Blogs

Better late than never ! Deadline is this Friday 23rd July 2010.

Project Scanning Technician
Salary Grade 3 £17,111 - £19,743
Full time fixed term appointment until 31 August 2011

The Pitt Rivers Museum is seeking a Project Scanning Technician to work with the Museum’s Photographic Collection scanning photographs from the Wilfred Thesiger Collection as part of a project funded by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage.

The post holder will carry out the digitisation of photographic collections relating to the United Arab Emirates The ideal candidate will be a team player who has a proven experience of working with archival photographs or an interest in photography, experience of using Adobe Photoshop, image editing software and previous digitisation experience, have good organisation and record keeping skills and shows an attention to detail.

A completed application form (also available in MS Word format) with a CV and covering letter, should be sent to the Museum Administrator, Pitt Rivers Museum, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PP.

A Freedom of Information request by JIm Bretell to the National Museum of Science and Industry has thrown light on the NMeM's plans for its London presence - although the NMSI declined to make available the 'substantial' documentation that the project has generated. In a token gesture it has published a partially redacted section of the NMSI Trustee minutes of 8 February 2008 these show:

• the aim of the London presence is to raise the national and international profile of the NMeM and to draw people to Bradford
• the space would be occupied by charging exhibitions with free entry to a media cafe. It would also act as a learning space
• the space could also be used to show photographic images from the National Railway Museum collection
• The funding plan would commence when at least 50 per cent was committed

The running cost and break-even number of visitors was dedacted.

The extract can be viewed here: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/38445/response/99877/attach/3/donotreply%20nmsi.ac.uk%2020100713%20164649.pdf

and details of the original request and MNSI covering letter here: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/national_media_museum_possible_l#incoming-99877

The National Portrait Gallery's Camille Silvy exhibition opens this week on 15 July. For any BPH readers in London the NPG bookshop is already selling curator Mark Haworth-Booth's book and catalogue of the show along with other relevant books, poster, cards and souvenirs. As one would expect the book is a fascinating read with well-reproduced illustrations and excellent value at £20 (hardback only). The exhibition space itself remains hidden behind locked doors...

Details of the exhibition and associated lectures and events can be found here: http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2010/camille-silvy1.php Most of the events are free but are likely to be popular and you are advised to turn up early to ensure a place.

Made at Lacock Abbey by William Henry Fox Talbot in August 1835, the world’s first photographic negative changed the world. A new exhibition, Celebrating the Negative launching on 3 July at the Fox Talbot Museum will display images by John Loengard, a highly acclaimed American photographer, who travelled the world during the 1990s visiting archives and photographers’ studios to see the original negatives of images that have changed photography and the world.

The images show the original negatives in the hands of the archivist or photographer which brings their scale into play and points up the fact that the negatives are objects as well as images.

The negative is not just another picture – it is THE picture. There is an intimate connection between the negative and the subject. Looking at a negative you are looking at an artefact of a time and place. The sun that shone on Abraham Lincoln on that day in 1863 was captured by that negative. All of the positive prints from that negative were made later, probably on a different day and by different sunlight and almost certainly not in the presence of Lincoln. Loengard says of Fox Talbot’s discovery: "It is a quirk of nature that silver and chlorine combine in the dark but separate when struck by light, leaving behind tiny, black, round particles of silver.

The 1st Negative

Talbot asked Lacock’s village carpenter to make up a few small wooden boxes to which he could insert his microscope lenses. These cameras, dubbed ‘Mousetraps’ by Talbot’s wife Constance, due to their size and shape, were the cameras through which he was finally able to capture an image.

On a sunny day in August, 1835 he aimed a mousetrap camera at the latticed window in the South Gallery of Lacock Abbey and in a few minutes he had made the world’s first photographic negative.

Three of the original ‘Mousetrap Cameras’ have been loaned to the museum by the National Media Museum. It is their first visit to their original home of Lacock Abbey in more than 75 years.

There will also be examples of the most important negative processes on display and an explanation of how they were made and how each was a technological advance in the history of photography. Roger Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum says: "This is a really important and exciting celebration for us at Lacock. The negative is the primary image. It is the sensitive surface that faced the subject and first recorded the light. All positive prints are secondary images derived from the negative and are therefore one step removed from the original scene. The negative was the eye witness and the positive print the story related after the fact."

In August a recreation of the first photographic negative using Talbot’s original formula and methodology in a new mousetrap camera made by Mark Ellis, a carpenter who currently lives in Lacock will be re-enacted. Present at this re-enactment will be Talbot’s great-great granddaughter Janet Burnett Brown."

Participants at a (fully subscribed) workshop in August entitled ‘The Dawn of Photography’ will recreate all of Talbot’s earliest photographic experiments including working with modern replicas of the mousetrap camera. They will be working in and around Lacock Abbey and there will be staff members to answer questions about what they are doing.

Lacock Abbey

3 July-12 December 2010

From Saturday 10 July to Saturday 9 October, Guildford Borough Council's Heritage Service is celebrating the lifetime and legacy of Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), with an exhibition and events programme dedicated to the 19th century author.

From photography exhibitions and informative talks, to craft workshops and countryside walks, there is something on offer for everyone. Some of the retailers in Guildford are also getting involved in the Lewis Carroll celebrations... keep your eyes peeled for something 'curious' in many of the shop windows.

Check out BPH's Events section for further information or the official site here.

Ikon presents 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. Edgerton (1906-1990). Forming part of Ikon’s retrospective of the 1970s It Could Happen To You, this presentation takes place in Birmingham’s Pallasades Shopping Centre, in a shop unit just a few doors away from Ikon’s home during that decade.

The 1976 exhibition formed Edgerton’s first solo presentation in Europe, and was conceived as a collaborative effort between Geoffrey Holt and John R. Myers, then both lecturers in fine art and photography at Stourbridge College of Art. Their aim was to draw attention to the breadth of work created by of ‘one of the masters of the optical unconscious’ which had, until that point, been largely neglected by the art world.

Edgerton’s invention in the 1930s of a high-speed photographic process based on rapid, stroboscopic instances of light or ‘flash’ was a catalytic event in the history of photography, science and art. Using this method, his images revealed in great detail aspects of reality hitherto invisible to the naked eye. As Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Edgerton made great strides in reconnaissance photography during the Second World War and later became the first to photograph test explosions of atomic weaponry. It is, however, the hands-on experimentation of ‘real world’ phenomena for which he is best remembered.

Edgerton’s remarkable multiple-flash pictures of tennis players, golfers and divers such as Swirls and Eddies of a Tennis Stroke (1939) break down intricate movements into singular moments. Other images appear to stop time: Milk-Drop Coronet (1957) illustrates the perfect crown formed by a drop of milk hitting a hard surface, whilst Cutting the Card Quickly (1964) shows a .30 calibre bullet, travelling 2800 feet per second, slicing a king of diamonds into two pieces. The startling Bullet and Apple (1964) portrays the explosion of an apple pierced by the bullet, moments before its total disintegration.

Edgerton’s film Seeing the Unseen (1939) is shown alongside his photographs plus an archive of correspondence, technical papers and printed materials relating to the 1976 exhibition.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Birmingham Central Library.

21 July – 5 September 2010

Unit 39-40, The Pallasades Shopping Centre, Birmingham

Events

Stopping Time in Stourbridge

Sunday 8 August, 2pm – FREE

The Pallasades Shopping Centre

Pete James, Head of Photography, Central Library Birmingham talks about the Pallasades exhibition and the photo-historical context through which Ikon’s 1976 Harold E. Edgerton exhibition came about. Refreshments are provided. Places are free but should be reserved by calling Ikon on 0121 248 0708.

Aspects of Edgerton

Sunday 22 August, 2pm - FREE

The Pallasades Shopping Centre

An event with Jonathan Shaw, photographer and Associate Head of Media & Communication, Coventry University and artist Trevor Appleson. The speakers discuss the influence of Edwaerd Muybridge and Harold Edgerton’s photography on their recent work. Refreshments are provided. Places are free but should be reserved by calling Ikon on 0121 248 0708.

Photoworks, the UK’s leading agency for photography is seeking to appoint a new Director following the appointment of David Chandler as Professor of Photography at the University of Plymouth.

The new Director will provide artistic vision, leadership and ambition for the organisation, building on its outstanding achievements of the last decade and taking it forward into a new and exciting period of further development. This post demands exceptional leadership qualities and we are seeking a respected professional in the field of photography with a minimum of five years experience at a senior level in an arts or related organization. As well as proven management skills, you will have a thorough and authoritative knowledge of contemporary photographic practice and be able to demonstrate notable achievements in organisational development and growth. You will be a strong team player, with the ability to motivate and inspire colleagues, and the confidence to advocate and operate for Photoworks regionally, nationally and internationally across a broad network of artists, individuals, trusts and organisations.

Photoworks Director
application deadlne 20 July 2010

Director
c. £40K
Central Brighton Office

Email photoworksapplications@gmx.com for an application pack.

Deadline for applications: Tuesday 20 July 2010
Interviews: Tuesday 14 September 2010
Photoworks is committed to equal opportunities

Users of the free site will be able to read scans of the original documents and typed text versions. The idea to map the lives of ordinary Londoners was conceived following the success of a project that digitised the Old Bailey's records. There was a proliferation of documents in urban Britain in the 18th century as civil society flourished and the relationship between the individual and the state was transformed. It is this paper trail that historians will be able to trace in pursuit of an individual's life story.