Blogs

Good morning all. A new version of 'Fixed in Time', my guide to dating daguerreotypes & other cased photographs by their mats & cases, is available as both a free PDF and as a print-on-demand full-color paperback. Be forewarned that most of the designs illustrated and dated are American mats & cases, but I've included as many British products as I was able to date. The dates are based on finding over 7,000 objectively dated cased images, mostly online. You can pick up the free PDF or order the book at www.fixedintime.com . This has been a 13-year labor of love.

I recently came across a reference to what appears to be a sub type of carte de visite (rather than to cartomania) – the “sensation carte de visite”.

It’s not a term that I had come across before, and a search for the phrase on BNA only found it in use in adverts by a couple of UK photographers in the period 1860 – 1870, Thomas Plimmer in Belfast and four years later by James Hardie in St Andrews (St. Andrews Gazette and Fifeshire News - Saturday 14 August 1869 p1a).

I’m hoping that someone may be able to enlighten me as to exactly what they are / were, and perhaps show us an example.

Thanks.

Image: Belfast Morning News - 01 April 1865 p2d (© British Library / British Newspaper Archive)

This exhibition is curated by Brighton Photography Research Group member Curated by Julia Winckler in conjunction with Fotohof Salzburg. Commissioned by the Town and Country Planning Association, renowned photographer and cameraman Wolf Suschitzky (1912-2016) photographed nine New Towns of the first wave of post-war New Town development within a decade of their initial construction. A small selection of these was shown at London’s Royal Academy in 1959 as part of the ‘Britain’s New Towns: Ten Years on’ exhibition. The bulk of the negatives were never printed, publicly displayed or published.

During a research residency in 2022 at FOTOHOF Salzburg in Austria, where the Suschitzky archive is now held, Julia Winckler rediscovered the New Town photos and immediately recognised their significance. Through a sympathetic lens, and reflecting his belief in and optimism for a better post-war future, Suschitzky had captured an extraordinary record of the phenomenal achievements of post-war reconstruction and aspiration to build a better society. Highlighting the innovative architectural forms, shopping arcades, houses, schools, nurseries, alongside business and industrial contexts, they also show the inhabitants engaged in their day-to-day activities and the green spaces that were a feature of the New Town ideals.

Displaying a selection of these images, some of which that were exhibited for the first time during a recent exhibition at Crawley Museum (funded by an IAA Ignite/AHRC grant, and co-curated by Julia Winckler, Georgia Wrighton University of Brighton), Fotohof Salzburg and Crawley Museum, along with a portfolio produced from Suschitzky’s wonderfully evocative contact books, this new exhibition at Dorset Place Gallery provides a remarkable opportunity for students and staff from a range of disciplines to engage with his images, which not only contain huge historical significance but also reflect contemporary resonances and topical concerns over the current housing provision crisis and ongoing political and societal discourse on how this can be resolved.

New Towns seen through the lens of Wolf Suschitzky
1 Dorset Pl, Kemptown, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 1ST
Tuesday 28 October – Saturday 1 November 2025, Opening 1200-1700; Saturday 1 November: between 1100-1630
Exhibition launch event and curatorial walk through: Tuesday 28 October 17:00-18:30
Opening times:  Tuesday 28 October, Wednesday 29 October, Thursday 30 October, Friday 31 October between 12:00-17:00; Saturday 1 November: between 11:00-16:30
Details here

Image – Wolf Suschitzky, Corby, 1959, Contact Sheet image, courtesy of Fotohof Salzburg & Suchitzky/Donat Estate

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on my Old Wallhanging Enlarger. It is fitted with a Dallmeyer lens, but has no indication as to the maker. It measures 123cms from top to bottom and is taking up a lot of room, so I'm thinking of selling it and would love to be able to attrbute it to a certain maker. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Gerry Palmer.

I'm writing on behalf of the Society for Photographic Education (SPE) to invite you to an upcoming virtual program with Geoffrey Batchen, Letha Wilson, and Mary Statzer. This will be taking place on November 8th at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (US). This program is free to SPE members and $29 to register for non-members. Please share this information widely and join us if you are available.

This event's conversation brings together expertise from three different moments within photographic history. Historian Geoffrey Batchen will ground us in the way that photographs may serve as a form of "vision as a sense of touch" and share examples found within Victorian traditions. Curator Mary Statzer will lead us in exploring the hybrid and experimental practices of the 1970's Museum of Modern Art exhibition Photography into Sculpture. And contemporary artist Letha Wilson will bring us to the present by sharing her own creative practice. By skipping a stone across time, together we consider the motivations, strategies, and resulting forms that connect image-makers expanding into the third dimension.

Please register in advance for this event.

You will receive the link to register in your emailed receipt.

Photography's Objects
Geoffry Batchen, Letha Wilson, and Mary Statzer
Photography's Objects—Pushing into the Third Dimension
8 November 2025, 12:00PM - 1:00PM EST; 1600-1700 (GMT/UTC)
Free to members, $29 non-members
See: https://www.spenational.org/events/2025/11/08/photographys-objects

Paul Martin was referred to in his time as 'the Dickens of the lens' thanks to the way in which he captured the lives of the streets of London and their inhabitants. He and his family were refugees who fled France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war. This plaque, celebrating his life and work, will be placed on the former studio he shared with Harry Dorrett and from which they ran their business, Dorrett & Martin, producing, amongst other items, a large number of very evocative pictures of Wandsworth Common.

You are welcome to come along and learn more about Martin and see examples of his work. 

Friends of Wandsworth Common Heritage Group. The plaque is generously funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of Wandsworth's year as London Borough of Culture.

Wandsworth Green Plaque unveiling to Paul Martin
Friday, 7 November 2025 at 1400
16 Bellevue Road SW17 7EG  
Please do let us know if you are able to attend by replying to history@wandsworthcommon.org

Quickshaws Tours is offering 10-day and 14-day tours in Sri Lanka to discover the places associated with Julia Margaret Cameron, who died and was buried there in 1879. Explore her life in British Ceylon and the links between England, India and Ceylon of the period.

The tour will take you to the places she lived, including Dimbola, her grave at Bogowantalawa, and introduce her Ceylon photographs. In addition, the tour will also visit other historic places, sites, and landscapes, as well as explore the country's food, culture.

The tour has been produced by Cameron scholar Aneela de Soysa, who will guide you through the journey. The tour is designed for art historians, photographers, and individuals with an interest in the life of Julia Margaret Cameron. The shorter 10-day tour focuses on Cameron's journey, while the longer tour extends into the country's broader cultural heritage. The tour covers 7 World Heritage sites.

Explore Julia Margaret Cameron in Ceylon 1875-1879
Tour led by Aneela de Soysa
7- 16 February 2026 Short Tour
7- 20 February 2026 Long Tour
For details of itinerary and costs, see: http://www.aneeladesoysa.com

Image: Julia Margaret Cameron, Two Young Women, Ceylon, 1875-79 Albumen Print, AIC. (see attached)

Join us for this special event at the V&A South Kensington celebrating the artists and editor shortlisted for this year’s Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. Hear about the joys and challenges of making award-winning and nominated photobooks.

I'd like to highlight three upcoming workshops at The National Archives which may of of interest. They all focus on different aspects of TNA's visual collections, and include guidance on accessing and interpreting photographs in the archive. See here for details of all the workshops in TNA's Practical Archival Skills Training programme for 2025-2026.

Introduction to Visual Collections at The National Archives
Thursday 20 November 2025, 2-5pm online
This half-day online workshop will introduce the range of visual sources held at The National Archives (TNA) which can be used for study of history and material culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These include registered designs, photographs, art, graphic design, architecture and film records, all produced or collected by government departments. The training will be held on Teams, and the link for the training will be sent two weeks in advance.

A significant collection of visual material can be found in our records of intellectual property. Under various Acts of Parliament relating to copyright, artists, designers, photographers, publishers and manufacturers sent samples of their work and products to government regulators to be registered. These samples are now held at TNA and include millions of textiles, wallpapers, trademarks, photographs, advertising and branding designs; creating a unique collection which reflects the economic, social and cultural history of the time.

In addition, British government departments also created a wide range of visual material for the purposes of documentation, publicity and propaganda, records of which are now held at TNA. These include architectural records, photographs, film, posters and other publicity material which offer researchers an insight into social and cultural history of the twentieth century.
The training is £15, and you can book on Eventbrite here.

Victorian Visual Culture
Tuesday 10th Feb 2026 9am-5pm in-person
Records of copyright registration and trade marks at The National Archives offer a unique insight into Victorian visual and print culture in Britain. They include records of the registration of paintings, drawings, advertising and photographs with the Stationers’ Company between 1862 and 1912 (and books and music from 1842) and trade marks registered with the UK Patent Office between 1876 and 1938.

Through hands-on sessions with original documents, this in-person workshop at The National Archives' site in Kew will provide students with the skills they need to conduct research with these visually striking and underused collections. The records provide opportunities for a variety of research areas including visual and print culture, art history, business history and legal history.
The training is £30, and you can book on Eventbrite here.

20th century Government Visual Communications
Tuesday 31st Macrh 2026 9am-5pm in-person
The National Archives’ collections include examples of government communication campaigns across the C20th, from wartime propaganda and race relations information to health and road safety campaigns. In this in-person workshop at The National Archives' site in Kew and through hands-on sessions with original documents, students will learn how to find and interrogate the range of visual material produced by government.
The training is £30, and you can book on Eventbrite here.

This lecture presents research by Christian Klant, a contemporary wet-plate photographer, who, for the first time, re-created the materials and techniques used by Gustave Le Gray to make his famous seascape photographs in the 1850s.

Victorian Malta is a new book from the Richard Ellis Archive. Through Richard Ellis’s lens, this book unveils the intricate fabric of Victorian life in Malta during the late nineteenth century. This book includes previously unseen details of the Victorian era in Malta including a number of never-seen stereoviews. The book, lavishly produced, hardcased and printed in satin-finished matt artpaper with over 190 images is a welcome addition to the series of books from this incredible archive. All images have been re-scanned with the latest state-of-the-art equipment which enhances details captured by Ellis over 100 years ago. The book has two essays by Ian Ellis and Charles Paul Azzopardi. (size: 270x240mm)

100 Years of Photography in Malta is a thorough new study of photography in Malta between 1839 and 1939. With over 800 iconic and unpublished photographs, this monograph may be considered as the definitive volume on the history of photography on the island. This meticulous research presents new insights into the work of both photographers and photo-studios which operated during those early years. The author spared no effort in digging into archives, public and private, to pen a detailed narrative for this new art-form that mesmerised many in those early days and still awe us till this day. The book manages to capture the spirit and oeuvre of those pioneers making it a time-machine made of paper and ink. This large-format book is prestigiously produced in hardback with 320 pages printed in colour on satin-finished paper. (size: 240x300mm)

Both books are being offered in a discounted bundle from the third week of November 2025

100 Years of Photography in Malta
Charles Paul Azzopardi

Victorian Malta
Charles Paul Azzopardi and Richard Ellis

See: https://www.midseabooks.com/shop/history/victorian-malta-100-years-of-photography-in-malta-limited-offer/

Fast Forward is looking to commission an experienced writer/researcher to work on researching and drafting a policy for collecting and archiving photography with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) priorities at its heart. The policy will be for use within public sector institutions, and it will include reference to the potential uses of new technologies such as AI. It is expected that the policy will feed into a bigger multi-partner research project.

The post would be an ideal opportunity for a post doc/early career researcher and someone with experience of consultancy work or writing within the cultural sector. The successful candidate will work across the collections at National Galleries Scotland and Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales where they will assist to co-ordinate two onsite research workshops and interviews with institutional staff and other identified individuals. The candidate will be responsible for writing the first draft of a policy, which will be a minimum of 10,000 words, based on this activity by mid-May 2026 and completing a final draft by mid-June 2026.

The work needs to be completed by May 12, 2026, and is expected to take approximately 20 days. Depending on the work proposed the fee will be between £4000 and £5000. We will also provide funding for travel between Edinburgh and Cardiff and your home base. The two institutions that we are working in collaboration with are National Galleries of Scotland and Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales.

Person specification – The ideal candidate would have the following key skills and experience:

Essential requirements:
• Strong communication skills, including an ability to write clear and compelling narratives.
• Organised individual with the ability to plan and prioritise effectively, shifting priorities, when necessary, sometimes at pace.
• A problem-solver, with experience of using data, evidence, and insights to develop a set of solutions to an issue.
• Delivery focussed, with the ability to turn complex issues into clear steps, with plans in place to deliver these.
• Knowledge of the infrastructure for photography and the visual arts in the UK.
• Knowledge of EDI priorities and strategies in the public realm.

Desirable skills:
• Experience of working in partnership with external stakeholders to deliver outcomes.
• Experience of developing an EDI strategy.

We welcome applications from underrepresented communities.

To make an application please send the following to afox@ucreative.ac.uk: by 5 November 2025
A4 CV;  Covering letter, 300-word statement about how you will approach the project

Fast Forward is a research project concerned with women in photography based at University for the Creative Arts. Started in 2014 with a panel discussion at Tate Modern, the project has established a significance within the world of photography for highlighting the work of women photographers and for questioning the way that the established canons have been formed.

Fast Forward is designed to promote and engage with women and non-binary people in photography across the globe. We intend to provoke new debate and ensure that we are in the news and in the history books. There are millions of women in the world of photography and now is the time to arrest the process of forgetting that so frequently erases women from the burgeoning histories of photography and shed light on new ways of thinking, showing, discussing and distributing our work.

Fast Forward showcases the best of emerging and established photography by women and non-binary people, it promotes opportunities and records events. We have started a discussion that will be on going and that many different people can continue to contribute to. Fast Forward is the foundation for an emerging international network of women in photography. Contributions that add to this discussion are welcome from any gender, race or class.

Details: https://fastforward.photography/opportunities/call-for-applications-fast-forward-consultancy-commission/

Early Photography in Colonial Australia explores the origins of the photographic culture that continues to shape how we see the world. From its mid-nineteenth-century beginnings photography was more than just a new technology – it was deeply implicated in the colonial project. The invention of photographic technology coincided with the rise of imperial control across the Pacific, and many of its raw materials were extracted from colonised lands.

This book offers the first major study of photography’s arrival and establishment in colonial Australia. It places photographs in conversation with prints, sketches and watercolours to explore how the foreign medium adapted to the Australian environment, artistically and politically. It shows how cameras were put to work, visually redacting Indigenous custodianship and knowledge of Country to celebrate colonial construction and expeditions.

Early Photography in Colonial Australia reveals the complex power of the medium. Elisa deCourcy considers these early images beyond colonial systems of knowledge and their contemporary role in acts of colonial reckoning and First Nations cultural reclamation.

Dr Elisa deCourcy is a writer and curator living and working on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country. She has written about photography and colonial art for the National Portrait Gallery, London; the Musée du quai Branly, Paris; the National Gallery of Victoria; The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, as well as a range of national and international scholarly journals. Elisa has been the recipient of fellowships from, and given invited lectures at, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Austin, Texas (2018); the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2018); the Bibliotheca Hertziana Max Planck Institute of Art History, Rome (2023) and the University of Oxford (2023). Between 2020 and 2023 she was an Australian Research Council DECRA fellow at the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at the Australian National University. This book is a major outcome of this project.

Early Photography in Colonial Australia
Elisa deCourcy
Melbourne University Press, 2025
£15.49
See: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Early-Photography-in-Colonial-Australia/Elisa-deCourcy/9780522879537

Almost since its invention, the art of photography has thrived in Berwick. The town’s first photographic studio opened in 1849, sparking a tradition which would go on to capture the likenesses of generations of inhabitants of Berwick, Tweedmouth and Spittal. During the 19th century, travelling photographers, working from mobile studios would stop in the town. Although many of these were fleeting, William De Lan and his three daughters, who were also photographers, eventually made Berwick their home.

The picturesqueness of the town and the surrounding area made it a popular spot for amateur photographers to practice their hobby, perhaps inadvertently preserving our past through their lenses.

As technology changed, photography became even more embedded in the lives of our predecessors. Photographs began to appear in newspapers, could be sent abroad in the form of a postcard or with the click of a shutter on an inexpensive personal camera, capture a candid moment for posterity.

This major exhibition features over 100 images of Berwick and is a journey of exploration into how the town and its people have been captured by the changing photographer’s lens over the past 150 years.

The Light of Days Past has been developed in partnership with Berwick Record Office and curated by Cameron Robertson.

The Light of Days Past: Photography in Berwick 1840-1980
25 October 2025-22 February 2026
Maltings Gallery, Dewar’s Lane, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1HJ
Wednesday – Sunday, 1100-1600
Free Admission
See: https://www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/whats-on/the-light-of-days-past-photography-in-berwick-1840-1980/

Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull if offering a set of William Stirling-Maxwell's four-volume Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848). The fourth volume consists of Talbotype illustrations of art works. The set is considered the first art history book to be illustrated with photographs. The lot is estimated at £10,000-15,000.

The lot descrption notes: 

Opening at Four Corners Gallery this October, A World Apart captures a unique moment of change in London’s East End. As the docks closed, and wholesale slum clearance replaced old neighbourhoods, many communities were being transformed beyond recognition. Yet a different East End was also coming into being, as recent migrant communities created a space for themselves.

A new generation of photographers were drawn to document ordinary people’s lives and give visibility to working-class experience. They showed their photographs in everyday spaces where local people could view images of themselves and their own communities.

Brought together for the first time, these rarely seen photographs document a now-disappeared world. Bengali migrants live side-by-side with elderly Jewish shopkeepers and artisans, dockers socialise in Wapping’s clubs and pubs, neighbours and children celebrate at a raucous, multicultural Stepney festival.
 
A World Apart features remarkable photographs by Ron McCormick and Exit Photography group - Nicholas Battye, Diane Bush, Alex Slotzkin, and Paul Trevor - alongside work by Ian Berry, John Donat, David Hoffman, Jessie Ann Matthews, Dennis Morris, Val Perrin, and Ray Rising.

A World Apart. Photographing Change in London's East End, 1970-76
24 October-6 December 2025
Four Corners, London
https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/a-world-apart-photographing-change-in-londons-east-end-1970-76

Image credit: Child playing in a tenement block courtyard, Whitechapel or Wapping, around 1972. © David Hoffman

 Here is Paul Hill's article in Amateur Photographer about my Romney Marsh photographs exhibited in 2025 at Rye Art Gallery.

My film "Notes from a Landscape" which accompanied the exhibition can now be viewed on You Tube https://youtu.be/QVhZP05ByHc?si=dZFqmjY9rA4pvJxg 

It is said that the first casualty of war is truth. But in the arena of war photography, the truth is never simple. Drawing on an incredible range of imagery from the Imperial War Museum's vast collection and other major archives around the globe, expert curator Hilary Roberts presents a new perspective on the role of image manipulation in this field over the past 170 years,exploring the consequences for our understanding of historic and contemporary conflicts.

From the staged scenes and hand-coloured Daguerreotypes of the Crimean War at the very beginning of conflict photography to the AI-generated protest and propaganda imagery of today, Roberts explores the myriad ways in which layers of meaning can be added, erased or changed completely. As The Camera at War so powerfully reveals, sometimes this has been done in order to present a closer approximation of the truth, and sometimes for the causes of national morale, subterfuge and control of the winning narrative. Witht he current wars in Gaza and Ukraine, conflict is on the public's mind nowmore than ever. 

Hilary Roberts is an independent curator of photography. She joined the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Photograph Archive as a junior curator in 1980. As the Archive's Head Curator (1996-2013), she oversaw the development of IWM's photographic collections and the Archive's transition to digital photography, before moving to a research role. A specialist in the history and practice of conflict photography, Hilary has numerous broadcasts, publications and exhibitions to her name, including IWM's highly praised trilogy of exhibitions Don McCullin: Shaped by War (2010-2012), Cecil Beaton: Theatre of War (2012) and Lee Miller: A Woman's War (2015-2016). Hilary was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Award for Curatorship in 2017.

The Camera at War. 170 years of weaponizing photography
Hilary Roberts
Ilex Press, with IWM
£40, 256 pages, hardcovers. 

The Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group and the Wolverhampton School of Art invite proposals for papers for the 2026 Research Symposium. This year’s event continues our commitment to exploring photography’s rich and multifaceted history, while placing it in dialogue with contemporary issues and technological transformations. We welcome contributions that examine photography’s historical trajectories alongside its evolving role in today’s cultural, scientific, and technological landscapes. The symposium aims to foster critical conversations that connect past practices with present innovations, whether through archival research, artistic experimentation, or interdisciplinary inquiry.

Suggested Themes:

• Photography in Flux: Mobility, Migration, and Global Networks
• Investigating historical movements of photographers and studios, and their resonance with today’s transnational image economies and digital platforms.
• Art, Process, and Post-Digital Experimentation
• Exploring intersections between photography and other media, including historical techniques and contemporary digital or AI-driven practices.
• Memory, Identity, and Representation in the Age of Algorithms
• From early portraiture to facial recognition and deepfakes, how photography continues to shape and challenge notions of self and society.
• Imaging the Invisible: Science, Technology, and Visualisation
• Tracing photography’s role in scientific discovery, from radiology and microscopy to satellite imaging and machine vision.
• Reframing Photographic Heritage
• New approaches to archives, lost works, and marginalised histories, rethinking preservation and access in the digital age.

We welcome proposals from both established and emerging researchers. As in previous years, we aim to reserve a part of the programme for first-time presenters. Presentations may be 10 or 20 minutes in length and delivered in person or online. Speakers will be invited to submit their papers for consideration in the RPS journal, The PhotoHistorian.

Submission:
Please send your proposal (title, abstract of up to 250 words, and preferred presentation length) to Janine Freeston at historicalresearch@rps.org and Dr Euripides Altintzoglou at E.Altintzoglou@wlv.ac.uk by 12 January 2026.

We look forward to receiving your proposals and to another inspiring day of photographic research and exchange.

In this new 'Record Revealed' post from The National Archives, I highlight this photograph of the Fisk Jubilee Singers registered for copyright protection with the Stationers' Company in 1874. This photograph is a portrait of the 11 members of the Jubilee Singers, an African American a cappella group from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The choir members were students at the university and all but two of them were formerly enslaved. At the time the photograph was taken, in Spring 1874, the Jubilee Singers were visiting Britain as part of a European tour to raise funds for the university.

This photograph was engraved and published in other source inluding the Illustrated London News, but the copyright record provides a bit more detail about the people involved in its creation. The post also highlights connections between the singers and philanthropic organisations and people in Britain, including an interesting link with Hackney Juvenile Mission.

Read more here: Photograph of the Jubilee Singers - The National Archives

Image: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): COPY 1/25/182