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After the record-breaking price paid in Vienna just a few weeks ago for a rare Leica no. 7, the auction world has announced that yet another world record has been broken. This time it is for a 19th-century photograph of a beautifully composed seascape by Gustave Le Gray.

A fierce bidding war erupted at Rouillac's photography auction last Saturday in Vendome, France between a US bidder, a French bidder and another from an unspecified oil-producing state. The hammer went down at  €917,000 ($1,305,000), including the buyer's premium to the Houston oil magnate.

One of the most important photographers of the 19th century and a great traveler, Le Gray started making daguerrotypes in 1847. By 1855 he was Napoleon III's  photographer, while producing his most famous images of seascapes.  Four prints exist of the image, "Bateaux Quittant le Port du Havre" ("Boats Leaving the Port of Le Havre"), which dates from 1856 or 1857. It measures roughly 12 by 16 inches and is an albumen print.

The full auction results can be found here. If you have any of the other three prints, drop me a line ...

Photo:  Gustave Le Gray's "Bateaux Quittant le Port du Havre" (1856-57).

University of St Andrews - School of Art History. We are seeking to appoint a temporary Teaching Fellow with expertise in any area of the History of Photography to contribute to the School's undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. You should have or be about to complete your Ph.D. and will have some teaching experience at university level. The post will be for 9 months from 5 September 2011 to 15 June 2012.

You will be required to teach two Honours modules and one Postgraduate module in subjects to be agreed with the Head of School and will contribute to the team-taught 2nd-year modules on 'History & Theory of European Art, Architecture and Design, from the French Revolution to Vienna 1900' and 'Art, Culture and Politics from 1900 to Now'.

* Applications will be considered from candidates with less experience/knowledge of the area for appointment on Grade 5, salary range £24,370 - 29,099 per annum pro rata, with the duties to be agreed and altered accordingly.

Informal enquiries may be made to the Head of School, Brendan Cassidy: bfc1@st-andrews.ac.uk

Apply


£29,972 - £35,788 per annum, pro rata

Start: 5 September 2011

Fixed Term for 9 months
Interviews will be held on 5 August 2011

Ref No: CD1001

Closing Date: 21 July 2011

Further Particulars - www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk

Recently published to accompany the exhibition, this catalogue, in three languages, has been written by leading experts on the work of Eugène Atget. Following a short text in which the curators set out the exhibition’s aims, Guillaume Le Gall of the Sorbonne will analyse the way in which Atget’s concern to photograph a Paris that was disappearing locates him in a context that first arose in the first half of the 19th century.

The article by Anne Cartier-Bresson and Marsha Sirven, heads of the Photography Restoration and Conservation Studio of the City of Paris, looks at the technical procedures used by Atget and at the criteria applied in the conservation and restoration of his work. The English writer Geoff Dyer offers a personal portrait of Atget and his work, while Michael Thomas Gunther investigates the relationship between Atget, Man Ray and Surrealist circles in 1920s Paris. 
The catalogue includes reproductions of all the works in the exhibition, organised into the 12 sections listed above. The use of 4-colour printing allows for an appreciation of the tonalities that Atget’s images have acquired over time.
Finally, the catalogue includes a highly complete and detailed biography of Atget, a select bibliography, an exhaustive list of exhibitions, and a list of public and private collections in which his work is to be found. All have been prepared by Françoise Reynaud, Chief Curator at the Musée Carnavalet, one of the leading experts on the work of Atget and co-curator of this exhibition.

A press release with a very useful read on Atget can be found below:

Dossier-de-prensa-INGL.pdf

The exhibition will subsequently travel to Rotterdam (the Nederlands Fotomuseum, 24 September 2011 to 3 January 2012); Paris (the Musée Carnavalet, 17 April to 25 July 2012); and Sydney (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 21 August to 15 November 2012). However, for those unable to get there, FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE has created a corresponding monographic website in order to expand the contents of the exhibition and to make it as accessible to the public as possible - great!. Just click on the link here.

Just came across this V&A course which might be of interest to all you BPH members out there.

The course looks at original prints in the V&A collection and investigates the work of British photographers from the nineteenth century to the present. It also discusses key ideas and questions shaping the history of photography as a medium for creative expression. Another area touched upon is the invention and reception of British photography, its varying uses from fine art to photojournalism, and its relationship to major art movements.

All sounds very interesting to me! Details of how to book a place can be found here. Don't worry - it's not until next year, but uptake quite likely to be extremely popular, as with most V&A's courses.

An 1873 image showing north Londoners on a double-decker coach and horses heading towards Holloway. What about a 1906 snap of an early 18th century coaching inn at the top of Highgate West Hill, which proudly bears the sign “The Flask Tavern”. Another photograph, one of 1,000 in the collection dating from the 1880s, is by JF Hows which shows the middle classes gathering on the wide open spaces near Highgate ponds to watch a swimming competition for the King’s Cup in 1906.

This publication, which celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Hornsey Historical Society, presents a selection of over 120 19th- and early 20th-Century photographs from the North Middlesex Photographic Society’s survey and record of Middlesex. They record long-vanished scenes of Crouch End, Edmonton, Enfield, Hampstead, Highgate, Hornsey, Palmers Green, Stroud Green, Tottenham, and Wood Green. Details of the photographers and locations are given.

A Vision of Middlesex, by Janet Owen and John Hinshelwood, is available from the Hornsey Historical Society for £15 plus £2.50 p&p. Call 020-8348 8429 or click here. Or you can try the Amazon link on the right.

Photo: Archway Tavern bottom of Highgate Hill

This past weekend an exhibition of arctic photographs by Alexander Rodger and David Dickson, 1894-7, opened in St Andrews to complement an international conference entitled Polar Visual Culture.  The exhibition is at the School of Art History, open Mon-Fri, 9am-4.45pm until 30 September.

The conference blurb:  

The polar environment, and its potential destruction, is now receiving heightened attention in the mass media, with extensive scientific study and urgent results on climate change reported daily. Our objective is to focus attention upon the unique, prolific and hitherto under-examined visual culture - painting and graphic illustration, expedition and frontier narratives, installations and poetic geographies, films and photography - that the expeditions to the two polar regions have inspired since the early nineteenth century, and which forms a fundamental part of our perception of these environments.

All done now but abstracts are here: PVC Abstracts

And further detail about the conference: here

If climbing, photography and the Alps are your cup of tea, then you're in luck!

This is the first time that the life’s work of this important photographer (who is usually a footnote in the history of photography), a total of 1,200 photographs, is being exhibited. Born in Biel, Switzerland, Jules Beck worked in his family's textile business in Strasbourg, France before taking up his real passion in life at the age of 41 - mountain photography. Beck started climbing at the age of 24 by making an early ascent of Monte Rosa, the highest peak in Switzerland, and joined the Swiss Alpine Club as soon as it was formed in 1863.

As of 1866 and several times a year over a period of 24 years, Beck undertook his almost 20-hour-long excursions up as far as the highest Alpine summits. Lugging a dry-plate camera the size of a microwave oven up snowy peaks, Beck became a pioneering adventure photographer. Until that time, artists had been using the newly invented camera to take pictures of mountains—usually from afar. Few actually dragged the bulky equipment into the hills. It was rare that he was able to take more than a dozen successful photographs a day. The mountain weather conditions often played tricks on him, especially as in those days the new dry plates required very long exposure times.

For the next quarter of a century, Beck explored the Swiss Alps, laboriously making hundreds of glass-plate exposures. You can now view the fruits of his hard labour in a special exhibition here, and some further background on Beck in a news report here.

This is in addition to the release last week of a new (and free) reading app for Apple’s iPad which offers access to over a thousand scanned 19th Century books. The Library says the app will be updated later this summer to offer more than 60,000 titles which form part of its 19th Century Historical Collection, and will provide a wealth of historical, scientific and cultural content for the researcher and more general enthusiast alike.

The full news report can be found here. Things can only get better .....

Well, a tintype will do, in fact.

That is if you are in possession of the only authenticated photograph of the outlaw known to exist which is a 130-year-old tintype of Billy the Kid. This credit-card-sized tintype of William H. McCarty, alias William Bonney, alias Billy the Kid is widely regarded as the most important photograph of the American West. 

Extensively studied and documented, the photograph is nearly as famous as its infamous subject. It was taken around 1879, outside a saloon in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, when McCarty was barely out of his teens and already a budding cattle thief and jailbird. (Note the shabby clothes and goofy hat in the larger image.) The Kid gave it to his pal Dan Dedrick, and it's been in the family ever since. It's occasionally shown up in museum shows and has been featured in numerous books on the Kid, including one by Pat Garrett, the sheriff who gunned Billy down on July 14, 1881--130 years ago next month.

​The photo will be up for auction on June 24-26, with an anticipated sale price in the $300,000-$400,000 range, though some say it could fetch as much as $1million. The New York Times reported that there will be "armed guards" when the photo is previewed June 24, just in case some varmint in the crowd decides to turn outlaw!

Auction details can be found here. The closest cowboy I've come across is Woody (of Toy Story fame), and he ain't no outlaw.

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, we aim to engage, inspire and educate through a powerful yet sensitive approach to contemporary issues.
Working across both the National Media Museum and The National Railway Museum, you will develop and deliver high profile marketing and communications campaigns with innovative content. Focused on meeting customer acquisition, engagement and revenue targets, you will ensure consistent brand messages across all digital platforms, including social media.
Knowledge of contemporary digital marketing and media trends is essential, preferably gained within an arts, heritage or leisure environment. With practical experience of developing complex digital communications strategies, you will have extensive insight into optimising relationships with third party websites, community portals and social media.
We welcome applications from all sections of the community in which we work. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people and we guarantee interviews to suitably qualified disabled applicants.
To apply, please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
Closing date: 27th June 2011
Interviews: 5th July

£19,000
6 month fixed term contract

Good luck!

According to the Yorkshire Film Archive, the magic lantern manufacturer, Riley Brothers, operated out of 55 & 57 Godwin Street, Bradford. They produced a machine called the Kineoptoscope in 1896 using a design patented by Cecil Wray.  This was advertised at the time in The Era as, 'Steady as Lumière's. No breakdowns. Most portable and the most perfect known'.  This was modified into the Kineoptoscope camera in June 1897, and it may be this which is being used in this film. The Riley Brothers put on the first cinema performance in Bradford at the People’s Palace on 6th April 1896, now the site of the National Media Museum.

Hundred of images of old Ireland and the globe-trotting adventures of affluent West Cork Methodists are among the subjects in an extraordinary collection of 19th century photography recently discovered in a house clearance. This also includes an important late 19th century magic lantern made by The Riley Bros of Bradford.

With an estimate of €1,500-€2,500, details of tomorrow's auction in Cork can be found here.

Roger Watson's book about the race between two eccentric characters on either side of the English Channel in the 1830s to develop the world's first photograph has been acquired by the publishers, Pan Macmillan. This non-fiction work features English polymath Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre in France as they raced to claim the new technology and techniques.

Entitled "Capturing the Light", Pan Macmillan has bought the UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, and plans to publish it in 2013. Non-fiction publisher Jon Butler said, "This is narrative non-fiction at its very best‚ a tale of two lone geniuses racing to be the first to solve an ancient puzzle, in the best tradition of Longitude or Fermat's Last Theorem. And at the very heart of the book, a tiny, ghostly image of a Victorian window, so small and perfect that it 'might be supposed to be the work of some Lilliputian artist': the world's first photographic negative.

Watson is a curator of the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey, and the full report can be found here.

Ian Leith reports that a new version of the English Heritage/National Monuments Record guide to the archive is now available online. The 48 pages guide details the mainly photographic & measured drawings holdings of the NMR up to early 2011 and is a selective guide to main holdings. Go to: http://www.englishheritagearchives.org.uk/Catalogues/Default.aspx Ian has kindly provided a version that can be accessed here as a word document: EH/NMR collections list 2011

For access to items from the collection please go to NMR Enquiry & Research Services - Enquiry.ResearchServices@english-heritage.org.uk  quoting the code or numbering indicated. Ian Leith can be contacted at NMR Acquisitions, English Heritage, tel: +44 (0)1793 414730.  

Following on from the success of the 2009 Visual Literacy Series Staging, Manipulation and Photographic Truth, this year the Society will be holding two major events based on Photography and the City. Details of the first are below.

London: 18th June 2011 in partnership with the University of Westminster. Andy Golding and Eileen Perrier will focus on how to think through the production of photographic projects, how to contextualise the city, its development and inhabitants and consider ways in which the city and its social conditions, (housing, work, poverty, war), cultural trends (music, film, fashion) and artistic production can be represented through photography.

They will discuss the genres of documentary, urban landscape, street photography, fashion, photojournalism, conceptual art and constructed photography in representing city themes. Informed by significant historical images, beginning with Henry Fox Talbot's photograph of the construction of Trafalgar Square, they will show the development of student work from their summer school Photographing London leading to the most fascinating and revealing images. The teaching and learning experience has evidenced a structure to creative practice and has resulted in a valuable and growing archive of city based photography.

Tom Hunter will talk about his own photographic practice and how it responds to the city. His work, which focuses on his local neighborhood of Hackney in East London covers topics including the representation of marginal groups, such as squatters and travellers within the city. His work also sets out to document the changing face of the inner city by looking at council estates through their architecture, the residents and their histories. He will also be looking at local businesses which chart the different waves of immigration which have made such a powerful impact on the history and development on the East End of London. www.tomhunter.org

Marco Bohr Representing Tokyo Marco Bohr's presentation will focus on the different approaches used by Japanese photographers to represent the megapolis Tokyo. From the student uprisings in the late 1960s to the post-recessionary period of the 1990s, the photographic representation of Tokyo is inextricably linked to social, political and ideological shifts in Japanese society. Marco's talk will focus on how photographers utilized photographic techniques, such as blurriness, high key printing or overexposure, to create a subjective vision of a dense urban landscape. The varying impressions of Tokyo project a cityscape that is fluid, evolving and multifaceted. Marco is currently completing his PhD on Japanese photography of the 1990s at the University of Westminster.

Rut Blees Luxemburg will talk about her photographs which explore the public spaces of the city, where the ambitions and unexpected sensual elaborations of the ?modern project? are revealed and contested. In her photographic work she brings to light the overlooked, the dismissed and the unforeseen of the urban complex and creates immersive and vertiginous compositions that challenge prevailing representations of the city. Her large-scale photographic works expand the concept of the common sensual in relation to urban public space and representation. RBL?s work has been exhibited internationally and included in key publications and exhibitions on contemporary photography and art. Her monograph ?Common sensual? collects the artist?s work including her collaborative forays into opera, literature, architecture and urban culture. www.rutbleesluxemburg.com

Members and Students £15/Non Members £20
To book call reception on 01225 325 733 or email reception@rps.org

World-class photography takes over London’s most celebrated venues, large and small, for the festival’s inaugural year. The London Street Photography Festival launches this summer to celebrate the time-honoured genre. An exciting new addition to London’s cultural calendar, the festival, 1st-31st July 2011, features curated exhibitions alongside a diverse events programme bringing together leading international artists past and present. Highlights include the first UK exhibition of the incredible archives of mysterious Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier at the German Gymnasium, as well as a newly discovered body of work by previously unknown British photographer Walter Joseph - a gritty portrait of post-war London at the British Library.

Photo Fusion will present rare perspectives by leading female street photographers from around the world, whilst the voyeuristic Seen/Unseen showcases new work by award-winning photographers George Georgiou and Mimi Mollica, using the London bus as a vehicle to explore an unknowing public. Leading street photography collective In-Public will see two of its celebrated members, Nick Turpin and Nils Jorgensen, unite in a joint show presenting work from England and France at St. Pancras International.

The festival will also present the first ever International Street Photography Award, alongside a student category, celebrating the best work undertaken today from thousands of submissions received from around the world.Through a varied programme of exhibitions, talks, workshops and interactive events, the festival will provide a unique insight into the field of street photography from the industry’s leading practitioners and experts. In an exploratory talk at the V&A by Curator of Photographs Susanna Brown, visitors will be able to examine up close some of the collection’s most fascinating acquisitions, including original prints by Henri Cartier Bresson, Gary Winogrand and Diane Arbus.

A range of practical and creative workshops and interactive events will be led by eminent practitioners in the field, including the Olympic Photo-Cycle with Toby Smith, and David Gibson’s photo-walks. Courses vary in duration from two to five days, and include the extraordinary London to Paris Street Photography Workshop with InPublic founder Nick Turpin. The festival will launch with 4 exhibition openings on 30th June, starting at 4pm at the British Library, and from 6:30pm at the German Gymnasium.

The full programme can be found here.

Dear All,

I have included a couple of links that might be of interest. 

http://photohistory.jeffcurto.com/about

It is quite American but very interesting. You can access them form itunes or the website. I have listened to a lot of them and leaned a great deal.

http://www.picturehistory.com/product/id/8403 

This link is useful for research purposes if trying to date pictures or trace a photographer.

I hope this helps 

Nick 

http://teachyourselfphotography.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-get-most-out-of-your-black-white.html

Having been recently acquired by the British Library, these images by Walter Jospeh will become a valued public record of the post war period and the hardships and pleasures Londoners faced.

Joseph (1922-2003) was born in Darmstadt to an Orthodox Jewish couple. He fled Germany as a young man in 1939 (his twin brothers following shortly after) and came to England. As a German national he was interned in the Isle of Man during the Second World War. After the war he was employed in newspaper photographic laboratories, but remained a dedicated amateur and semi-professional photographer for the rest of his life. These fascinating views of London markets, street traders and entertainers were taken between 1947-48.

Joseph doubted his photographic skills but his family always loved his images. There is a striking similarity between the story of Walter Joseph and that of Vivian Maier, who’s work is on display just around the corner at the German Gymnasium.

Details of this exhibition can be found here.

Image © Sonia Lichtenstein, courtesy of British Library

Originally published as a serial between 1844 and 1846, The Pencil of Nature was the first book to be illustrated entirely with photographs. Early enthusiast William Henry Fox Talbot hoped to spur public interest in photography—but was forced to cease publication after just six installments. In its time, The Pencil of Nature was not a commercial success. However, as with some other great works of art, it has been required to undergo the test of time in order to be duly recognized and appreciated.

More than 165 years later, Talbot’s book is recognized as a major contribution to both the history of photography and the development of the book. Indeed, it has been said that the importance of The Pencil of Nature in the history of photography is comparable to that of the Gutenberg Bible in the history of printing. Talbot invented the Calotype process and his photographs transformed everyday subjects into works of art. Architectural studies and local landscapes, still-lifes, close-ups, and even a single, carefully executed portrait—Talbot’s twenty-four prints remain strikingly modern and quietly beautiful.

The Pencil of Nature has been published in several different incarnations since its original appearance. Da Capo press published a reproduction in 1969 and Hans Kraus published the most accurate facsimile along with a commentary by Larry Schaaf in 1989.

This KWS edition is has been reproduced from the original plates held in the National Media Museum, Bradford. A 35-page illustrated introduction by Colin Harding, Curator of Photographic Technology at the Museum, gives shape to Talbot’s life and times, how Talbot became interested in the notion of a “photogenic drawing” process (placing photographic images on paper), how he invented the Calotype (the process by which photographic images could be developed on paper) in 1840, how he used the Calotype process to take photographs, and finally, how he conceived of The Pencil of Nature—the means by which he could show, for the first time in a book, the art of photography to the world.

Published at $150 the book is available on Amazon.co.uk for £98.33. Interestingly Amazon also offers a free copy of The Pencil of Nature (not the KWS version) for the Kindle (see: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pencil-of-Nature-ebook/dp/B004TPLAU6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1307877780&sr=1-1)

The publisher's description is here: http://kwspub.com/The%20Pencil%20of%20Nature.html

Quaritch is hosting a wonderful exhibition of highlights from the Terry Bennett collection until Saturday (see: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/exhibition-early-chinese) in their former premises in Lower John Street close to Paccadilly Circus and Soho. At an informal reception last night Lindsey Stewart of Quaritch and Terry Bennett introduced the exhibition and some of the key pieces on show. The collection has been compiled by Bennett over a twenty year period and is probably the best of its type in the world. Quaritch have published the first two volumes of Bennett's history of photography in China and the next volume is due out in 2011/12.

The exhibition closes on Saturday - do take the opportunity to see an exceptional collection of historic photographs of China.