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The world is full of 35mm format cameras, both film and digital, with interchangeable lenses, but few people know that this practice commenced in Britain in the late 1920s before Leitz started its own range of interchangeable lens cameras with the I Model C, which was introduced in 1930. This involved conversions to the hitherto single lens Leica I Model A, introduced in 1925, to allow the fitting of some British made lenses, such as those made by Ross and Dallmeyer, both of whom had been optical giants in the British market since the mid 19th Century. German made Meyer lenses were also fitted to Leicas in London by A.O. Roth who was an importer for the brand. Some of the innovations created in Briatin fed into the later models introduced by Leica and others and, in one case, the feature still exists on all interchangeable lens cameras to this day.

My Video on YouTube was made for the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain  (PCCGB) and also gives the 'before' and 'after' sitaution as regards changing lenses without the use of a lens board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOqNGCAIOsU&t=71s

Some photos (courtesy of Wetzlar Camera Auctions) from my video featuring a Dallmeyer Dallon Tele- Anastigmatic 4 inch lens on a Leica I Model A from 1929 are below. This conversion was done by Sinclair who had a shop at  9 &10 Charing Cross which became 3 Whitehall around 1930. The shop did not move, but the address changed

National Science and Media Museum conservator Vanessa Torres is the subject of a blog post where she discusses how the museum uses cold storage to preserve materials held within the collection. 

Read the blog here: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/blog-from-the-basement-cold-storage/

As early as October 1859, William Crookes, one of the editors of the Photographic News, mentioned the possibility of using magnesium to produce an artificial burst of light to illuminate a scene for photography. Flash photography became one of the most spectacular technical manifestations of commercial photography within a few years of its invention. Thanks to the most recent camera sensors (specifically the SPAD type), scenes can now be recorded with a minimum of 0.001 lux without any artificial light. Like film, flash could well eventually become a somewhat distant memory in a new technological ecosystem that both digitally alters and expands what is visible and recordable. It is therefore particularly timely to reopen this case in order to carry out an archeology of flash free of purely technicist narratives.

The history of photography might easily be reduced to a rather narrow narrative of successive technological advancements that ultimately lead to its triumph over darkness. It is the aim of this conference to steer clear of such teleological readings in order to better understand the flash – a sudden emission of artificial light caused by a variety of technical means (from magnesium to the electric stroboscope via flash bulbs), in contrast to more permanent artificial light – not only as a technique, but as a connecting point between different ways to investigate the history of photography.

Proposals may explore, but are not limited to:

• the spaces of flash (physical and/or social)

• the temporalities of flash (instantaneity, arrest)

• flash as an event and a narrative

• the archeology of flash (the use and etymology of words used to refer to artificial light; the dissemination of the flash among amateurs via photography manuals; its degree of use)

• flash as sign, format, and aesthetic

• flash as photographic metaphor and metaphor of photography

• the visualities of flash and constructions of class, race, and gender

Conference details

The conference will take place in Paris, 17-18 October 2024 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Richelieu). We will be able to help towards travel expenses for doctoral students and young researchers. To apply for these stipends, simply indicate in your email to the organisers that you wish to be considered and state the country you will be travelling from.

The conference will be followed by the publication of selected papers in the Photographica journal in 2025.

Submission

Proposals for papers should include author name and affiliation, 300–400 word abstract, and a short CV. We invite proposals from scholars at all levels from early career onwards. Papers will be selected on the quality of the proposal and with the aim of ensuring a broad spread of topics for the conference.Conference presentations will be 20 minutes.

Proposal should be sent to flashconf2024@gmail.com by the deadline of May 5, 2024. They will be reviewed by the scientific committee.

See the full call: https://journals.openedition.org/photographica/1667

Lyon and Turnbull's auction of Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Photographs on 7 February 2024 includes five lots, each with a photograph from Robert Howlett of views and portraits of those connected with the Great Eastern. They comprise: 

• Group portrait of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and associates at the launching of the Great Eastern, 1857
• Hull and paddle-wheel of the Great Eastern, c.1857
• Hull, paddle-wheel and chain-drum of the Great Eastern, c.1857
• Starboard bow of the Great Eastern, 12th November 1857
• Three photographs of the Great Eastern, 1857

Estimates range from £400 to £3000. 

Details: https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auctions/rare-books-manuscripts-maps-and-photographs-773

The Guardian newspaper reports that one of three known life-size, photographic and hand-coloured reproductions of the Bayeux Tapestry has been bought by the Bayeaux Museum. The tapestry was photographed in 1872 by the South Kensington Museum, now the V&A Museum, and six copies were originally made over a two year period. The Bayeaux Museum's recent acquisition cost £16,000 (plus buyer's premium, total £20,160) and came from the collection of Rolling Stone drummer Charlie Watts which was sold at Christie's last year.  The V&A still holds the original negatives of the tapestry. 

Read the article here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/29/bayeux-museum-lands-19th-century-reproduction-of-tapestry-for-16000

The original Christie's auction description and illustrations are here: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/charlie-watts-literature-jazz-part-ii/victorian-full-size-replica-bayeux-tapestry-301/192658 The reproduction was previously sold at Bonhams in 2009 for £6000 (inc premium) alongside a fuller description: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/17616/lot/164/

The most authoritative study of the photography of the Tapestry is Ella Ravilious, 'The Bayeux Tapestry Photographed', The Burlington Magazine, v. 165, no. 1442 (May 2023). See: https://burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202305

See the Bayeaux Tapestry Museum here: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/

Research into the origins of London News Agency Photos Ltd (founded 1908) has revealed an unexpected development. A recently obtained stereocard dated to 1910 advertises the company as "stereoscopic photographers." I have written a Pressphotoman blogpost about this. 

Are British Photographic History blog members aware of other examples of LNA Photos Ltd stereocards?

Read the blog here: Read here 

Photo credit: "Blue coated Prussians. The Battle of Malplaquet 1709."

There is an unprecedented exhibition of the Clarkson Stanfield Album, a superb volume of early photographs by the celebrated Scottish partnership of Hill & Adamson. Launching their collaboration in Edinburgh in 1843, the established painter David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) and the young photographer Robert Adamson (1821–1848) combined their aesthetic sensitivity and technical brilliance to produce an unparalleled body of portraits, architectural and landscapes scenes, and pioneering social documents. Their work endures today as one of the earliest sustained explorations of photography as an artform.

In the fall of 1845 Hill & Adamson prepared an album of their finest work, arranging 109 salted paper prints from their calotype negatives into a folio bound in rich purple leather with intricate gold tooling, and sold it to the prominent English marine painter Clarkson Frederick Stanfield (1793–1867). Now known as the Clarkson Stanfield Album, it is one of only a few such unique albums assembled in the years before Adamson's death at age 26.

More than 175 years later the album is undergoing structural repair, providing the first opportunity since 1845 to view several sections at once before conservators return them to the original binding. The exhibition includes 39 salted paper prints from the Clarkson Stanfield Album, as well as examples of Adamson's earliest photographic trials and two of Hill's painted landscapes. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Gernsheim Collection, acquired by the Ransom Center in 1963.

Hill & Adamson: The Clarkson Stanfield Album
9 March  – 2 June 2024
Harry Ransom Center, Austin Texas
See: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/2024/hill-and-adamson-the-clarkson-stanfield-album/

Image: Hill & Adamson (Scottish, active 1843–1847), A Newhaven Pilot, 1843–1845. Salted paper print, 20.3 x 14.6 cm. Gernsheim Collection, purchase, 964:0048:0085

­The National Portrait Gallery commissioned Dr Katayoun Dowlatshahi to make 25 tri-colour carbon prints for the exhibition Yevonde: Life and Colour (2023). Here she describes the journey in making them and the historical developments that are part of the story. Katayoun also runs private courses on Carbon printing from her home in Norfolk. 

Read the blog (complete with footnotes): https://www.silverwoodstudio.co.uk/post/a-journey-in-colour-researching-yevonde-vivex

For information on black and white, colour and carb printing workshops see: https://www.silverwoodstudio.co.uk/colour-carbon-photography-workshop

Bosham Gallery is presenting a collection of limited editioned silver gelatin photographs printed from the original glass plate negatives of the Beken of Cowes archive, an elegant and quintessentially English collection of magnificent sailing photographs from a bygone era of international yachting. In order to make silver gelatin photographs today using the original glass plate negatives in the Beken of Cowes archive, which are over 130 years old, first the glass plate negatives needed to be cleaned and then scanned to produce a digital file.

Read how the arduous task of digitally restoring the Beken of Cowes photographs was completed by Paul Brett in 2015, by way of an example using Alfred John West’s iconic photograph of Meteor II Aground in 1899 by clicking here.

Merton College, Oxford, is inviting applications for a Visiting Research Fellowship in the Creative Arts (Book Arts) 2024-2025. This covers the broad gamut of Book Arts including genres such as the photographic book, and the artist's book. 

The Fellowship is open to creative artists of all ages, and might be awarded either to emerging or established figures. For 2024-25, applications are invited from practitioners in the field of Book Arts (including illustration, graphic design, fine printing, dust-jacket art, binding, and such genres as the graphic novel, photographic book, and the artist's book).

• Tenure: The Fellowship can be held for any period between two months and one year - with the period of tenure offered being determined by the needs of the proposed project. The starting date is negotiable, the earliest being 1 October 2024.

• Stipends: there will be a stipend of up to £2203.67 per month. The Stipend will be subject to Tax and National Insurance and will be pensionable.

• Expenses for qualifying research, travel, and materials up to £317 per month may be claimed subject to the College's rules for Fellows' Research Allowance. The college cannot, however, fund additional support personnel.

• Accommodation and meals will be provided for the Fellow. If available the College will endeavour to provide partnered accommodation when required. It is expected that the Fellow will reside in the College accommodation during the tenure of the Fellowship.

• The College will endeavour to provide a suitable studio or office where required.

• Fellows will retain the copyright for work carried out during the tenure of the Fellowship. They are, however, expected to acknowledge, where possible, the support provided by the College and, where practicable, to deposit copies of work produced in an appropriate media, in the College archives. The College intends to create an archive of the scheme within the College archives.

• Fellows will be expected to submit to the Governing Body a brief account of their work during the Fellowship.

Details: https://www.artsjobs.org.uk/jobs/37031

Heard today the sad news that old friend, photographer and camera maker, John Nesbitt has died suddenly. He made his superb wooden cameras in Mid Wales and ran large format workshops with Pete Davis before moving to France in the 1990s. His wife,. Michelle was French, so the relocation to Vendee was probably inevitable. He conducted one of our last workshops at The Photographers Place before leaving Wales. Some may remember his wonderful landscape work from 'Image & Exploration' exhibition at The Photographers Gallery in 1985.

The Guardian published an obituary here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/feb/15/john-nesbitt-obituary

Left: the Nesbitt camera from 1989. 

Photographs by renowned British photographer John Bulmer capturing the fortitude of Hartlepool people during the hardship of the 1960s will receive their first-ever showing in the town in a major exhibition of his work.

Born in 1938, John Bulmer is best-known for his pioneering colour photojournalism in the Sixties, when he worked for, among others, the Sunday Times magazine and famously shared the cover of the very first issue of the ‘Colour Section’ with David Bailey. Over the next ten years, he would travel to over 100 countries around the world to document historic moments ranging from Queen Elizabeth II visiting Ethiopia to life under the regime in North Korea. In 1960 he had been assigned by Town magazine to document the bleak industrial centre of Nelson, Lancashire, and contrast it with the up-and-coming town of Watford, and his talent in capturing the gentleness and humanity in an otherwise grim situation elevated his images beyond any typical reportage-style photography.

He continued to return to the north of England, and in the winter of 1962-63 he visited Hartlepool for Image magazine, taking more than 40 photographs. It is those images which will feature in the new exhibition called Northern Light which opens in Hartlepool Art Gallery on Saturday, 27 January and runs until Saturday, 4 May.

At the time of Bulmer’s visit, during a bitterly cold winter, Hartlepool was suffering from mass unemployment. Gray’s shipyard had just closed with the loss of 1,400 jobs and the future looked bleak. His images record the town before it changed, but also the daily life of men and women who were out of work and gathering sea coal from the beach, waiting in the dole queue or visiting the labour exchange. The article the photographs were used for tried to make the case for more targeted Government intervention in places like Hartlepool where poor infrastructure and low investment meant businesses were more likely to set up in the already prosperous south-east. Despite the hardships people were facing, Bulmer’s photographs convey a sense of resilience, humour and even optimism, and although the landscape appears bleak and hard he remembers the warmth of the people he met.

By the end of the 1960s the landscape of the town had changed immeasurably as a result of slum clearance and the closure of shipyards and steelworks, and new employers moved in and grew in place of the old.

John Bulmer said: "It’s sixty years since the ‘big freeze’, when Hartlepool had a record cold winter which corresponded to having the highest unemployment in the country. The shipyard had just closed, and I made my first trip to Hartlepool. The faces of the people showed an extraordinary fortitude, which is a reminder sixty years on of the strength of the people of the North East. It is wonderful to show this now in a new Hartlepool!”

Complementing the exhibition will be images by photography students from the Northern School of Art, capturing what Hartlepool means to them, and reminiscences of the 1960s contributed by local people.

Councillor Bob Buchan, Chair of Hartlepool Borough Council’s Adult and Community-Based Services Committee, said: “We are privileged and delighted to be able to showcase this exceptional series of photographs by John Bulmer for the first time in Hartlepool. The people of Hartlepool are renowned for both their strength and their friendliness and these images capture both. The photographs provide a remarkable and very poignant snapshot in time of a town which in the intervening years has changed massively and is currently undergoing further major regeneration.”

John Bulmer: Northern Light
Hartlepool Art Gallery
27 January - 4 May 2024.
Hartlepool Art Gallery is located in Church Square and is open Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am – 5pm
Entry is free.
See: https://www.culturehartlepool.com/art-gallery/

Images: Hartlepool 1963, John Bulmer. © Popperfoto

Following its World Premiere at Sheffield Doc Fest, EMU Pictures is proud to present MY FRIEND LANRE, a new feature documentary from filmmaker Leo Regan. It will open in select
UK cinemas on 29 January, including a special screening and director Q&A at Curzon Soho, before being available to watch on demand via Curzon Home Cinema from 2 February.

In MY FRIEND LANRE, acclaimed filmmaker Leo Regan draws on decades of footage to create a moving portrait of the complex life of friend and photographer, Lanre Fehintola. Regan first documented his friend’s life in the 1998 film DON’T GET HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY. Fehintola became hooked on heroin while working on a book about a group of drug addicts in Bradford. Regan caught up with him again in the 2001 film COLD TURKEY, as Fehintola attempted to break his addiction by locking himself in his flat without medication. MY FRIEND LANRE jumps two decades, to a moment when Fehintola has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Drawing from over 25 years of footage, the filmmaker presents an intensely intimate portrayal of his friend during his final months and weeks, as Lanre faces his ultimate adventure, his own terminal illness.

Moving, funny, devastating and bravely personal, MY FRIEND LANRE is a living testament to one person’s incredible life and work; a celebration of living and dying that becomes a hymn to the soul.

My Friend Lanre was supported by the BFI Doc Society Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.

My Friend Lanre
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/836503455
https://www.instagram.com/myfriendlanre
https://www.twitter.com/myfriendlanre
There will be a special screening with Director Q&A at Curzon Soho on 29 January at 6.20pm. Tickets and more information available here
Following its cinematic release, it will be available to watch on Curzon Home Cinema from 2 February to 31 March 2024..

Image © Lanre Fehintola

Stephen Herbert makes a rare guest appearence in a CBS video posted on my site today. Stephen comments on the 'Le Prince incident'. 

See Here : https://www.flickr.com/photos/david-kastoryano/53470564237/

TownsWeb Archiving has just issued a blog about a digitisation project of 1115 glass plates it was involved in for Sherborne Museum. The plates had been gifted to the museum by a local resident with around 300 believed to be the works of Adam Gosney. Gosney was an influential figure within the town during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and left his mark on Sherborne as an established and skilled photographer. 

The glass plates shine a light on an unprecedented and poignant visual narrative of the servicemen and women, including Red Cross nurses and wounded soldiers from the first wolrd war. Further glass plate negatives have unearthed glimpses into the everyday life of Sherborne residents, showcasing Sherborne's iconic buildings, past carnival festivals, and the traditional idyllic countryside surrounding the town.

Read the blog here.

This well loved Camera Collectors' and Users'  Fair will soon be taking place and this year we are in a new Central London venue The Royal National Hotel near Russell Square on the 19th May 2024. Organised by The Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain there will be up to 100 sales tables selling user and collectable cameras, consumables, lenses, literature and images. It is not a trade show for new equipment.  If you fancy a table to clear that build up of photographic equipment phone 01920 821 831. Early buyers tickets can be obtained from the same phone number.

The Royal National Hotel, 38-51 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0DG

Public entry is from 10am-4.00pm and admission is £8 on the door from 10am to 12 noon and £5 noon to the close, for PCCGB members the entry is free.

Any late updates, the flyer and booking form can be found at https://www.facebook.com/photographicafair

Thanks

Nigel 

A fascinating look at the history of London's iconic Vogue House, from the swinging sixties to the present day, Inside Vogue House is a behind-the-scenes guide by ex-Tatler art director Grant Scott to the world-famous magazines produced there and the stories of the people who made them great. The book also documents the famous Vogue Photographic Studios and the photographers and models who worked there.

 For sixty years, Vogue House has been a building where the great and the good started (or ended) their careers. A place where contemporary artists rubbed shoulders with royalty, and culture was shaped. From the mailroom to the boardroom, work experience to well-known names and everyone in between, this captivating book lays bare the creativity and chaos of popular magazine publishing through the decades.

After fifteen years as an art director for books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Dr Grant Scott began to work solely as a photographer for a number of commercial and editorial clients in 2000. Today he is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes, and a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC radio contributor and the author of several books.

His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was first screened in 2018 and he is the presenter of the A Photographic Life and In Search of Bill Jay podcasts.

Published by Orphans Publishing in April 2024 it is now on pre-sale.