Blogs

Monday 8th November will be a dark and creepy evening at the John Rylands Library, Manchester, as Professor Heard, the world’s finest Phantasmagoria Magic Lantern Projectionist, will be performing a show in the library.

There will be 2 performances, a family friendly show at 4.30 – 5pm, then at 7.30 – 9pm an evening event where things get a bit more sinister and spooky!

ALL WELCOME, the event is free, however booking is essential! call 0161 06 0555 to reserve yourself a free seat or email jrul.events@manchester.ac.uk at the John Rylands Library, 150 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3EH.

Until recently John Deakin has been missing from photographic history. He resisted his talent fiercely, treating success with mistrust and greeting failure with indifference. His career began with Vogue but, despite achieving recognition for the photographs he took there he never took it seriously and never expected it to make him a living. Deakin's bad behaviour was legendary and he remains the only staff photographer in the magazine's history to be hired and fired twice by the same admiring but exasperated editor.

Deakin yearned to be a painter like his friends Francis Bacon, Robert Colquhoun, Lucian Freud and Michael Andrews, whom in time he would photograph. In turn, Andrews and Freud both painted his likeness. Loved and loathed in equal measure, Deakin was a celebrated part of the artistic circle that convened in the pubs and clubs of Soho, London's bohemian quarter, the lure of which eventually led him away from regular employment.

Gods and Monsters is drawn largely from a portfolio commissioned by Vogue in 1951 and 1952 of twelve contemporary artists, shown here in its entirety for the first time, along with other portraits of painters and sculptors Deakin made for the magazine at various times throughout his brief career. Vogue has agreed to lend its vintage prints, which in their ragged state show the patina of age and handling that accrues to a magazine's raw material. Further, like so much of Deakin's oeuvre, they are lucky to have survived him. They were only re-discovered in Vogue's archives in the early 1990s.

Details of the exhibition can be found here.

Leicester, UK: The De Montfort University Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) draws together and integrates scholarship across a diverse range of disciplines and research on primary sources from the 19th through the 21st centuries of photographic history. It has strong strategic alliances with institutions such as the British Library, V&A, National Media Museum, Société française de photographie, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, reflecting its standing as an internationally recognised centre of research excellence. Current Centre members include Dr Kelley Wilder, Senior Research Fellow and MA Photographic History and Practice Programme Leader; Roger Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Photographic History and internationally renowned specialist in mid-19th century photography; Professor Stephen Brown, Head of the Department of Imaging and Communication Design and Director of Knowledge Media Design at De Montfort University.

You will have a clear vision of the future of photographic history, that will enhance the profile and status of photographic history and conservation internationally. You will raise the international standing of DMU in the area of photographic history, by attracting research students and producing excellent research scholarship. In addition to being Research Professor, you will become the first Director of the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC), a rotating position to be held for up to five years. You will encourage the initiatives already begun at PHRC and bring your own vision to the Research Centre.

You should have a PhD (Equivalent qualifications accepted) or equivalent relevant experience in the field, extensive publication experience and have produced scholarship considered by peers to be ground breaking in the field. You should also have a track record of winning grant funding and have supervised students at MA and Phd levels.

Closing Date : 26 November 2010

Interview Date: w/c 3 January 2011

Application forms and further details are available from our website: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/jobs

Alternatively telephone 0116 250 6433 (24 hour answerphone). Or write to:

The Human Resources Team, De Montfort University,

The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH.

Salary to be set by the Vice Chancellor in accordance with the Senior Staff Pay and Grading Structure. Please Quote Reference : 6605

The Powerhouse Museum has just announced plans to create an open-access image repository to showcase the organisations’ extensive image archive. The portal will initially begin with about 5000 images and grow to include the museum’s glass-plate negatives collection, including some 7903 images from the Tyrrell Photographic Collection.

The Collection consists of 7903 glass plate negatives from the studios of Charles Kerry (1857-1928) and Dorset-born, Henry King (1855-1923), who had two of Sydney's principal photographic studios in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Tyrrell Collection provides an important record of city and country life at the time with a number of broad themes: Sydney and suburbs; south coast; Blue Mountains; transport; rural New South Wales; shipping; caves; sports; Indigenous peoples of Australia and the South Pacific.

The Museum in Sydney also has the Hedda Morrison Collection which comprises images taken in the Far East.

Photo: Glass negative, half plate, 'Coogee', Kerry and Co., Sydney, c. 1884-1917

Presented by Dr Luke Gartlan (School of Art History, University of St Andrews). In 1876 at the height of his career, the Yokohama-based photographer Baron Raimund von Stillfried travelled to Shanghai to undertake a portfolio of 'Chinese characters'. All but forgotten since its completion, this paper argues that the commercial failure of this portfolio highlights the potential schisms that could emerge between the work of nineteenth-century expatriate photographers and the expectations of their international clientele. By importing the aesthetic conventions of Yokohama souvenir photography—or Yokohama shashin—to the Chinese context, Stillfried destabilised many of the prevailing imperialist codes that conceived of the two nations in diametrical terms.

This seminar is co-sponsored with the History of Photography journal.

The History of Photography research seminar series aims to be a discursive platform for the discussion and dissemination of current research on photography. From art as photography and early photographic technology to ethnographic photographs and contemporary photography as art, the seminar welcomes contributions from researchers across the board, whether independent or affiliated with museums, galleries, archives, libraries or higher education, and endeavours to provide scholars with a challenging opportunity to present work in progress and test out new ideas.

The seminars usually take place once a term, on Wednesday evenings at 5.30pm in the Research Forum, unless otherwise stated. The papers, and formal discussion, are followed by informal discussion over a glass of wine.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

5.30pm, Research Forum South Room

Open to all, free admission

Contacts:

Alexandra Moschovi (alexandra.moschovi@courtauld.ac.uk )

Julian Stallabrass (julian.stallabrass@courtauld.ac.uk)

Britain's flagship photography institution will lose 15% in Government grants over the next four years as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review, Amateur Photographer has revealed.

Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £81 billion pounds worth of public spending cutbacks.

A spokesman for the National Media Museum (NMM), which is based in Bradford, West Yorkshire told Amateur Photographer today: 'We know that our grant-in-aid will be reduced by around 15% in real terms in stages over the next four years, starting in April.

'We have already been working to prepare for a range of scenarios and to seek efficiencies that can serve to minimise the impact of the cuts. The museum's London presence in not under threat.

'Over the next few weeks we will confirm our plans for accommodating this reduction.'

See the full report here: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/Flagship_photography_museum_faces_15_cuts_news_303151.html

The Photographers’ Gallery is the largest public gallery dedicated to photography. This is a very exciting time for the Gallery. Construction work has recently begun on a major redevelopment project to expand and transform the Gallery’s premises on Ramillies Street, just off Oxford Street. Scheduled to reopen late 2011 it will include three galleries, an education floor, enhanced retail spaces, a ground floor café and full disabled access.

The Development Officer (Admin) will be primarily responsible for administration of the Development Department, including administration of the Patrons’ and Associate Members’ schemes; recording and processing donations, managing the department’s budget, and providing support to the Head of Development and Head of Business Development. This is a period of growth for The Photographers’ Gallery and we seek an enthusiastic individual who will use their initiative to grow in the role and take on more responsibility as needed.

Details of the application process can be found here: http://photonet.new.mindunit.co.uk/index.php?pid=243

Apparently, in the 1920's his descendants gave the Daguerreotypes to the University of Newcastle, where Pattinson was from. The University library kept them on a shelf in Special Collections but sometime after that, for whatever reason, they were thought to have been lost or destroyed. However in 1997 while looking through some store rooms in the library, the University came across an old dust covered carton marked “Daguerrotypes”, which lo and behold, contained the lost images!

Call for Papers: The Versatile Image 24-26 June 2011, University of Sunderland. The 21st century digital universe is undoubtedly a “hypervisual” environment with photographic images dominating every aspect of our life. The “digital revolution”, as professed with awe and skepticism some twenty years ago, has come to stay, and, together with the developments in mobile-phone technology and the overwhelming possibilities of Web 2.0, has ushered in a rapid transformation of photographic practice across the board.

What are the ontological, conceptual or other commonalities and/or differences with photography as we knew it?

What novel currency does the photographic vernacular acquire against the new contexts of viewing and (re)distribution that social networking media and photo-sharing platforms offer? Where is the line between the private and the public drawn and what is the social currency of such private imagery?

What is the new urgency that the eye-witness record taken by “citizen journalists” has acquired in reporting news events among peers and targeting a wider public?

How are issues of objectivity, subjectivity, authenticity and originality relating to the document being challenged anew?

How can this predominantly non-art imagery be appropriated in material and conceptual terms in contemporary art practices?

Can these amateur practices be conventionalized and/or institutionalized in the mass media and the art scene?