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The Common Guild in Glasgow is showcasing a selection of works by Tuner Prize nominated English visual artist, Tacita Dean. Living in Berlin, Dean's work is a blend of German and British cultures. This exhibition presents a selection of recent works that can be seen as still lives, by using imagery of various natural forms, including trees and neolithic stones or ‘dolmens’, and by focussing on the gradual processes of growth, transformation and demise.

Of interest to BPH members, is a series of fragile works take as their ‘found’ canvas six 19th century damaged albumen silver prints of bare trees taken by the pioneering German photographer, August Kotzsch (1836-1910).

Dean has laboriously filled the backgrounds of these photographs with white gouache, incarcerating the deciduous branches forever leafless, highlighting its barren, fruitless beauty.

Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Photos: Damaged August Kotzsch albumen prints c1875. Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London.

German born, yet English by citizenship, photographer Emil Otto Hoppe has been called one of England’s most influential photographers of the Edwardian era. Born in Munich in 1878, Hoppe was actively photographing from about 1910 to 1940. Known for his portrait studies, his subjects ranged from the upper class British society to the natives of the Americas and Asia.

While Hoppe’s still life images were remarkable in their own right. As a photographer he also documented London before the First World War and published a number of books on the city in the early 1930’s. He is known to have photographed famous personalities including Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, TS Eliot, Albert Einstein as well as Rabindranath Tagore.

Two exhibitions showcasing his work can now be seen this year, The first one is shown in India for the first time, and is entitled "Hoppe’s Bombay 1929 and Santiniketan". It commemorates the 150th birth centenary of poet Rabindranath Tagore, who invited Hoppe to visit India in 1929. The exhibition includes photographs of Mumbai and Santiniketan, the university started by Tagore in West Bengal. The EO Hoppe Estate Collection in California published these pictures in the 1990s. The Mumbai photos are of street scenes of south Mumbai, Malabar Hill etc. The exhibition will then travel to Tagore's city, Kolkata, where it will be displayed at the Victoria Memorial Hall from April 16 to May 30, and from there the exhibition will travel to New Orleans. Details of the Mumbai exhibit can be found here.

The second one entitled "Hoppe Portraits: Society, Studio and Street" will be held at the National Portrait Gallery in London from February. Details of the exhibition can be found here, and a news article here.

Photo: Victoria Terminus, Bombay 1929, by Emil Otto Hopp ©

In 1909, R. Herman Cassens, a young entrepreneur, started a postcard company, the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company, in the mid-coast town of Belfast, Maine. Postcards have always been a popular item, especially for travelers, but at the turn of the century they were the absolute rage.

Cassens saw a niche between personal/amateur postcards and the mass-produced postcards available in the bigger cities. He had a dream of "Photographing the Transcontinental Trail--Maine to California," focusing on small rural towns and villages. He and his small crew of photographers traveled through rural New England and New York focusing their lenses on locally known landmarks, street scenes, country stores and businesses, events and people.  Cassens sold his business in 1947 and died in 1948. Though his dream of photographing all 48 states was not realized, his company did manage to make over 40,000 glass plate negatives of New England and New York between 1909 and 1947.

The glass plate images seemed to die along with Cassens. The company stopped producing the "real photo post cards" and eventually switched to the more contemporary color postcards. The glass plates were left in storage, collecting dust for the next 40 years, until the Rockport Institute for Photographic Education acquired them in the late 1980s. In June of 2005, the monstrous task began of cleaning, identifying, organizing, cataloging and scanning the glass plates. In early 2007, the collection once again changed hands after a near disaster. A broken pipe caused a flood in the building on Rockport Harbor where they were stored. The collection was soaked but a strong effort saved it and the collection was ultimately donated to the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, just a few miles from where the whole story began.

Details of an exhibition based on this archive can be found here, a video here and information on the collection here.

I spotted this on Luke McKernan’s excellent blog which deals with silent and early cinema which can be found at  https://bioscopic.wordpress.com/. I can do no better than take Luke's words: A new tool from Google Labs offers interesting ways of analysing silent film subjects (or any other subject, for that matter). The Ngram Viewer uses data taken from the 15 million books and other documents scanned by Google Books to trace the occurrence of words or phrases (up to five words) between 1800 and 2000, showing how often they occur each year.

All you do is enter your search term or phrase, then choose a time period and your language, and you get the results presented as a graph. Having searched for your term, below the graph you are given the option to search Google Books itself for your term by particular time periods or universally. You can also compare your term with others, by adding a comma-separated second term into the search box. You can compare any number of terms, though there are only five colours available.

There seem to be any number of interesting applications for this as a tool, even if the results are approximate and erratic. The frequency of appearance of terms in books is not necessarily a reliable guide to their importance, and some terms register no scores at all (e.g. Gaumont, Muybridge, Mary Pickford), presumably because Google Books hasn’t indexed them yet. But there is more than enough there to encourage imaginative searches and to yield interesting discoveries.

I have included some examples here. Most of us have some awareness of the origins of the word Photography and a Ngram produces an expected graph. If one adds ‘imaging’ then it’s clear how, with the rise of digital photography, this word has begun to supersede photography. Another interesting graph was produced by showing platinotype and palladiotype (the subject of discussions on BPH) the others are self-explanatory.

Although there are issues with the data (it’s dependent on the books google has scanned and the use of which words or phrases to use needs careful consideration) this could be a useful tool for representing trends

Do have a go, and let me know of any interesting Ngrams that you are able to create.

Click on the link here to see if you agree with them, and have your say!

What is said to be the world's first exhibition of platinum-palladium prints, an exceptional technology allowing the photographs to last for thousands of years, is taking place in Bangkok. Since the late 1980s, the German-born photographer, Hans Georg Berger, has been working in the process and his work has been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, among others. 

According to Berger, platinum-palladium prints are a special way of putting a black-and-white image onto paper. It's a very ancient technique; these prints can last for thousands of years unaltered - longer than any other printing material. "We used them not because we wanted to play with platinum, but we think that these photos are so important that they have to be produced in the most archival form possible. We think that these photos are part of the history of humanity and should be documented as such," he said.

The exhibition Nirvana Icons: Sacred Luang Prabang showcases a collection of 23 photos, chosen from over 15,000 images he has taken over two decades. Burger said he is involved in several projects with the Buddhist Heritage Project of the sangha of Luang Prabang.

"Currently, we working on a project with the British Library. We have discovered over 3,500 photographs the Lao monks have been taking of themselves for the past 120 years, so we are digitising and archiving them. It's one of the greatest discoveries in the history of photography. Details of the BL's Endangered Archives project on this photo archive can be found here.

The news report can be found here, and details of the exhibition here. The show will be moving on to San Francisco and Paris sometime next year.

Well, that's what one contemporary critic called  Pierre Yves-Petit (1886-1969), who went by the name of Yvon.

This is because no other images of Paris are better captured than those by him. Petit came of age with the picture postcard, which was introduced in 1870 and flourished in the final decades of the 19th century with the completion of the Eiffel Tower. Although his images are instantly recognisable, it was only this year that Petit began to gain recognition as more than a producer of souvenir images.

Robert Stevens, who spend years researching the history behind Petit's work, has compiled a collection of his images in a book entitled 'Yvon's Paris' which can be found on the Amazon link on the right. Alternatively, you can have a quick glance on the inside of this hardcover here.

Details of an exhibition showcasing come of Yvon's images can be found here, as well as a selection of the prints here. 

Photo: Yvon, Notre Dame, c 1920s, vintage gelatin silver print; 3 1/2 x 5 1/8 inches

In Search of Biblical Lands: From Jerusalem to Jordan in 19th-Century Photography features some of the first photographic images of the eastern margins of the Mediterranean. This region is one of the most photographed places on earth, with subjects ranging from architectural sites to evocative geography, scenes of pastoral life, and its people.

The photographs on view in this exhibition reveal what the travelers of the 1800s discovered on their journey: a landscape of belief, at once familiar yet still mysterious, and includes  rare, early daguerreotypes, salted-paper prints, and albumen silver prints, created between the 1840s and 1900s by the leading photographers of the time, including Felice Beato, Maxime Du Camp, Auguste Salzmann, James Graham, Louis Vignes, Frank Mason Good, and Frederic Goupil-Fesquet.

Highlights of the exhibition are photographs by English photographer Francis Frith (18221898), whose compelling images were made during three trips to the Holy Land in the late 1850s, and daguerreotypes by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (18041892) from his three-year tour of the Near East, culled from the Getty Museum's collection.

Visitors can see the region up-close through stereoscope tours on two large stereo viewers that digitally replicate the three-dimensional immersive experience. Each viewer has a selection of 12 cards that recreate a journey around Jerusalem and Palestine with particular attention paid to objects and places of interest and local color connected through scriptural citation.

Also of considerable note are a series of photographs made during the Duc de Luynes subsidized expedition to the Dead Sea and beyond, including views of ruined Crusader castles in what is now Jordan, and of Petra, the city carved out of rosy sandstone that had been first visited by Europeans in 1828 and is now a world heritage site in Jordan. These rare images come from the GRI's acquisition of the entire publication of the Duc de Luyne voyage.

Details of the exhibition can be found here, and the official press release here.

One of the great paradigm shifts in contemporary art over the past 20 years has been the movement of photography into the realm of fine art. The critical and commercial success of artists such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky, who are represented by contemporary art galleries, and the appointment of photography curators to top public galleries such as Tate Modern and Guggenheim, has ensured that the medium is increasingly regarded as a vital part of contemporary artistic practice. With digital techniques of manipulation becoming more and more advanced, photography stands to continually develop and change as a tool for artists.

Given that the first photograph was produced in 1826, why did it take so long for photography to be accepted by the art world? How reliable is a photograph as evidence of the real world? What makes a documentary photograph different from a 'fine art' photograph? How will the increasing impact of digital manipulation impact upon the medium? What might the future developments in photography be?

These are some of the questions that curator Charlotte Cotton, photographers Anne Hardy and Clarisse D'Arcimoles and artist and writer David Campany will discuss as they explore the most pressing questions regarding photography today.

Click here to book: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/photo/

New Directions in Contemporary Photography
Charlotte Cotton, Anne Hardy, Clarisse D'Arcimoles and David Campany in conversation
7.30pm, Monday 17 January 2011

Tickets are £10 / £6 students and each ticket admits one person. There are only 300 seats available so please book early.

Ikon, one of the UK’s leading international contemporary art galleries seeks a dynamic and creative individual for the post of Curator. They will work with the Director to initiate and deliver an ambitious exhibition programme at the gallery and off-site. The successful candidate will have at least 5 years experience working within an international contemporary visual art context, have considerable experience of writing and publishing, will be audience focused and will be interested in supporting the development of visual artists locally, nationally and internationally.

The salary is in the range £30,345 - £33,054. The post is offered on a full time permanent basis. 

Deadline for applications: Monday 10 January 2011 Interviews are due to be held on: Monday 31 January 2011. The Gallery recently hosted Seeing the Unseen, a revisit of the gallery’s 1976 exhibition of high-speed photographs by the pioneering American scientist and photographer Dr Harold E. Edgerto, over the summer, as reported by the BPH creator here.

Further details and an application pack can be found here. Alternatively, contact Ikon on 0121 248 0708.

Ikon Gallery is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sectors of the community.

Registered charity no. 528892. Ikon is funded by Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council

P&O has a long and proud history stretching right back to 1815 when "a young man with no influence and but limited pecuniary means, opened an office in Lime Street, London and commenced business."  The young man was Brodie McGhie Willcox and he was joined in his new endeavour, as ship broker and agent, by Arthur Anderson, employed by him as a Clerk.  Willcox and Anderson soon became partners and with the financial backing of a Dublin ship owner, Captain Richard Bourne, the "Peninsular Steam Navigation Company" issued its first prospectus in 1835.  The rest, as they say, is our history.

The P&O Photographic Collection is a unique record of the company's ships and history from the advent of commercial photography in 1860's to 2000, and includes over 15,000 photographs which range in type from albumen prints to glass plate negatives and 35mm colour slides. Today, the collection is maintained by Dubai-based global marine terminal operator DP World, which acquired the P&O Group in 2006.

The photo archive, including posters, paintings, drawings, postcards etc is now online and can be found here.

Photo: View of passengers on the deck of CEYLON (1858). 
Sepia Albumen Print

Following the introduction of the daguerreotype process in 1839, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was initially regarded as the principal inventor of photography. It was not long, however, before the legitimacy of this title fell under dispute. Other inventors, including Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce and William Henry Fox Talbot most notably, were seen as possible rivals. This debate about the rightful claimant, otherwise known as the ‘priority debate’, has remained an important issue for many photohistorians ever since.

Although Daguerre always plays a role in publications discussing the advent of photography, he is not always treated favourably. His reputation has become damaged over time as, intentionally or not, photohistorians fall back on clichéd arguments and generalisations. 

Daguerre’s rivals, including Niépce, Talbot, and Hippolyte Bayard, are at times pushed by photohistorians, many of whom rely on various pieces of evidence to strengthen their cases, like lawyers in a courtroom drama.

What’s wrong with Daguerre? shows that wishful thinking and preconceptions, national pride and commercial attitudes play a significant role in photohistoric writing. Although the inventors are long gone and their processes have long since been eclipsed by modern techniques, the old rivalry between them continues. What’s wrong with Daguerre? explores the reasons why Daguerre and the daguerreotype are often devalued, and analyses why advocacy on behalf of Talbot and his calotype process has been so successful.

Hans Rooseboom, What's wrong with Daguerre? Reconsidering old and new views on the invention of photography

35 pp., soft cover, 21 cm, € 7,00 (shipping not included)

 For ordering details see below or contact the author: h.rooseboom@rijksmuseum.nl

Please note that this book can only be ordered from the author/publisher.

Price (shipping & handling included)

Within the Netherlands: € 9,00

To other European countries: € 9,75

Outside Europe: € 10,30 / USD 14.00 / CAD 14.00

Orders

To order a copy please email us your name, address and the payment method you have chosen.

Our email address is h.rooseboom@rijksmuseum.nl.

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Website: www.nescioprivatepress.blogspot.com

Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection -  This exhibition is selected from the wide-ranging art holdings of Bank of America, one of the largest and most comprehensive corporate collections of photography in the world. The collection was significantly influenced by scholars Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, who in the late 1960s assembled a core group of photographs covering the entire history of the medium for The Exchange National Bank of Chicago, a legacy Bank of America institution.

In 2011, nearly 100 works from Bank of America’s photography collection will be on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibit, Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection, will feature photography that spans the earliest development in the medium, dated 1851, to the present day with a collection of internationally renowned contemporary works. The exhibition will then travel to museums in Europe.

Details of the Boston exhibition is here, and the European tour will be posted in BPH when available.

Exposed: Photography and the Classical Nude is a celebration of the naked human body in photography - and of the influence of the Classical ideal of ancient Greece and Rome on that art form.

From the 1840s to the present day, many of the great names of photography are represented including: Henry Fox Talbot, Eadweard Muybridge, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Leni Riefenstahl, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Chim, Brassai, Robert Doisneau, Herbert List, Max Dupain and Lewis Morley.

One hundred nude images will be on display at the University of Sydney's Nicholson Museum during the Sydney Festival next month, details of which can be found here.

Photo: Antikythera (Apollo), Herbert List, Gelatin silver print, 1937.

World renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz visited the National Media Museum on Tuesday 14 December - the latest stop on a personal journey she is undertaking looking at places relating to inspirational and culturally significant people. Her travels, which will be documented in an upcoming book titled Pilgrimage, brought her to Bradford to view and photograph items belonging to Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 – 1879), part of the Royal Photographic Society Collection in the National Photography Collection which is held here.

Annie looked at personal letters, photographs, albums and a folio, all of which belonged to Cameron, one of the earliest pioneers of photography. Cameron, like Annie, was celebrated as a great photographer and for her work producing portraits of famous people and historical figures of the era.

Annie said: "I am very impressed with how you care for such legacies – of Julia Margaret Cameron's work and items from the Royal Photographic Society period. There really are treasures here. It is one thing to take care of such work but to give this access to anyone who wants to study or see it is fantastic."

http://nationalmediamuseum.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-renowned-photographer-annie.html

Annie is shown in the photograph with Curator Colin Harding.



The full blog entry can be seen here:

I just obtained a Kricheldorff Klapp Reflex listed as from 1905. It is a very interesting folding SLR with a focal plane shutter. I have found it impossible to discover much about the maker, could not find his patent, but believe he made this camera with some variations betwen 1905 and 1910, possibly later. Can anybody help with more information? I can post pictures if people are interested.

A review of the conference "William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography" (24-26 June 2010, CRASSH, Cambridge) can be found here: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1113/40

This exhibition of photographs from the National Gallery of Canada is the third in a series of survey exhibitions that examine iconic works from the Photographs Collection and situate them within a historical and social context. Photographs by some of the medium’s earliest practitioners, including William Henry Fox Talbot, Hill and Adamson, Anna Atkins, and Julia Margaret Cameron, will be featured. The exhibition’s approximately 100 works will present examples of several different photographic processes, among them salted paper prints, daguerreotypes, albumen silver prints, collotypes, carbon prints, and woodburytypes.

Details of the exhibition can be found here. A book to accompany the exhibition will also be published towards the end of Jan 2011, and can be found on the Amazon link on the right.

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

Further details can be found here.