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The Drew Archival Library of the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society is seeking a Photo Archives Intern. The Intern will be responsible for cataloging and digitizing two large photographic collections consisting of images dating from the 1840’s to the late 20th century.

Applicants must be in a graduate program in Library Science or Archives or recently graduated and have experience working with photographic collections. Knowledge of Past Perfect Museum Software is a plus. This is a paid internship of approximately 100 hours. Interested applicants should send a resume to Carolyn Ravenscroft, Archivist, DRHS, P.O. Box 2865, Duxbury, MA 02331 or email at cravenscroft@duxburyhistory.org.

Summer 2011 – Start and End dates are flexible.

Don't forget about the London Photographica Fair this coming weekend (22nd May). It is the UK's largest photographic collectors fair and is organized by a separate sub-committee of the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain.

Having grown from small beginnings a typical Photographica will have around 200 tables offering everything from daguerreotypes and images, to brass and mahogany field cameras and Leica, through to old and new photographic books, collectible photographic accessories and supplies and tools for restoration. Photographica is international in its stallholders and attendees.

Details of the Fair can be found here, and also in the official flyer below:

photographica%202011.pdf

One of London's most iconic landmark - the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel - or formerly better known as The Midland Grand Hotel was the last and most extravagant of the great Victorian railway hotels, costing 14 times more than its nearby rival the Great Northern. It opened when the railway boom was turning to bust, the 19th century's equivalent of the bursting of the dotcom bubble.

This and other buildings (including country houses, factories, hospitals, shops, banks, railway stations, cruise liners) were photographed then mainly by Bedford Lemere & Co, the pre-eminent English firm of architectural photographers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the Bedford Lemere collection, held by the National Monuments Record, is an important source of images of English architecture and life from 1870 until the Second World War. You can view the online collection here, or better still head to a new V&A exhibition this summer.

Curated by Anne Woodward and Gary Woodward from English Heritage, it will explore Bedford Lemere & Co's extraordinary client list, the evolving role of commercial photography and the lasting social significance of the images. The high quality photographs offer a rare glimpse at late Victorian interiors such as Heal & Son showrooms in 1897, the bar at the North Eastern Station Hotel in 1893 and a host of other 'new' interiors and exteriors.

As part of this year's Wisbech Photographic Festival, Peckover House in Wisbech will be showing an exhibition on William Fox Talbot, the British inventor and pioneer of photography. The exhibition entitled "Children in camera: 1860s photographs from the pioneer photographer" has been kindly put together by the National Trust's Lacock Abbey, the birthplace of Talbot. Other exhibitions are also being held at the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum and the Wisbech Institute.

Details of the Festival, including the Talbot exhibition, can be found here.

Photo:  The Lillian Ream Collection: Market Place Wisbech, part of the Festival's exhibit.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is offering (2) Ralph M. Parsons Curatorial Fellowships in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department. The Parsons Fellows will provide general assistance to the Curator and the Department Head, as well as the Associate Curator, while also conducting scholarly research in connection with the permanent collection and related projects in the Photography Department, which includes over 13,000 works. The Parsons Fellowships support professional development, with opportunities to gain significant curatorial experience specific to photography, and to acquire a broad understanding of museum practices through cross-departmental activity. Within the context of departmental priorities, the Fellows will conduct scholarly research on areas of the permanent collection in his/her area of specialization and will equally be encouraged to develop familiarity with works outside of his/her field of expertise. Areas of potential focus include, but are not limited to: California photography, Japanese photography, and Contemporary photography. In addition to permanent collection activities, each Fellow will also be engaged in a variety of duties relating to the internal organization of special exhibitions. Both Fellows will be fully integrated into the curatorial department, and will participate in projects pertaining to collection care and conservation, cataloguing, on-line access, acquisitions, programming, outreach and publications.

Application details can be found on this link here. Good luck!

I recently discovered and subsequently fell in love with one of these cameras in a charity shop I visited back in February with my fiancée, Cat. She purchased the camera for me for a valentines gift and after a little haggling, we walked away with the camera for the princely sum of £8.  Now I didn't know a lot about these cameras at all. I remember my grandad having what was called a 'Box Brownie' (I now know there are a number of Kodak cameras that fall into this category) but all I knew as a child was that t took pictures. I remember playing with the shutter, and wondering what the red window on the back was for. Years later, I come across one and I still know very little about them. The chap in the shop took it away to inspect it and after a few minutes said it appeared to be in perfect working order, and that the film it took, 120, was still readily available. I took him at his word and scampered home to inspect my new toy in privacy. And here she is in all her glory.

Since I knew nothing about her, I decided to do a little investigation. As it turns out, she doesn't take 120 format film at all, she takes 620 format film. As you guys will know all too well, this format was special developed by Kodak for nefarious reasons to try and 'lock' the camera user to Kodak film. A neat idea, or so they thought. Unfortunately, 620 film was discontinued by Kodak some time ago, and is very rare indeed. So would I ever be able to take pictures with this wonderful machine? As it turns out, yes I can! After some more research, it turns out there are a number of possibilities to take pictures with a brownie. One way, is to re-spool 120 stock onto a 620 spool. Since I don't have a darkroom, or a changing bag, or even the knowledge of how to perform such a task, this was a no-no. And besides, I'm lazy and always on the lookout for an easier way.  Secondly, I could obtain film from someone who had already performed this task. A quick search on Ebay confirmed by suspicions. Yes, there are a few people out there who have done this, but they want an absolute fortune for the privilege! Not only am I lazy, I'm also a Yorkshireman, through and through! There must be an easy, yet cheap way. After more o-nline research it turns out, with a little jiggery pokery, you can adapt 120 film so that your Brownie camera accepts it to shoot with. To perform the task, you need to obtain some sturdy nail clippers and a fine file or sand paper. (I obtained some very cheap nail clippers and a metal nail file from a certain chemist that rhymes with 'Hoots').  First, buy some 120 stock. You'll find it's cheaper if you buy multi-packs, but being the cautious sort, I decided to buy just one roll of Ilford B & W 100 speed in case there were any issues.  Before I started I checked the retaining spring on the camera housing to make sure it was nice and tight to ensure there wouldn't be any light leaks. I took the film out of it's packet and got everything together on a nice flat surface. First, I trimmed the edges of the 120 spool to make it the same diameter as the 620 spool. There is a little lip that runs around the edges which is roughly the same size, which makes a nice guide.  After flipping the spool over and doing the other end, I carefully ran the metal file over the whole thing to make it nice and smooth. Next, I compared the spools for hight. 620 spools are ever so slightly shorter than 120 spools, so I used the file to bring them down just a little bit.  I offered the spool up to the camera to see what it was like, and what do you know, it was a perfect fit! Now I'd never used one of these cameras before, and surprisingly, details on how to load the film were pretty scarce. through trial and error, I worked out which way round the film was supposed to go and how to feed it into the take up spool.  I loaded the housing back into the camera body, and sealed it shut.  t was a little stiff at first, but I managed to wind the film onto the first frame, success! Now all I needed was a fine day and something interesting to shoot!  A couple of weeks ago, Crich Tramway Museum held a 40's weekend. Both my fiancée and I are 40's enthusiasts and I prayed the sun would be out so that the conditions for shooting with my brownie were favourable. Luckily, it was a perfect day, and my 12 exposures ran out quickly. Then it was off to my local Jessops to get them developed. What with Bank holidays and royal nuptials, it took over a week to get the photos back. Gingerly, I opened the envelope and to my utter shock, the results were stunning! Despite shaking more than Elvis in an earthquake and completely ignoring distance and speed settings, most of the pictures were crisper than a winters day!  I honestly couldn't believe these pictures were taken with a camera over 50 years old! My father has kindly offered to scan the negatives for me and I'll post the results as soon as I have them.  I've managed to obtain some expired 620 colour stock (expired in 1983!) and I'm now scanning the weather forecasts for more sun so I can shoot some more pictures with my favourite camera, there's life in the old brownie yet!

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) today announced the successful recipients of their two 2011 Curatorial Opportunities: the Young Curators Program and the Power Coroporation of Canada Curatorial Internships Program. 

For the latter, internships were awarded to Marta Masferrer Juliol and Cerys Wilson. Both will be in residence in Montreal for nine months. Ms Wilson is a photographer and a recent Masters graduate of the History of Photography from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. While at the CCA, Cerys will instigate further learning and conduct an examination of photography’s relationship to cultural, political and historical thought. She will take advantage of the CCA collections of drawings and prints, photographs and models, helping her to trace a path of creation from initial concept to ultimate construct.

The full announcement can be found here.

A special programme celebrating the unveiling of a permanent display of Cincinnati Library’s treasured Cincinnati Riverfront Panorama of 1848  in The Joseph S. Stern, Jr. Cincinnati Room will be held this coming Saturday, 21st May 2011.

As mentioned in an earlier BPH blog, Charles Fontayne and William S. Porter, who worked as partners in a Cincinnati photo gallery from 1847 to 1854, set up their camera on a rooftop in Newport, Kentucky back in September 24, 1848, and panned it across the Ohio River capturing on eight separate plates a two-mile span of the nation’s sixth largest city, Cincinnati.  While Fontayne and Porter knew their project was an ambitious one, they could not have imagined that the Panorama would survive more than 160 years as the oldest comprehensive photograph of an American city, be revered worldwide as one of the finest examples of daguerrean photography, and form the basis for 21st century discoveries about 19th century American life. While expensive and difficult to create, daguerreotypes were noted for their superior level of clarity, exceeding later photographic methods. 

The library acquired the photos — the size of large postcards — in the early 20th century and they have been in storage since 1955 for protection. In 2006, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County contracted the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film to examine, clean, stabilise and perform conservation work on the Panorama.  As part of the preservation project, state-of-the-art digital microscopy equipment produced digital images from the 1848 Panorama.

This programme for the day, which takes place in the Main Library’s Atrium, will include discussions on the provenance and care of the daguerreotype, as well as explaining how 21st century technology assisted with the conservation process.

Do you fancy owning a piece of photographic nostalgia? If so, does an 1865 wooden wet-plate negative box once used by Julia Margaret Cameron of interest to you? It is estimated between Euro 6,000-8,000, with provenance from the Spira Collection.

Or what about a near perfect Hegelein watch camera whereby only three are known to exist in the world, and this camera, no.1011, is for sure the best example. Loose change at an estimated Euro 80,000-100,000.

Or more down to earth, an original Peepshow commemorating the opening of the Thames Tunnel which was planned by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and built between 1825 and 1843, with bidding starting at Euro 300.

All this and more can be found in a forthcoming Vienna auction on 28th May, with lot descriptions here. For me, I think I'll go upmarket, and head for the 1910 Louis Vuitton photographic trunk!

But on a more serious note, many of the Nikon items on auction are donated by Nikon Europe, profits of this sale will go to the Japan Red Cross fund. The recent terrible events in Japan have touched everyone, and collectors worldwide will be excited about Nikon Europe's collection of some unique and historic items.

Hope you find something of interest, and good luck with the bidding!

Photos: Wooden Wet Plate Box,  used by Julia Margaret Cameron, twin brass carrying handles, the interior fitted with slots for twenty-four 10 x 12' wet-plate negatives, hinged cover inscribed in ink in Mrs. Cameron's hand with list of contents;  This Peepshow is made by 4 panels, when opened 2 peep holes allow one to peep through the length of the tunnel (1840).

The National Media Museum (NMeM) is one of the leading museums in the north of England, receiving over 500,000 visitors a year and they want you to contribute to their ongoing success.

NMeM are looking for an extrovert, engaging and entertaining communicator to fill this stimulating role.  With your excellent presentation and performance skills and your keen interest in media, you will help bring the galleries to life for their diverse range of visitors.
As part of the Explainer team in the Learning Department you will present live shows and use your creative skills to develop and deliver art, craft 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, safe and educational visit.
If you have a passion for media, for communication, and for engaging children and adults of all ages, NMeM would love to hear from you. This post is 4 days per week including Sunday.  For a full job description please email recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
Interested? Please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk
NMeM regret that they can only respond to successful applicants.
NMeM are an equal opportunities employer. They welcome applications from all sections of the community in which they work. NMeM particularly welcome applications from disabled people and guarantee interviews to suitably qualified disabled applicants.

Part time - 28.8 hours per week
£10,674.40 per annum (£13,343 FTE) plus weekend allowance

Deadline for applications: 31st May 2011

Good luck!

As part of a special commemoration to celebrate Saltburn's 150 years as a Victorian town, a Festival of Victorian Photography will be held. Visited by Francis Frith back in the 19th century (as part of his colossal project to photograph every town and village in the United Kingdom), sixteen photographers have since converged in Saltburn last month to photograph scenes with a Victorian slant.

The photographers, who are participating in the Festival of Victorian Photography, came to Saltburn to shoot images using traditional Victorian techniques. Their works will be exhibited in The Festival of Victorian Photography, details of which can be found here. The experts included members of the UK Large Format Photography Group, who use glass slides.Photographers participating in the event include: Charles Twist, organiser, John Brewer, Graham Vasey, Tony Richards and Marizu Okereke.

On 2nd July John Brewer will also be giving a public demonstration at the Toc H building, off Albion Terrace, of the wet collodion process, which was used during the two-day April visit.

You can find a blog dedicated to this event here, and the official Saltburn website here.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all!

A perfect introduction to historic photographic processes. This one day workshop covers the beginnings of camera-less photography and will allow you to develop your skills and knowledge into the printing process that started it all. This is William Henry Fox Talbot’s first photographic process, the photogenic drawing, the basis for all photographic printing that came later. This workshop teaches you the basic chemistry and techniques of the process, discusses some of Talbot’s variations and allows you to explore the artistic possibilities under expert guidance.

The workshop takes place onhttp://talbotworkshops.webs.com/photogenicdrawing.htm 13 August and is limited to ten participants. It is led by Richard Cynan Jones. Click here for more information:

New York University held a commemoration to celebrate the centenary of Dr. John William Draper (an Englishman by birth), who, when Professor of Chemistry in the university's early days, took the first photographic likeness ever made of the human face, when Daguerre failed to do it.

Some of Draper's advice for portrait sittings include: “The hands should never rest upon the chest, for the motion of respiration disturbs them so much as to make them have a thick, clumsy appearance, destroying also the representation of the veins on the back, which, if they are held motionless, are copied with surprising beauty.”

“It has already been stated that pictorial advantages attend an arrangement in which the light is thrown upon the face at a small angle. This also allows us to get rid entirely of the shadow on the background or to compose it more gracefully in the picture. For this it is well that the chair should be brought forward from the background from three to six feet.

“Those who undertake daguerreotype portraiture will, of course, arrange the background of their pictures according to their own tastes. When one that is quite uniform is desired, a blanket or a cloth of drab color, properly suspended, will be found to answer very well.”

You can read a copy of the news article as it first appeared on 30th April 1911 below:

104824419.pdf

Entanglements with Colour. An evening of talks celebrating the world-changing scientific discoveries of James Clerk Maxwell during his time at King's College London, on the 150th anniversary of his demonstration of the first colour photograph at Kings College, London.

Speakers:  Basil Mahon, Maxwell Biographer; Professor Frank James, Royal Institution; Mr William Ayliffe, Gresham Professor of Physic Professor John Ellis, Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics, King's College London

All are welcome to attend, registration not neccessary (for planning purposes if would like to attend it would be extremely helpful if you could email anna.ashton@kcl.ac.uk).

For more events around this centenary see: http://maxwell.kcl.ac.uk/events/2011/entanglements-with-colour 

Yes. You did see it correctly! It is a photo of a man defecating on a beach.

But not just any ordinary man. It is the iconic photograph showing the French painter/illustrator, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, defecating on the beach at Le Crotoy in 1898. You can view this and more in an exhibition celebrating the first century of photography in France with vintage photographs using a variety of techniques and on all sorts of subjects, details of which can be found here.

Photo: Maurice Joyant, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec defecating on the beach at Le Crotoy, Picardie, 1898 - Diemar Noble.

John Burke was one of the first people to take photographs of Afghanistan, having travelled there during the second Anglo-Afghan war of 1878 to 1880. His images of landscapes, cities and inhabitants provided a cue for Simon Norfolk to begin a new series of photographs in October 2010.

Burke photographed the Second Anglo-Afghan War in the late 1870s. Born in Ireland and employed as a tradesman, he applied to the British Army to work as an official photographer. But he paid his own way to Afghanistan, traveling through mountainous regions with a wooden 4-by-5-inch field camera. Not much is known about Burke’s personal life, other than his having been married at a church in Pakistan in 1886. “It’s like working with a shadow,” Mr. Norfolk said.

Norfolk’s work responds to Burke’s Afghan war scenes in the context of the contemporary conflict. Seeking out the original locations of these images or finding modern parallels with their subject matter, Norfolk’s new body of work depicts bomb-damaged buildings, local communities, soldiers and embassy workers, as well as uniquely contemporary sites such as internet cafés and wedding halls. Within the exhibition, these images will be presented alongside prints of Burke’s corresponding photographs, bringing history into close proximity with the present and drawing comparisons across a century of British involvement in the region. Also on display will be two original hand-illuminated Burke portfolios.

Details of the exhibition can found here. The New York Times Magazine of April 24, 2011 covers the images, and a longer piece in the newspaper's online Lens by Kerri MacDonald explores the relationship between the works of two photographers in greater detail which you can also read here. An accompany book has also been published which you can search for it from the Amazon link on the right.

Photo: Camp Scene Jellalabad, John Burke #86, 1879