Blogs

The National Media Museum is one of the leading museums in the north of England, receiving over 500,000 visitors a year and we want you to contribute to our ongoing success.
We are expanding our team and looking for extrovert, engaging and entertaining communicators to fill these stimulating roles. With your excellent presentation and performance skills and your keen interest in media, you will help bring the galleries to life for our diverse range of visitors. As part of the Explainer team in the Learning Department you will present live shows and gallery sessions as well as use your creative skills to develop and deliver art and media based activities for families and groups. It will be up to you to ensure visitors including families, school groups and teachers have an enjoyable, inspiring and educational visit.
If you have a passion for media, for communication, and for engaging children and adults of all ages, we’d love to hear from you. These posts are 4 days per week including one weekend day and there are a variety of shifts are available. 
For a full job description please email recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk

A landmark exhibition, which shows previously unpublished material from the Wittgenstein Archives and examines the role and importance of photography in the Wittgenstein family, and in his philosophical work can be viewed in Cambridge until next week.

Wittgenstein had a great interest in photography. In his writings there are numerous references to photography, which he uses to illustrate and clarify his arguments. He himself was a keen photographer and in the 1930s he created his own photo album. During his time as a primary school teacher and architect he carried out a number of photographic experiments together with his sisters and the court photographer Moritz Nähr, a friend of the family. Some of them are closely related to his philosophical work, for instance his experiment based on Francis Galton's composite photography, from which Wittgenstein subsequently developed his concepts of 'language game' and 'family resemblance'.

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was born in Vienna, at one of the summer residences of the family on the outskirts of Vienna, in Neuwaldegg, on 26 April 1889. This exhibition marks the 60th Anniversary of his death in Cambridge on 29 April 1951.

If interested, details of this exhibition can be found here, with a news article here.

William McKinney was born at Sentry Hill in 1832. Besides being a farmer, McKinney was a man of many interests with an absorbing love of the countryside. This intense interest in his own locality was carried into his hobby of photography which he took up in the 1880's. He photographed not only his family and friends but also everyday life on the farm.

Sarah Edge is Professor of Photography and Cultural Studies at the University of Ulster where she is a member of the Centre for Media Research.  A new photographic exhibition of work by Professor Edge is now open for viewing featuring images exploring the ties between Ulster and its Scots heritage, focusing on the works of McKinney. Her work involves revisiting the sites of historical photographs, re-photographing them and comparing these images against information drawn from the original photographs. It aims to create debate about how a personal and community identity can be shown through photography. She also draws upon documents held in the William McKinney archive held in Sentry Hill, County. Sentry Hill was the home of the McKinney family, who came to Ireland from Scotland in the early 1700s.

Details of the exhibition can be found here, and some background information in the pdf below:

Sarah%20Catalogue%20Design%20Download.pdf

Photo: Copyright Professor Sarah Edge

Mark Lampe, a respected commercial and artistic photographer, established the Tesla photographic studios in Wanganui (New Zealand) in 1908, having managed the Tasma studios in Hokitika after emigrating from Australia to New Zealand. He named the business after Nikolai Tesla, the eminent physicist, after whom a unit of light is called. Trained as an artistic photographer, Lampe was famous for his sharp attention to detail, unmatched technical ability, and ability to turn banal everyday subjects into visionary artistic photographs.

A generous $50,000 donation from an unnamed local benefactor made it possible for The Whanganui Regional Museum to purchase a collection of 80,000 acetate negatives from the Tesla Studios Collection 1928-1955 at a recent Dunbar Sloane auction in Wellington. As well as advertising and commercial photography, Mr Lampe recorded weddings, portraits and school photographs, floods, earthquake damage, parades, processions and ceremonies.

The Tesla collection is presently on exhibit at the Sarjeant Gallery which comprise of a wall display of 21 framed prints and four albums containing 100 smaller prints, and offers a sharp perspective of Wanganui life from 1930 to 155. It represents just a tip of the iceberg, as they were chosen from approx. 80,000 mainly cellulose acetate negatives, owned by Leigh Mitchel Anyon Photographer Ltd. A news report can be found here.

Photo: Lampe/Tesla Studios, Wanganui Collection 80,000 Photographic Negatives. Achieved $50,000 at auction.

Edis (1876-1955) took up photography in 1900 when she was given her first camera by her sister. She opened her studio in Church Street Sheringham in 1905 and by 1910 her photographs were appearing in national newspapers. She was one of the first women to use the autochrome process, which was invented in France in 1907, and even patented her own autochrome viewer known as a diascope. In 1919 she was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum as the only official woman photographer to record the war work of the women’s services. Examples of her work are held by the Imperial War Museum, the National Media Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

The Cromer Museum with funding from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)/Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) Purchase Grant Fund, The Art Fund and Friends of Cromer Museum were given the opportunity to purchase a collection of her rare photographs by a private owner, the late Cyril Nunn, who himself was a photographer in Sheringham and worked very closely with Olive Edis, back in late 2008 - as reported here.

A selection of these photographs taken by Edis between 1905 and 1955 are now on permanent display at Cromer Museum in Norfolk. They include stunning sepia images of Cromer and Sheringham fishermen and a rare series of autochromes, the first true colour photographs. Edis was famous in society for her portraiture and the collection also contains photographs of famous people including King George VI, David Lloyd George, Thomas Hardy and Cromer lifeboat hero Henry Blogg.

Photo: (Mary) Olive Edis (Mrs Galsworthy) by (Mary) Olive Edis (Mrs Galsworthy), or Katharine Legat (née Edis)

half-plate autochrome, 1900s. Copyight National Portrait Gallery, London.

Could someone tell me why this photograph shows all these spots? Is it a failure of the photographer to process it correctly? What exactly did the photographer do wrong? Many carte de visites I have by the photographers Ferrier and Rock also show this. They can be seen online here at :http://earlyotagophotographers.blogspot.com/2010/07/ferrier-and-rock.html

William Ferrier was born in Edinburgh on 20 August 1855.

John William Rock was born in Islington, London in 1848.

It was the Belle Époque, a time before air travel or radio, at the brink of a revolution in photography and filmmaking, when Burton Holmes (1870–1958) began a lifelong journey to bring the world home. From the grand boulevards of Paris to China's Great Wall, from the construction of the Panama canal to the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Holmes delighted in finding "the beautiful way around the world" and made a career of sharing his stories, colorful photographs, and films with audiences across America.

As a young man, Holmes was mentored by John L. Stoddard, a pioneer of the U.S. travelecture circuit, who passed on his well-established mantle when he retired. Holmes roamed the globe throughout the summer and traversed the United States all winter, transforming the staid lecture tradition into an entertaining show. He coined the term "travelogue" in 1904 to advertise his unique performance and thrilled audiences with two-hour sets of stories timed to projections of multihued hand-painted glass-lantern slides and some of the first "moving pictures."

Paris, Peking, Dehli, Dubrovnik, Moscow, Manila, Jakarta, Jerusalem: Burton Holmes was there. He visited every continent and nearly every country on the planet, shooting over 30,000 photographs and nearly 500,000 feet of film. This book represents the best of the Holmes archive, brimming with brilliant color photographs. A rare window on the world of 100 years ago, Burton Holmes Travelogues will transport you to a time that has all but evaporated, and inspire you to strike out on a journey of your own.

You can read an excerpt of the book here, and purchase it through the Amazon link on the right. A tribute site dedicated to Holmes can be found here which includes an archive of his photographs, background etc.

Photo: A Throne Room, Forbidden City, Peking, 1901; Burton Holmes

Further to Brewer's blog on collecting photography, I came across a useful article written by Sophie Wright who works form Magnum in London, which I hope will be of use to those BPH individuals thinking of venturing into this 'lucrative' market! Well, it seems that way to me after the record-breaking tintype of Billy the Kid.

Understanding%20The%20Fine%20Photography%20Market.pdf

Another useful, but dated (however, still relevant) read is a BBC/Penguin book published back in 1972 entitled Ways of Seeing by John Berger. You don't need to be an art historian to appreciate it. You can read it from the perspective of a photographer looking for an insight into how and why we see things the way we do, and the relationship between the image and artist, and between the image and the intended audience.

The book is still available from Amazon (use link on right to search for it), and it was to accompany the BBC TV series which sadly is not available on DVD. Thanks to modern technology, you can view it on youtube; the first of four segments can be seen below:

Photo: Copyright: Richard Denyer

In a new 3D documentary commissioned for Sky 3D, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D takes the viewer on a fascinating journey from the gentle 3D of the Victorian era to the extreme out-of-the-screen 3D of the 1980s. The documentary will be screened on Sky 3D on 7 July 2011.

3D has endured a long bumpy journey. From William Friese Greene simply walking along a Hyde Park pathway in an 1893 3D short to Johnny Depp’s swashbuckling antics in Pirates of the Caribbean IV in 2011, 3D has come and gone several times. Some pundits are arguing that the current 3D era is already coming to an end, pointing to slowing 3D ticket sales; others are saying that there is no going back now and that, for the first time, technology and economics finally make 3D a viable form of mainstream entertainment.

Over the last 100 years, the 3D industry has been scattered with various attempts to lure audiences back into the movie theatres. It is this story that Brian May, ex-guitarist of rock band Queen, explores in the Sky 3D’s latest documentary commission, Brian May’s Brief History of 3D, scheduled for broadcast July 7th.

Not only is Brian May a qualified astro physicist, he is also a passionate advocate of stereoscopic 3D, particularly Victorian 3D of which he has accumulated a substantial collection of Victorian 3D memorabilia over the past forty years. Brian May’s lifelong 3D interest has materialised into a book, A Village Lost and Found, published in 2009. The book includes a proprietary 3D viewer known as the OWL, which brings the book’s 2D images into 3D life and was actually designed by Brian May himself.

Produced by Bigger Pictures in conjunction with Widescreen Productions ,who also produced Britain from the Sky 3D series, (which is currently being broadcast every Thursday on Sky 3D) Brian May’s 3D documentary is a genuinely fascinating look into stereo 3D right from the very early days of Victorian stereoscopic filming to the digital 3D of today. Clips include the insane film “Coming At Ya!” a 1980’s western film that, as you can probably guess from the title, used 3D as its main selling point with nearly every sequence featuring action jumping out of the screen. This is so rarely seen in today’s 3D movies and television shows. Yes, it is gimmicky, but still really fun now and again.

For more click here: http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3dtv/brian-mays-brief-history-of-3d-review-sky-3d/4196

Dear All,

I have a recent interest in collecting photography.  'How to buy photographs' by Stuart Bennett is a good source of historical knowledge. Understanding how photography collections are considered and refused has provided a point of great interest. What prints are valuable and the reasons behind this? The book I have just noticed is from Christies collectors library.I collect books(in a v small way) on a regular basis. The photography books are used by me for lesson planning or just enjoying and deteriorate over time. The enjoyment of books causes de-valuing, that is not the case with photographs. They are appreciated and enjoyed without financial loss. (Normally)

I would like to go and see some exhibitions and I am based in the London area. Any recommendations or what to avoid would be much appreciated.  

Thanks

Nick

http://teachyourselfphotography.blogspot.com/2011/06/famous-photographs-of-twins-and.html

London's Victoria and Albert Museum is to open a new photography gallery expected to be in 2012. The outgoing Director Mark Jones has comitted the museum to creating the new and enlarged space for photography in what is now a furniture study room on the first floor. The current gallery in room 38A on the ground floor opened in 2003.

The V&A with its long association with photography since the 1850s has been criticised for failing to allow its dynamic photography curators to deal with photography in an appropriate setting. A problem that has failed to go away since the closing of the Canon sponsored Photography Gallery and a series of well-received specialist shows in the museum's exhibition space.

The opening of the National Media Museum's London presence Media Space just over the road and the re-opening of the Photographers' Gallery in its new building, both due in 2012, threatened to further show up the V&A's poor physical space for showcasing photography from its permanent collection.

Watch this space for more information as it becomes available.

This role is a job share opportunity, working 13 weeks of the year during school holidays only. You will provide high-quality administrative support to the Museum’s Collections & Knowledge and Programme teams.

It’s a rewarding role in a fascinating environment. Award winning, visionary and truly unique, the National Media Museum embraces photography, film, television, radio and the web. Part of the NMSI family of museums, it aims to engage, inspire and educate through comprehensive collections, innovative education programmes and a powerful yet sensitive approach to contemporary issues.

See: http://www.careerbuilder.co.uk/Jobs/Admin-Secretarial/Bradford/Collections-and-Programme-Assistant/J8E7HH6GM0KRDH0PJ7F/

A new biennial photographic festival, aimed at promoting some of the world's top talent behind the lens, is coming to Northern Ireland, its first major photographic event.  The importance of photography in Northern Ireland's visual culture and history is something that will be highlighted, while also embracing and showcasing the nations upcoming photographic talent both at home and abroad through seeking out new/emerging talent.

Organisers promise to "provide a forum and promote the growth of the current photographic infrastructure and practice throughout the country", as well as "supporting audience development across the arts and cultural sector in Belfast and Derry".

"Through a series of interactive events we hope to inspire the countries future photographers, artists and entrepreneurs, offering new, exciting, welcoming and sometimes challenging experiences to audiences through the festival's programme of events," festival organisers said.

The festival launches tonight at the Black Box in Belfast. Exhibitions will run from August 4-14, and details can be found here.

No austerity measures here as The Benaki Museum prepares to display a collection of early photography by James Robertson (1813-1888) who was one of the first prominent traveller-photographers to depict scenes of mid-nineteenth century Greece.
Of Scottish descent, he has been identified as the engraver James Robertson, who worked in London around 1830. He first settled in Constantinople in 1841, where he spent forty years of his life working as a master engraver in the imperial mint. His photography career began in the early 1850’s when he opened a photographer's studio in Peran, the European district of Constantinople. His photographs, which were immediately popular among the art lovers of his period, appeared in international exhibitions in Paris and London and were frequently reproduced in the leading periodical "The London Illustrated News". He died in 1888 in Yokohama.
Robertson earned his place in the history of photography with his coverage of the Crimean war, and with his photographs of Constantinople and other historical Mediterranean sites, such as Athens, Malta, Damascus, Egypt and the Holy Land.
A close study of his work in Athens reveals that he first visited the city in 1853-1854 and probably returned later with Felice Beato, another renowned, somewhat younger, photographer.
The monuments of the Acropolis (Propylaea, Temple of Athena Nike, Parthenon, Erechtheum) and the city of Athens (Temple of Olympian Zeus, Tower of the Winds, Gate of Athena Archegetis, Lysicrates Monument) as well as the Temples of Poseidon in Sounion, Aphaia on the island of Aegina, and Apollo in Corinth were magnificently portrayed by his camera while contemporary Athens was only infrequently depicted or used as a setting for its ancient remains.
Although he rarely photographed people in his early work, in later work he handled them with consummate skill as a means of alleviating the monotony of ancient ruins and as an allusion to contemporary paintings.
James Robertson's collection of photographs of Greece was published simultaneously in London and Constantinople. One of the few remaining portfolios (44 photos) entitled "Photographs by James Robertson, Athens and Grecian Antiquities" was donated by Rena Andreadi to the Photographic Archives of the Benaki Museum where it is treasured as a precious historical document and a rare example of early photographic art.

The exhibition features 38 photographs included in the portfolio: "Photographs by James Robertson: Athens and Grecian Antiquities" (1853-1854). The portfolio was donated to the Benaki Museum Photographic Archive in 1989 by Rena Andreadi.  Details of the exhibition can be found here.

In a work of spectacular imagination and remarkable synthesis, Robert Crawford celebrates St Andrews, the first town in the English-speaking world to have its people, buildings and natural environment thoroughly documented through photography. The Beginning and the End of the World tells the stories of several pioneering Scottish photographers. Yet it also places them within the extraordinary intellectual life of an eccentric society rich in sometimes apocalyptically-minded Victorian inventors and authors whose work has had an international impact.

Crawford is Professor of Modern Scottish Literature at St Andrews University. He received his MA from Glasgow University and his DPhil from Oxford. He is a founding Fellow of the English Association and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has taught at the universities of Oxford and Glasgow, and has been at St Andrews since 1989. 

A Kindle version is also available to download, and a review by The Scotsman can be found here.

Photograph conservator, Qatar Museums Authority, Media Museum Project, Doha, Qatar. The Media Museum collection consists of over 80,000 19th and 20th century photographs, cameras and cinema equipment. Photographs
range from early daguerreotypes through albums and photographically-illustrated books to contemporary colour photographs.

Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) has acquired masterpieces through the years, which QMA is committed to preserve and showcase to the world. QMA is dedicated to accomplish the vision of His Highness The Emir of Qatar through education and cultural interaction with communities in and outside of Qatar.

QMA's mission is to unite and focus the efforts of all museums in the State of Qatar for the acquisition, preservation and interpretation of collections and monuments held in trust for the Qatari people, to be shared with national and tourist audiences. In addition QMA will travel exhibitions or loan to other institutions to promote QMA's mission abroad.

Brief Description/ Purpose of Job: As the first full-time conservator to be hired for the Media Museum project you will be responsible for the long term preservation of the collections. You will be responsible for setting up the conservation laboratory, treatment projects on rare photographs and planning an efficient workflow.

Detailed Description/Job Responsibilities: Ability to perform comprehensive treatments on a wide variety of photographic materials, advising on the conservation aspects of any existing and new stores or display areas, advising on the display and use of the collections, carrying out condition surveys and preservation needs assessments, reparing written reports on survey findings, re-housing the collection as needed, advising the curatorial staff on conservation matters, ordering of conservation supplies, keeping up to date with developments in conservation and helping to organize an international conference and workshop on photographic conservation in the Middle East to take place in 2012.

Job Requirements: MA or Accreditation with ICON in photographic conservation, qualifications in paper or photograph conservation completed recognized programs. 5 years professional work experience, a portfolio of conservation treatments and professional activities plus competence references, knowledge of Arabic a plus.

Additional Details: Salary range depending on qualifications 19000-26000 Qatari Riyals per month (approx. UKP38,500-52,500 per year) (approx. $62,500-85,500 per year). Position includes accommodation.

How To Apply: Preferred method of application is using our Recruitment Website. http://prodapp.qma.com.qa:8008/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?page=/oracle/apps/irc/candidateSelfService/webui/VisJobSchPG&_ri=821&SeededSearchFlag=N&Contractor=Y&Employee=Y&OASF=IRC_VIS_JOB_SEARCH_PAGE&_ti=522118242&oapc=7&OAMC=75477_8_0&menu=Y&oaMenuLevel=1&oas=j0F_0xz_DckQurE1mKLFBw..

It seems as if it was just yesterday that a new record was set for a 19th century photograph. Oh wait, it was just a few days ago that a Le Gray sold for USD $1,305,000. That didn't last long. Yesterday, William Koch, a brother of billionaires Charles and David Koch, of the politically active members of an oil-and-gas family purchased the only known image of Billy the Kid for a staggering 2.3 million (USD) or 2.6 million with commission. More information here:

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/The-Kid-brings-in--2-3M-at-auction

No! - it's not about this year's Eurovision Song Contest. And I know it's not quite British too. But what early photography archives do not include anything British?

This online, non-commercial, photo library has over 5,000 photographs, most of them from four main collections: the archives of Narmin Tahirzade, the photo archive of Adalat Tahirzade, the Institute of Manuscripts and photos from private family collections. For example, the material from Azerbaijan's Institute of Manuscripts includes collections of rare photographs belonging to Salman Mumtaz (1884-1941) and collections from prominent figures in Azerbaijani literature and the arts. Photographs from all three major collections have been chosen by professional researchers and are accompanied by information about their history and the people and places shown.

The online archive can be found here.