Blogs

The website for Dimbola, which houses information on the legendary Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, has been totally revamped. It is now a lot more easier to navigate and focus is on upcoming events and exhibitions. Links to social networks like Facebook and Twitter have also been incorporated. You can check out the new look for yourself by clicking on the link here.

Dimbola Lodge, the best kept secret on the Isle of Wight, was saved from the bulldozers literally at the last minute, in the early 1990s. Cameron who virtually invented the close-up and photography as an art form, made Dimbola Lodge her home from 1860 to 1875.

Three visual arts researchers have each been awarded a fellowship in the history of photography by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) as part of its Research Fellowships Program for the 2011–12 academic year. This program encourages and supports advanced research on the NGC’s collections, including those in the Library and Archives. 

Elizabeth Cavaliere holds a bachelor of arts from Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, a master’s degree in art history from York University, Toronto, and is currently a doctoral candidate in art history at Concordia University, Montreal. During her residency she will study the photographs of Alexander Henderson (1831-1913) to deepen understanding of 19th century Canadian topographical landscape photography.

Jacob Lewis holds a bachelor of arts from Saint Mary’s College of Maryland and a master’s degree in art history from Williams College. He currently holds a Sylvan C. Coleman and Pamela Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and is also a doctoral candidate in art history at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He will use his Fellowship at the Gallery to study the photographs of Charles Nègre (1820-1880), as well as other 19th century French photographers.

Hyewon Yoon holds degrees from Seoul National University in Korea, as well as a master’s degree in art history from Harvard University, where she is currently a doctoral candidate. During her residency she will explore the Lisette Model fonds of negatives and documents in the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, as part of her research into female European émigré photographers.

Congratulations!

The New York Historical Society has put together a short video clip showing some of the oldest photographs ever taken of Manhattan.  All were shot by photographer Victor Prevost in the 1850s.

You can view them by clicking on the link here.

We are looking for a Curator to take responsibility for the BFI National Archive’s collection of posters, designs and museum objects. Working as part of the BFI curatorial team you will be required to document, develop, research and interpret the poster and designs collections, ensuring they are embedded within the cultural programme of the BFI.

You will have a strong knowledge of British film and television in both its historical and contemporary contexts. You should also have an interest in, and demonstrable knowledge of, 20th and 21st century British art and design, particularly as it relates to the film and television industries.

You will be educated to degree level or equivalent, with a recognised archive, museum or conservation qualification or equivalent experience.

You will be based at the John Paul Getty Conservation Centre, Berkhamsted but you will be required in central London on a regular basis.

You will enjoy benefits such as a final salary pension scheme, 28-33 days annual leave, tickets to BFI festivals and events plus many others.

Further details about the post (including an information pack) can be obtained by visiting www.bfi.org.uk/jobs or by email: jobs@bfi.org.uk.

The closing date for applications is 23 September 2011 Interviews will be held weeks commencing 3 October and 10 October 2011.

Which photographers were included? How were the photographs selected? And Why?

The Lives of Great Photographers was a compelling exhibition drawn exclusively from the Museum's extensive and diverse Photography Collection, including works from The Royal Photographic Society Collection and the Daily Herald Archive. Together this exhibition presented a selection of photographs by some of the greatest photographers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

From photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron and Eadweard Muybridge to Tony Ray-Jones and Weegee, this exhibition highlighted some of the most famous and memorable images ever produced. It illuminated the extraordinary and sometimes exceptional lives these photographers led.

Director of the Impressions Gallery, Bradford, Anne McNeill questions Brian Liddy, the curator of the exhibition, about the choices he faced and the decisions he made in the video below:

There is a case study of the National Media Museum's on-going marketing campaign by the creative team behind a recent series of posters. The idea was, in the words of the agency behind the campaign: 'Let the objects speak for themselves! By doing this, we were able to communicate the depth and variety on offer at the National Media Museum whilst also bringing out the stories to be found. The campaign was created to be engaging, through the use of stories and eye catching imagery, and also inspire visitors to find out more by actually visiting the museum itself, this was emphasised by use of the sign off strapline ‘Discover the full story at National Media Museum’

As they say the success of the campaign will be judged by any increase in visitor numbers which are due to be released shortly.

The full report can be found here: http://www.sumodesign.co.uk/work/campaign/national-media-museum.html 

In 1973, photographer Daniel Meadows went on an extraordinary journey, photographing the English as he travelled the country in a double-decker bus. Imagine a young, long-haired hippy with a penchant for Bob Dylan, a sense of adventure and a passion for photography, giving away photographs from his converted double-decker studio. 
Meadows was one of an important group of photographers who spearheaded the independent photography movement in the early 1970s, breaking with tradition and infusing the medium with new energies and ways of seeing. His practice is complex, passionate and sometimes deeply autobiographical. He produced an astonishing record of urban society across Britain, working in a uniquely collaborative way with his subjects, many of whom he interviewed. These are those rare photographs that people come to love, for their innocence, their directness and their sense of longing.
Together with recently discovered unpublished work from Meadows’ own archive, this book presents his five best known projects: The Shop on Greame Street, 1972, Butlin's by the Sea, 1972, June Street, Salford, 1973, The Free Photographic Omnibus 1973-74, and Nattering in Paradise, 1984.
With an insightful view of the culture and fashions of the age, this book Illuminates a remarkable period in British photography when everything seemed new, and gloriously possible. Writer and curator Val Williams has written a fascinating text placing Meadows’ work in the context of contemporary culture.
From the remarkable free photographic studio on Greame Street in Moss Side to his study of suburbia, Meadows emerges as a powerful and engaging documentarist and an incisive commentator on his times.
To accompany the publication of this book, a new exhibition on Meadows's work will be on display at the National Media Museum, details of which can be found here. It will then tour to Ffotogallery, Cardiff; Birmingham Central Library, and the London College of Communication.

A review can be found here, and you can search for the book using the Amazon link on the right.

In October 2010 the National Media Museum hosted the 'Niépce in England' Conference where they could announce and share with the photographic, conservation and scientific communities the ground breaking findings which had been discovered during the collaborative research partnership between the National Media Museum (NMeM) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI).

The aim of the project is to record the ‘signature’ of every photographic process and the variants throughout the history of photography. Within the National Photography Collection at the NMeM are three early examples of photography by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and there is no better place to start on a project than at the beginning.

This new research places Niépce in his rightful place within the history of photography as it revealed new exciting evidence about the examples of photography which Niépce had brought to England to show the Royal Society of London in 1827. Photo historians had always assumed, incorrectly, that the examples Niépce brought were examples of his Heliographic process. However, scientific analysis revealed that the NMeM has examples of three different photographic processes by Niépce.

Speaker: Philippa Wright from the National Media Museum, Bradford, 1pm on 14 October 2011 at the Royal Society.

Further details: http://royalsociety.org/events/Niepce-in-England/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Ni%C3%A9pce%20in%20England&utm_content=History%20of%20Science%20events&utm_campaign=Autumn%20events%202011

This is a free public lecture and all are welcome to attend, but prior booking is necessary.Reserve a place at this lecture.

This really charming story was sent to me and I thought I would share it with you. If you are not familiar with Lomo / Diana F or Holga cameras then hopefully this will open up a new area for you.

http://www.lomography.com/magazine/lifestyle/2011/08/31/vintage-exposed-film-found-in-an-auction

A public meeting of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) and the Victoria & Albert Museum in Wolfen on the 28th and 29th October 2011 in the auditorium of the former Agfa/Orwo film factory, Bitterfeld-Wolfen.

2011 represents two cultural and technical-historical anniversaries: 150 years ago coloured photograph was projected in London by Professor James Clerk Maxwell and 75 years ago, the first colour-developed multilayer colour films - Kodachrome and the new Agfacolor - came on the market. 

These landmark events in the photograph give rise, under the auspices of the Section history and archives, and in collaboration with the Industrial and Filmmuseum Wolfen Conference On the way to natural colors on the many aspects of colour photography from analog to digital-history discussed by well-known speakers.    

To coincide with the Freer and Sackler exhibition POWER | PLAY China’s Empress Dowager (photographs of the Empress Dowager Cixi, dating from c.1903), the Japan Art History Forum will be holding a special conference focusing on the subject of imperial portraiture across Asia and the Middle East during the advent of photography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

While the exhibition itself addresses the unique circumstances and intention of the Cixi photographs, the conference will provide an opportunity for a broader comparative analysis of the engagement with photography in the context of portraiture in ruling courts across Asia.

Invited speakers include:
Ali Behdad, John Clark, Deepali Dewan, Holly Edwards, Maki Fukoka, Luke Gartlan, Yi Gu, Yuhang Li, Hyung Il Pai, Maurizio Peleggi, Claire Roberts, Mary Roberts, Roberta Wue and Peng Yingchen.

Details of the conference can be found here. A full conference program and other information will be available in late summer. 

The life of China’s Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) was anything but conventional. She rose in power from a low-ranking imperial concubine to Grand Empress Dowager of the Qing court, reigning as sovereign to more than 400 million people for more than 45 years.

On public display for the first time will be 19 stunning life-sized, photographic portraits of the Empress Dowager created from the Freer and Sackler Archives’ collection of original and unique glass negatives. The portraits reveal a ruler who, in an attempt to control her public persona, seized on the emerging technology of photography to shape her image on the world stage. The high-resolution images are printed on large aluminum panels, a format that enables visitors to see a fascinating level of detail previously imperceptible in conventional prints.

The photographs were taken in the years following China’s Boxer Rebellion, when Cixi (pronounced TSUH-see) was held in low regard throughout the world. In 1903, she commissioned a young aristocratic photographer named Xunling (pronounced SYOON-leeng) to take meticulously staged studio portraits of her and her court, melding modern photography with traditional conventions of imperial portraiture. Several of the photographs taken at the imperial Summer Palace outside of Beijing depict the Empress dressed as Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Others depict her with attendants and eunuchs boating on a lake in theatrical costumes.

Many of the portraits were created as gifts to diplomatic visitors or to other world leaders.

Among the highlights of the exhibition are a large, hand-tinted portrait sent to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 and a print presented to his daughter Alice on her visit to the court in 1905. Social occasions featuring Manchu princesses and women of the foreign diplomatic corps are also captured on film, illustrating the court’s carefully crafted diplomatic campaign to win the support of foreign powers. 
Xunling’s original negatives were brought to the United States by his sister Deling, who used them to illustrate her best-selling books recounting her own experience as personal attendant to Cixi.  Following her death in 1944, the negatives were purchased by the Freer and Sackler galleries. The collection of 36 original Xunling negatives is the largest outside the Palace Museum in Beijing and one of the most important holdings of early Chinese photographs by a Chinese photographer in North America.

Details of the exhibition can be found here, and the official press release here. A special seminar by David Hogge, curator of the exhibition, can also be found here too.

Photo: The Empress Dowager Cixi in sedan chair surrounded by eunuchs; China, Qing dynasty, 1903-1904; Glass plate negative; Image credit: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, SC-GR 261

Not gun shot wounds, but shots of of miners in the Rhondda Valley and men working at the Powell Duffryn Pit and Penallta Mine in Ystrad Mynach taken by an unsung Fleet Street photojournalist, James Jarché, in the 1930s. 

Now, his grandson, David Suchet, best known for playing Agatha Christie’s iconic Belgian detective, is coming to Wales this October to film part of an ITV1 documentary which follows the footsteps of his photographer grandfather. Jarché’s long and successful career saw him produce some of the most famous images of the 20th century including snaps of the famous London gun siege in Sidney Street in 1911, and the first ever picture of the Prince of Wales with Mrs Simpson, which he took in secrecy in a London nightclub.

Director Harry Hook, of Testimony Film, is keen to make contact with some of the stars of Jarché’s pictures who depict the life of mining families and men going down the pit. Anyone who knows faces from the pictures or has any information can contact Rosie Bristowe of Testimony Films on 0117 925 8589 or email rosie.bristowe@testimonyfilms.com. Alternatively they can write to Testimony Films, 12 Great George Street, Bristol, BS1 5RH.

Suchet is a keen photographer himself after becoming interested when his grandfather gave him a Kodak camera as a present.

Photo: David Suchet as Agatha Christie's iconic Belgian detective.

Some years ago I bought a this little badge as an interesting item of photographic history. I'm posting the picture here to see what comments fellow members of this forum might make. There are many interesting details about a number of the conventions on the Edinburgh photo website including the 1892 Convention in Edinburgh.

This site shows a similar pin (but with all red enamelling)

I wonder which year this badge came from?

Ian

The BFI's £12 million Master Film Store in Gaydon, Warwickshire will open next month.

The new building has been designed to improve the conditions in which the archive is kept and prevent it from deteriorating - and deal with the risk of nitrate film catching fire.

The BFI's Head of Collections & Information, Ruth Kelly showed BBC News around the old and new storage facilities, as well as what happens to film when it is not stored correctly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14665763

The Master Film Store, which is in addition to the BFI’s existing archive site in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, will house up to 450,000 cans of film ranging from the early works of Mitchell and Kenyon to The King’s Speech.

The £12m state of the art, environmentally sustainable facility has been built on a disused military installation and will use green technologies to keep the films at a temperature of minus 5 degrees and 35% relative humidity, the optimum conditions for preserving films which could deteriorate if not kept in the right storage conditions.

The fire resistant site consists of six large acetate film stores and 30 smaller nitrate stores in a building of just under 3,000 square metres. The building process, began last October.

http://www.screendaily.com/news/uk-ireland/bfi-opens-new-12m-archive-facility-as-part-of-screen-heritage-uk/5031211.article

The Trustees of the Royal Photographic Society today (22 August) announced the appointment of Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS, a former Christie's photographic specialist and director, as its new Director General to spearhead the Society's national and international profile.

Michael Pritchard takes up the post on 20 September and will be responsible for managing The Society’s headquarters operations, working with the Council to lead the future direction of the Society, and for further raising the profile of the Society nationally and internationally.

Michael Pritchard was with the auction house Christie’s between 1986 and 2007 where he was a director, responsible for photographic auctions as well as having wider international business responsibilities. He completed a PhD examining the British photographic industry in 2010.  Most recently he has been teaching at De Montfort University, Leicester, and working for the British Library on the Kodak Historical Collection. He has had a passion for photography since he was 10 years old and worked as an assistant at a commercial and portrait photographic studio in Watford for many years. As an active photographer he has a particular interest in landscape photography. Michael joined The Society in 1979 as a junior member, achieving his Associateship in 1984 and Fellowship in 1986. He is deputy chair of the Research, Education and Application of Photography Distinction Panel and is active on the committee of the Society’s Historical Group.

The offical press release can be found here, and a news article here and here.

Photo: The new RPS Director General, Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS.

In Believing is Seeing Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography. In his inimitable style, Morris untangles the mysteries behind an eclectic range of documentary photographs, from the ambrotype of three children found clasped in the hands of an unknown soldier at Gettysburg to the indelible portraits of the WPA photography project. Each essay in the book presents the reader with a conundrum and investigates the relationship between photographs and the real world they supposedly record. 
During the Crimean War, Roger Fenton took two nearly identical photographs of the Valley of the Shadow of Death-one of a road covered with cannonballs, the other of the same road without cannonballs. Susan Sontag later claimed that Fenton posed the first photograph, prompting Morris to return to Crimea to investigate. Can we recover the truth behind Fenton's intentions in a photograph taken 150 years ago? 
In the midst of the Great Depression and one of the worst droughts on record, FDR's Farm Service Administration sent several photographers, including Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evans, to document rural poverty. When Rothstein was discovered to have moved the cow skull in his now-iconic photograph, fiscal conservatives-furious over taxpayer money funding an artistic project-claimed the photographs were liberal propaganda. What is the difference between journalistic evidence, fine art, and staged propaganda? 
During the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006, no fewer than four different photojournalists took photographs in Beirut of toys lying in the rubble of bombings, provoking accusations of posing and anti-Israeli bias at the news organizations. Why were there so many similar photographs? And were the accusers objecting to the photos themselves or to the conclusions readers drew from them? 
With his keen sense of irony, skepticism, and humor, Morris reveals in these and many other investigations how photographs can obscure as much as they reveal and how what we see is often determined by our beliefs. Part detective story, part philosophical meditation, Believing Is Seeing is a highly original exploration of photography and perception from one of America's most provocative observers.

The book is due out on 1st September 2011. A full review of the book can be found here, and if interested, you can purchase it using the Amazon link on your right.

Photo: Gernsheim Collection, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Roger Fenton's famous Crimean War photograph. Did he deliberately arrange the cannonballs?

Founded in 1947 on the estate of Kodak founder George Eastman, the world’s oldest photography museum holds an unparalleled collection of over 400,000 images from 9,000 photographers. These significant photo archives span from daguerreotypes to digital photographs, including such unique artist collections such as Southworth & Hawes, Lewis Hine, and Edward Steichen.

Teaming with Clickworker, an innovator in the global crowdsourcing and workforce solutions space, George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film is now bringing their archives into the digital age, making them easily accessible to the public -- in many instances, for the very first time. To meet the needs of this expansive project, Clickworker leverages its global crowd of more than 115,000 to efficiently tag and catalog the museum's vast collection of images from around the world.

Included among the newly-tagged photo collections are original daguerreotypes from 19th century America (Southworth & Hawes); images of Lincoln assassination conspirators (Alexander Gardner); photographs of new immigrants to American soil and construction and labor-themed images, including the evolution of the Empire State Building (Lewis Wickes Hines); and celebrity portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Frida Kahlo (Nickolas Muray, a former lover of Kahlo's).

You can read the rest of the report here.

Photo: George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, USA.