attracted by remarkably similar subjects; ancient buildings, bridges, gateways, and rural landscapes.

The photographs from China, taken at a time of great political strife during the Second Opium War, contain fascinating portraits of bankers, street traders, school children and diplomats, as well as rivers, pagodas and temples. Historic objects from the BRLSI collections, things like the hats, fans, children’s toys and shoes we glimpse in the photographic scenes of the daily life of Chinese people, bring the scenes to life and add depth and colour to the exhibition. The gallery space also delivers the chance to learn something of the early origins of photography.

For children visiting there are activities to fuel curiosity and capture the imagination and you may even want to keep a look out for BRLSI’s photography centred summer holiday workshops.

Worlds Apart: Rare Early Photographs of China and Bath
28 March-26 September 2026 (closed Sundaysand Bank Holidays)
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath, Somerset BA1 2HN
https://www.brlsi.org/whatson/worlds-apart-rare-early-photographs-of-china-bath/

Image: (left): Huxinting Teahouse, dubbed the ‘Willow Pattern Tea House’ by foreigners, 1850s; (right): Coal wharf on Kennet & Avon Canal, Bath, Francis Lockey,1856

The photographer, film maker and historian of photography - and BPH member - Noel Chanan died on 7 March 2026 aged 86 years. Chanan studied photography at college, but initially worked as a documentary film maker at the BBC between 1962-1966 and then on a freelance basis for 35 years as both a director and an editor.

In the 1960s he worked as editor on Tonight, Doctor Who, in the 1970s on Not the Nine O-Clock News, the 1980s on Real Lives and The World Around Us, and in the 1990s on Troubleshooter, amongst many other programmes. Mark Haworth-Booth, former curator of photography at the V&A, described the Chanan directed television film on the photographer David Goldblatt (Channel 4, 1986) as 'the best I have ever seen on a photographer'. He also directed in 1979 three episodes of the series Camera: Early Photography.

When Chanan retired from film making he returned to photography full time and, between 1998 and 2003, had three solo exhibitions. Three of his photographic portraits, Ted Hughes (1979) and one of Isaiah Berlin (1971) are held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. A collection of 105 of his photographic prints, the majority of the sculptor Leonard Baskin, are in the Bodleian libraries.  

As a photographic historian Noel Chanan is best known for the rediscovery of the work of William, 2nd Earl of Craven  (1809-1866). The collection was dispersed at auction in 2000. He acted as photography consultant to Bearnes auction house for several years, close to his Devon home.  

For the past year Noel had been well cared for in Mountbatten Care Home in Windsor. He will be buried with his wife, June, in Taunton. The funeral will be on Tuesday, 7 April at 1320 at Somerset West and Taunton Cemetery and Crematorium, Wellington New Road, Taunton TA1 5NE. It will be followed by a buffet lunch at the Stonegallows Inn, Stonegallows TA1 5JP, which is five mins walk from the cemetery. No flowers. If you wish to make a donation in Noel’s memory please donate to Thames Hospice via: thameshospice.org.uk/donate

He leaves brothers Gabriel and Michael. 

See: https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/9969
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp60282/noel-chanan

Image: (top) William, 2nd Earl of Craven (1809-1866), Tree study, 1854-55, albumen print; (left) Noel Chanan at the launch of his book on JDJ, South Wales Post, 11 May, 2013, uploaded by Noel to BPH. Noel is In the foreground and in the background is Richard Morris who was married to a descendant of JDL.  

Vandalism on a Grand Scale is a major new hardback publication dedicated to the work of Tish Murtha, one of the most important British documentary photographers of the late twentieth century. Published by British Culture Archive in collaboration with the Tish Murtha Archive, the book returns Murtha’s seminal Youth Unemployment body of work to print for a new generation. Long out of print and highly sought-after since its original publication in 2017, it now returns in a redesigned and resequenced form, with texts by Ella Murtha and Jen Corcoran, and design by Friederike Huber.

With a bold new title drawn from Murtha’s accompanying essay, the book brings one of the defining works of British documentary photography back into circulation with renewed clarity, urgency and force. Produced as a substantial case-bound hardback, it has been made as a lasting publication worthy of Murtha’s landmark body of work.

“Since the original book went out of print, I’ve been asked so many times if I’d ever make another. For a long time, I didn’t feel ready, but returning to the series now, with British Culture Archive, who believe so deeply in the work, has felt very special. I’m so proud of what we’ve created together for my mam.” Ella Murtha

The book will be available to pre-order from 14 March 2026, with publication and fulfilment scheduled for 9 June 2026.The first 1,000 copies of Vandalism on a Grand Scale will include an exclusive fine art card featuring the cover.

Vandalism on a Grand Scale
Tish Murtha
£50, 226 pages
ISBN 978-1-9191700-0-8
British Culture Archive, 2026

Only available through the BCA. https://britishculturearchive.co.uk/product/vandalism-on-a-grand-scale/

Following the cyber-attack in October 2023, the British Library's Archives and Manuscript catalogue is back online. For researchers wishing to find the Kodak Historical Collection, Fay Godwin's photographs, and the Talbot collection alongside the wider photographic materials related to South Asia, you can use this link: https://searcharchives.bl.uk/?f%5Bcollection_area_ssi%5D%5B%5D=Visual+Arts

In the last year, we've been focusing on improving access to the Kodak Historical Collection and in particular the Kodak News archive, which spans from the late 19th century through the early 2000s. Since the start of this new project, our cataloguer has prepared approximately 9000 records. These will be made available via the Archives and Manuscript platform in due course.

The new cataloguing of photographic material (negatives, photographic prints, glass plates) specifically looks at the material from the Kodak Research Division of Kodak which was based at Harrow from 1928-2000s - and some of the projects that were developed including Harold Edgerton's 'Kodatron' with Eastman Kodak in 1939 and Kodak's involvement with Spacelab, a resuable laboratory developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). 

For access and enquiries, email us at apac-prints@bl.uk.

Top image: An unidentified woman who was employed in the Kodak Research Division in the 1950s, British Library, Kodak A3146/27(8)​.

A new sustaining and chemical free direct-to-plate photopolymer gravure combines hand-drawn and digital illustration with photogravure in a new exhibition at Hidcore, a Cotswold National Trust garden. A Place That Whispers reimagines Hidcote as a fantastical threshold where photography, illustration and storytelling converge.

Photographic artists Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low discovered Hidcote during the COVID-19 pandemic and felt themselves to have been transported to an oasis of calm, 'a world more akin to legend, myth and fairy tales than present life'. With few visitors and silent paths at that time, the garden felt like a forgotten storybook. Ancient trees whispered myths, flowers bloomed with character and every winding path invited a new tale. Hidcote became both sanctuary and muse, and the inspiration for this exhibition.

Collaborating since 1990, Anderson & Low’s photographic art can be found in numerous museums and collections, including the National Portrait Gallery (London), the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). Their work is recognised for stretching the boundaries of photography, and the pair have worked with both the Star Wars and James Bond franchises.

This new project, which showcases a pioneering new sustainable and chemical-free printmaking technique, Direct-to-Plate (DTP) photopolymer gravure, draws inspiration from the darkly enchanting illustrations of Arthur Rackham, as Hidcote’s clipped hedges, arched topiary and winding pathways are reimagined through a folkloric lens. ‘The realm of the fairy tale is never far from the woods. It lies just beyond the bend of the path, behind the knotted tree, or beneath the leaves where no one looks,’ note the artists. Anderson & Low’s works introduce mythical figures and anthropomorphic forms, merging hand-drawn and digital illustration with photogravure to produce richly layered, dreamlike images.

Wandering through Hidcote’s labyrinthine garden rooms, shadowed yew alleys and sunlit borders, Anderson & Low were struck by the garden’s narrative power. "Each turn at Hidcote feels like the beginning of a story,’ they explain."The vistas do much more than merely contain beauty – they direct the imagination, conjuring presences just out of sight, like a fairy tale unfolding in real time."

In a further layer of storytelling, each image in the exhibition is accompanied by its own story – whether a fairy tale, myth or fantastical tale. These stories are drawn from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives, ensuring the voices within the work are as varied and textured as the landscapes themselves. In this way, the exhibition becomes both a visual and literary journey, where image and text whisper to one another in dialogue.

This project also coincides with Anderson & Low’s appointment as Visiting Research Fellows at the Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham City University, where they are pioneering the Direct-to-Plate (DTP) photopolymer gravure process. This sustainable, chemical-free technique opens up new creative possibilities while advancing the material traditions of intaglio printmaking. This initiative aims to position Birmingham City University at the forefront of environmentally responsible, technically innovative and creatively expansive image-making and printmaking.

In celebrating Hidcote, the exhibition also reflects on the broader cultural role of English gardens – from Capability Brown’s sweeping parklands to Vita Sackville-West’s poetic Sissinghurst – as both real and symbolic spaces. Historically, gardens have served as vessels for imagination, nostalgia and identity. Anderson & Low extend this tradition into the present, offering a contemporary vision of the garden as a stage for storytelling and transformation.

"Ultimately, this exhibition is a homage," the artists reflect, "not only to Hidcote and its maker, but to the enduring idea of the garden as a threshold – a place where reality slips into wonder and where landscape itself becomes fable".

Hidcote, now a Grade I listed garden, was created by Major Lawrence Johnston. He designed the garden as an intricate series of ‘rooms’, filling its borders with discoveries from the plant collecting expeditions that took him around the world. It has been in the care of the National Trust since 1948. Hidcote’s Property Operations Manager, Rose Futers, says: "We’re delighted to welcome Anderson & Low to Hidcote. Their extraordinary vision invites us to see the garden through a new lens and we can’t wait for visitors to experience this imaginative reinterpretation."

A Place That Whispers
16 March-13 September 2026
Anderson & Low
On display in the entrance hall of the Manor House. Normal admission applies, and no need to book to visit.
For more information about visiting Hidcote including prices and opening times visit nationaltrust.org.uk/Hidcote

Images: (top): The Dragon of Verdant Hollow © Anderson & Low All Rights Reserved; (below): The Three Hands © Anderson & Low All Rights Reserved

The number of deepfakes shared online rose from around half a million in 2023 to eight million by 2025. While much of this material is seen as humorous or satirical, deepfakes are increasingly used for scams, misinformation, and political manipulation, exploiting a long-standing human weakness: our tendency to trust what we can see.

The Long View explores a striking historical parallel — the Cottingley Fairies affair of 1917–1921. In post-First World War Yorkshire, two young cousins, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, produced photographs that appeared to show real fairies. The images were crude cut-outs, but photography was then a new “truth machine”, imbued with cultural authority. The photographs were believed not only by many in the public but by the famous writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who championed them as evidence of spiritual reality. At the same time, rationalist sceptics weighed in, dismissing the photographs as fake and a polarised debate ensued. The girls did not fully admit the images were fake until the 1980s. Cottingley shows us not only that images can be faked but that - from early photography to today’s generative AI - every era over-trusts its latest representational technology before learning its limits.

Jonathan Freedland is joined by Dr Merrick Burrow from the University of Huddersfield and Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation specialist to explore the Cottingley Fairies story and ask what lessons can be learned from it in today’s age of digital deception. Guests: Dr Merrick Burrow, Head of English and Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield; Marianna Spring, BBC Disinformation Specialist

Listen on Radio 4 and now on BBC Sounds: The Long View:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002s4cv

A new photography fair offering vintage through to contemporary photography and photobooks is to take place on 16 May 2026. The Other Photography Fair will be held at the Hilton London Olympia Hotel which is a five-minute walk from the Photo London's new venue, a five-minute walk from Olympia railway station and a short journey from High Street Kensington tube and Chiswick Auctions Fine Photographs Gallery.

Exhibitor tables are 6 x 2.5ft and will cost £200 each. There is a 10% discount if you book more than one table. Discounted hotel accomodation is also expected to be available. The new fair comes during Photo London which runs from 14-17 May in its new venue at Olympia, and the day before Photographica on 17 May which mainly offers vintage and collectible cameras and takes place at the Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury. 

Organised by Austin Farahar, the Other Photography Fair is being sponsored and marketed by Chiswick Auctions Fine Photographs Department. Prospective exhibitors are invited to signal their interest in participating by filling out an online form here. If you have any questions about the event, logistical or otherwise, Austin Farahar would be delighted to answer any questions. His direct line is (+44) 07843 348748. 

A Vixex colour print from Madame Yevonde has sold at an auction in the United States for $29,210 (approx £21,800). Metis which dates to c1935 was included in an auction of Photographic Masterworks from an Important Private Collection by New Jersey based Rago auctions on 12 February 2026. It had been estimated at $3000-5000. The print had been exhibited by Yevonde at the National Exhibition of Professional Photography held by the Institute of British Photographers in 1952.

It had previously appeared at Christie's auctions in 1992 and 2012 where it sold for £462 and €22,500 respectively. An example is also held in the National Portrait Gallery collection which holds the surviving Yevonde negatives.  

See: https://www.ragoarts.com/auctions/2026/02/photographic-masterworks-from-an-important-private-collection/100 and the NPG Collection print

The Albert-Kahn Museum’s current exhibition, A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey, from 1930 to today (Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930), offers a reinterpretation of the films and photographs produced during a mission to Dahomey (now Benin) led from January to May 1930 by Catholic missionary Francis Aupiais and camera operator Frédéric Gadmer for Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet. This immersion, meant as a Franco-Beninese dialogue, questions the views on non-European cultures in a context of colonial rule and the birth of ethnography.

Following on from a series of inaugural exhibitions dedicated to travel and gardens, the Albert-Kahn Museum continues to explore the fundamental themes of its collections, this time focusing on perspectives on non-European cultures and the ethnographic dimension of the Archives of the Planet, recently added to the UNESCO 'Memory of the World' Register.

The 1930 mission to Dahomey was unique in several ways: it was the only foray by the Archives of the Planet into sub-Saharan Africa, the last major expedition before the project was halted due to Albert Kahn’s bankruptcy, and the result of an initiative by an atypical clergyman, Father Francis Aupiais (1877-1945). This missionary priest, committed to a long-term endeavor to improve knowledge of African cultures, contacted Albert Kahn in 1927 and convinced him to finance his project to document Dahomey’s cultural and religious practices, in line with the philanthropist’s humanist views.

One of the first film collections of French ethnography

Father Aupiais’s goal was to promote an 'African recognitio' by documenting the traditional culture of Dahomey, particularly royal ceremonies and vodun rituals, which he held in high esteem. The mission lasted four and a half months, during which Frédéric Gadmer produced 1,102 autochromes (color photographs) and shot 140 film reels under Aupiais’s direction. These films, the first of this scale to be shot in Dahomey, constitute the largest collection of films in the Archives of the Planet and one of the first film collections of French ethnography, five years after the founding of the Paris Institute of Ethnology and one year before the Dakar-Djibouti mission.

Recently digitized in high definition (4K), these films constitute the narrative arc of the exhibition, which aims to present the outline, challenges, and legacy of this unusual mission, a century later. Projected in large format throughout an immersive journey, they offer unprecedented image quality and immerse visitors in the intimacy of Dahomey’s ceremonies and cults, forging links between yesterday’s protagonists and today’s visitors, between France and Benin.

Numerous objects, in a large part loaned by the musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, echo the still and moving images: emblems of power, vodun artifacts, and tools dedicated to divination are striking in their sophistication, matching the uses for which they were intended, documented in the films. These rare pieces also feature items exhibited in France by Father Aupiais himself.

Views from contemporary African artists

A Return Trip to Benin also questions the contemporary reception of images from 1930 through the eyes of artists from the African continent. Serving as a perspective and critical counterpoint, artworks by Ishola Akpo, Thulani Chauke, Sènami Donoumassou, Bronwyn Lace, Roméo Mivekannin, Angelo Moustapha, and Marcus Neustetter, several of which were created specifically for the exhibition, combine painting, photography, installation, and performance, reappropriating and reactivating the photographs and films.

The Albert-Kahn Museum

Located in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, the Albert-Kahn Museum preserves and promotes the work of Albert Kahn (1860-1940), a French banker and philanthropist who devoted his fortune to promoting knowledge and understanding between peoples. In addition to the collection of photographs and films in the Archives of the Planet, it features a four-hectare landscaped garden, the vegetal embodiment of its patron's universalist dream.

An ambitious renovation completed in 2022 significantly increased the space dedicated to exhibitions, notably thanks to a new 2,300-square-meter building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, creating a dialogue between the image collections and the garden. The museum has welcomed more than 600,000 visitors since its reopening.

A Return Trip to Benin. Shared Perspectives on Dahomey, from 1930 to today / Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930
until 14 June 2026
Musée départemental Albert-Kahn – Albert-Kahn Museum, 2 rue du Port, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt
Further information: albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr

Image: Frédéric Gadmer, Vodunon performing the dance of Heviosso, Dahomey (Benin), 1930, film still © CD92 musée départemental Albert-Kahn / Archives de la Planète

The Peter Marlow Foundation (PMF) was established in 2018 to celebrate, preserve, and activate the archive of the late Magnum photographer Peter Marlow, while supporting contemporary photography and visual literacy across the UK, with a special focus on Kent and surrounding counties. As part of this mission, we launched our Archival Research Fellowship, funded through a Knowledge Exchange Partnership with the University for the Creative Arts. The fellowship invited a PhD student to help PMF investigate best practices for photographic archives and develop a training programme for local young people.

We were delighted to work with Camille Serisier as our inaugural Archival Research Fellow. Camille, a doctoral candidate at UCA with extensive experience in the GLAM sector, conducted a detailed scoping review of PMF’s resources, goals and organisational structure, and created an archival inventory, collections management documentation, plans for a training programme for local young people and a sustainability strategy.

A full report of Camille’s work and outcomes is available on our website and via the UCA digital research repository, UCARO. We hope it will support other photographers and archives, and we look forward to sharing more results from this knowledge exchange in the future.

Read more here: https://petermarlowfoundation.org/journal/announcing-our-archive-research-fellowship/

Image: Archival Research Fellow, Camille Serisier, working in the Peter Marlow Foundation archive in Dungeness. Photo Credit: Olivia Arthur/Magnum Photos