There is now a Photography Wall in the Library of Birmingham that contains a section featuring a modest tribute to the pioneering work that Pete James accomplished at LoB. The picture below is a low res snap of the wall done as a favour to me by one of the staff who I worked with to get this section added.

There is currently only one archivist responsible for several LoB collections. There have been no photographic archivists at LoB since the department was disbanded. However, exhibits from the Photographic Collection that Pete was responsible for have appeared in at least two LoB exhibitions since his death five years ago.

She’s sixteen, shunned, isolated and possibly pregnant. This is Marie who thought she had the world by the tail a few months ago. She had married a handsome, professional European man who adored her. She is Eurasian, but her European status in Indonesia had been earned through careful education, European dress and mastery of a European language, Dutch. But she finds herself in dank, grey Manchester where her husband’s family won’t accept her and never really will, she’s half a world away from the blue skies, tropical fruits, colourful fabrics, familiar languages and house full of servants that she grew up with. Her husband, Walter Woodbury, is on a mission to patent his invention, which is why they’ve returned to England, a country which will be civilly hostile to Marie and her eight children, so that, when her husband dies, within a few years, seven of the eight and Marie herself will has fled England, which deems them Not White Enough.

You probably don’t know who Walter Bentley Woodbury is, but you should.  He’s the reason this book is in your hands.  Woodbury invented and patented the first photographic printing press so that thousands of copies could be made from a single negative—enough for a book or an illustrated magazine. But he’s unknown.  In fact, he died in so much debt that a collection had to be taken for his funeral and he left his wife and eight children £246. His obscurity is due to two factors.  One is Woodbury himself—his mercurial mind caromed on to the next project, whether it was an aerial observation camera for the military or a train signal that used sound for foggy weather or paper-backed film, before he had secured the business side of his existing inventions.  The second was that he and his family were ostracized because Marie Woodbury, his Eurasian wife, was visibly biracial and so were most of their children.  The scientific community accepted Woodbury as an inventor, but the wider community never accepted his wife and family, virtually all of whom left England after Woodbury’s tragic death. 

This book tells a story that needs telling in our modern world. Not White Enough is largely dedicated to Woodbury’s career and travels, but the author also sheds some light (sometimes speculative) on his wife, their eight children, and other little-known Woodbury family members in an effort to piece together the puzzle of her family’s fascinating and often tragic past.

Muriel Morris taught English, English literature, journalism, and creative writing, among other subjects. She is the great, great, granddaughter of Walter Woodbury. 

Not White Enough. How Victorian Racism Contributed to the Destruction of a Photographic Genius
Muriel J. Mprris
Friesenpress, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-03-915950-1
$22.99 (paperback), other formats available
Details: https://books.friesenpress.com/store/title/119734000262880078/Muriel-J-Morris-Not-White-Enough

The RPS's Historical Group has a number of visits and events coming up including online collection and archive visits and the RPS Hurter and Driffield lecture which is being given by Tony Richards at the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Tony will look at the history of advanced heritage imaging techniques: From paper to plate to pixels. 

The events and links are below: 

25 August. Visit to Stonyhurst College, Clitheroe. Details here. 

2 September. H&D lecture: Advanced heritage imaging and collection viewing, Manchester.  Details here.

7 September. Exploring the The Robert Elwall Photographs Collection at the RIBA. Online.  Details here.

19 September. Exploring the William Graham collection at the Mitchell Library. Online. Details here. 

The 50th anniversary of Daniel Meadows’ Free Photographic Omnibus and Charlie Phillips’s 50-year work on Afro Caribbean funerals in London will be the two lead exhibitions considering communities opening at the Centre for British Photography on Thursday 5 October. Community-focussed work of three other photographers will also be on show: Grace Lau’s Chinese portrait studio; Dorothy Bohm’s photographs of London street markets; and Arpita Shah’s portraits of young British Asian women. 

James Hyman, Founding Director of the Centre for British Photography, said: “Building a community around photography in Britain is central to our aims and I am delighted that our autumn exhibitions present a range of voices, across generations, to celebrate different communities. I am also pleased that as well as curating our own shows, we are again providing a London venue for exhibitions and bodies of work that that would not otherwise reach this audience.”

The exhibitions are: 

Charlie Phillips - How Great Thou Art, 50 Years of African Caribbean Funerals in London

Charlie Phillips’ How Great Thou Art - 50 Years of African Caribbean Funerals in London is a sensitive photographic documentary of the social and emotional traditions that surround death in London’s African Caribbean community. This will be the first time that the Centre for British Photography’s main space will present a solo exhibition. 

Daniel Meadows - Free Photographic Omnibus, 50^th Anniversary

On 22 September 1973, Daniel Meadows set off on a long-planned adventure in a rickety 1948 double-decker bus that he had repurposed as his home, gallery and darkroom. He was intent on making a portrait of England. He was 21 years old. 

Over the next 14 months, travelling alone, Meadows crisscrossed the country covering 10,000 miles. He photographed 958 people, in 22 towns and cities. From circus performers to day trippers. He developed and printed the photographs as he went along, giving them away for free to those who posed for him.

This exhibition will feature dozens of photographs, including loans from The Hyman Collection, as well as previously unseen works of documentary reportage that Meadows made during his travels.

Dorothy Bohm - London Street Markets

London’s street markets and especially the people who worked there were an important aspect of Bohm’s engagement with London. Having run a successful portrait studio in Manchester in the late 1940s and 1950s, it was only in the 60s and 70s, after she settled in London, that Bohm turned her lens on the city that remained her home until her death earlier this year. The markets she depicted include the old Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market, Smithfield, Billingsgate, Petticoat Lane, Portobello Road, Farringdon Road book market, as well as stalls in Camden Town and Hampstead. 

The exhibition will be made up of familiar and unfamiliar works.

Grace Lau – Portraits In a Chinese Studio

Grace Lau’s Chinese portrait studio is not just an entertaining pop-up studio but also addresses issues around Imperialism by inverting Western notions of the Chinese as an exotic ‘other’. The studio will be set up in the Mezzanine Gallery at the Centre for British Photography and visitors will be able to book a spot to pose for the camera at times throughout the exhibition’s run. Portraits from two previous incarnations of the studio will surround the studio.

The first photographic portrait studios in China were set up in the mid-19th century by Western travellers, and focused on ‘exotic’ subjects such as beggars, opium smokers, coolies and courtesans. Many of these images were reproduced as postcards to send back to amuse a European audience. In 2005, Lau created her own version of an old Chinese portrait studio in which she would document the residents and tourists to Hastings as ‘exotic’ subjects.

Arpita Shah – Modern Muse

Drawing from and subverting the conventions of Mughal and Indian miniature paintings from ancient to pre-colonial times, Arpita Shah’s Modern Muse visually and conceptually explores the ever-shifting identities and representations of South Asian women in contemporary Britain. The portraits give an insight into the perspectives of what it means to be a young British and Asian woman. Shah examines the intersections of culture and identity, drawing on the women’s lived experiences and her own journey and life. Commissioned by GRAIN projects, this body of work has not been shown in London before.

Centre for British Photography
London, Jermyn Street
5 October – 17 December 2023
Free entry
See: www.britishphotography.org

Over 530 pamphlets, handbooks and trade catalogues relating to photography dating from 1839-c.1907 bound into volumes by the Royal Photographic Society as part of their Library and now in the collection of the National Art Library at the V&A Museum, London have been digitised and are available online here:  https://archive.org/details/national-art-library-rps-bound-pamphlets . 

The V&A wishes to acknowledge the support given by V&A Americas Foundation through the generosity of The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, which facilitated the cataloguing, conservation, and digitisation of the Royal Photographic Society Bound Pamphlet collection in 2021. 

The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A was acquired with the generous assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and Art Fund.

With thanks to Ella Ravilious

To mark the fifth anniversary of the 1948 Nationality Act, Vanley Burke, the ‘Godfather of Black British Photography’ is in conversation with Diane Louise Jordan broadcaster and founder of the project, The Making of Black Britain.

Vanley Burke’s photographs and art capture experiences of his community's arrival in Britain, the different landscapes and cultures he encountered, and the different ways of survival and experiences of the wider African-Caribbean community.

Making of Black Britain is a story-telling project, created to document and preserve life experiences, for us and generations to come. It’s a ‘living’ archive, particularly poignant for communities whose history has been truncated or lost. Vanley is the official photographer of the project and has been travelling the length and breadth of Britain with Diane, capturing the portraits of The Making of Black Britain story-tellers - those who make up Britain today, every colour, creed, class and generation from the Windrush generation through to the present day - to mark this significant moment in history. To explore what it means to be British. And what it means to belong.

1948 Nationality Act is a pivotal moment in British history - in the transition from Empire to understanding how we live today.

Vanley Burke in conversation with Diane Louise Jordan
28 July 2023 at 1900
National Portrait Gallery
£15, plus concessions
Details and booking: https://my.npg.org.uk/12913/12916

Clare Freestone, curator of the exhibition Yevonde: Life and Colour introduces the trailblazing twentieth-century photographer Yevonde.

Throughout the lecture, you will be taken behind the scenes into the planning and staging of this exhibition of Yevonde’s pioneering colour photography, highlighting work undertaken with her negative archive. The talk explores key exhibition themes, including Yevonde’s position as a woman photographer and the dissemination of her work through the illustrated press.

Curator’s introduction: Yevonde: Life and Colour
National Portrait Gallery, The Ondaatje Wing Theatre
21 July 2023, 1900-2000
£15 (members/concessions)
Booking: https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2023/yevonde-life-and-colour/curators-introduction-yevonde-life-and-colour

The National Stereoscopic Association's 49th 3D-Convention is taking place from 31 July-7 August. On the 4 August the History of Stereoscopic Photography sessions are scheduled. These are in person only. 

• Carleton Watkins Through the Looking Glass. Prof. Bruce Graver
• Politics in the Stereoscope: Promoting and Lambasting the Regime of Napoleon III. Denis Pellerin
• Arizona Stereographer Joseph C. Burge, Milton Sage, and Spring 1883 at the San Carlos Reservation. Dr Jeremy Rowe
• George Barker, The Most Famous Landscape Photographer in the World. Dale Rossi
• Underwood & Underwood: Beyond The Third Dimension. Andrew Lauren
• That Banjo! in Stereo and Culture from the Late 18th Century to the 20th. Dr Melody Davis
• Stereoscopic Pioneer: James Edward Ellam and the Press Photo Revolution. Dr David Barber

Details of the convention and registration are here: https://www.3d-con.com/

Dick Wendling has published a blog looking at the life and career of Lena Connell (1875-1949), an important photographer of the women’s suffragette movement in the early 20th century. She claimed to be the first woman photographer not restricted to women clients and photographed politicians and others. In an interview for The Vote in May 1910, Lena said she became committed to the suffragette movement when she photographed Gladice Keevil, after her release from Holloway prison in 1908.

Read the full blog here: http://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2023/07/lena-connell-suffragette-photographer.html and read more and her her work here: https://www.sistersofthelens.com/lena-connell

Image: Self portrait of Lena Connell,1910

It may not be known to all that the V&A will make available for viewing by appointment items from their photographic collections. Included in the move of The Royal Photographic Collection from the Science Museum Group to the V&A in 2017 was a set of Autochromes taken by Mervyn O'Gorman CB. He took these in 1913 of his neighbour Edwyn Bevan's teenage daughter Christina and were included in the Drawn by Light exhibition in 2015 by the National Science and Media Museum.

I took these pictures on 6 July 2023 when the V&A staff kindly brought the Autochromes down to the Prints and Drawings Room.They are very fragile; a tiny glass chip came off one as the staff unwrapped it. What a privilege!  

The elements of Being There have become fragments of biographies that collectively follow the progress of picture journalism from the advent of the miniature camera through to the arrival and impact of the digital age. It covers a ninety-year period from ca.1923 to 2012 and provides a critical compilation of encounters with influential photographers and their visual icons. 

The predominant narrative to this book relates to the photographic documentary in Europe and America and the individual interviews reflect this. Many of these interviews have been published in the photographic press and are reproduced here in edited or expanded form, while others have been interviewed specifically for this book. They cover five periods: 1923-1940 with the emergence of the picture magazine; 1940-1975 the golden age of photojournalism and the arrival of the ‘colour supplements’; 1975-2000 which provides new thinking and looking; 2000-2010 that sees the arrival of the democracy of photography; while 2011-2012 reviews concerns and queries, outcomes and polarities of Armageddon and renewal.

Michael Hallett’s publication has evolved over a thirty year period and is now revised and updated and presented from a 2023 perspective. His conversations with such photographers as Tim Gidal, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Carl Mydans, Sebastiāo Salgado as well as more recent practitioners all reflect the time of their particular interview.

Being There: 
Michael Hallett
ISBN: 978-1-3999-4034-8
£20 plus postage, 319 pages, softback
Order from: https://www.michaelhallett.com/shop/BEING-THERE-p554517650

Dick Weindling has published a blog on the Willesden factory which produced colour Vivex prints as Colour Photographs Ltd and hen as Colour Photographs (British and Foreign) Ltd. Vivex prints form much of the new Yevonde exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The first directors were involved with the Raphael studio in London's Knightsbridge.  

Read the blog post here: http://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2023/07/early-colour-photography-willesden.html

De Montfort University (DMU) is looking to appoint a Lecturer in Photographic History. DMU is an ambitious, globally minded and culturally rich university with a strong commitment to the public good. We strive to maintain a stimulating and inclusive environment that champions difference and celebrates success.

Faculty / Directorate

BA (Hons) History at De Montfort sits within the School of Humanities and Performing Arts in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Humanities. The School has a vibrant cluster of programmes which comprise of History, Creative Writing, English Language and Literature, Politics and International Relations. The university is one of just 17 universities worldwide to be an ambassador for the UN Sustainable Development Goals and one of 17 in the UK with the Race Equality Charter Mark. We are proud of our commitment to excellent teaching and learning, and our outstanding research profile.

Role

As a lecturer in Photographic History, you will teach and assess across a range of BA History and MA Photographic History modules, and take on a supervisory role for dissertations. You will take on some administrative duties, provide pastoral care and contribute to the student experience. Knowledge and willingness to contribute towards recruitment is desirable. The History team is research active and you will contribute through your research and scholarship to the Institute of History. Alongside the History team, you will work closely with the Photographic History Research Centre.

This is a temporary, full time (1.0 FTE) post to provide 12 months or when the post holder returns cover for maternity leave. We are looking for the successful candidate to start 1st September 2023.

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate will have teaching experience and research interests in any period of modern history since c. 1780. A specialisation in one or more of the following is essential: Photographic History, Cultural History; History of Medicine is preferred. You will be expected to teach the BA History modules ‘Photography and Conflict’ and ‘Global Cities’ and postgraduate modules ‘Photography, Ethic and Emotions.’ You will also contribute to other team-taught courses on historiography and methodology. The successful candidate should be actively engaged in their own research and have experience of teaching and researching within a Higher Education environment. A PhD in a related area is essential. You will possess excellent communication, inter-personal and networking skills, with a strong commitment to delivering an excellent student experience and to working within a team.

Details: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DBD082/lecturer-in-photographic-history

Carolyn Peter started a new role as Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at the Getty Museum on 12 June. Carolyn joined the Getty Museum as a part-time curatorial assistant in 2018 after a varied career as a museum director at the Laband Art Gallery (2006 - 2016), and curatorial positions in photography and graphic arts at the Hammer Museum, LACMA, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

She has her M.A. from London's Courtauld Institute of Art, where she wrote her thesis on the status of photography at the 1855 Exposition Universelle. Carolyn will be the presenting curator for 19th-Century Photography Now (curated by Karen Hellman) and the co-curator (with Karen Hellman) for Hippolyte Bayard: A Persistent Pioneer, both opening here on April 9, 2024. 

See: https://www.getty.edu/author/peter-carolyn/

Analogue photography is an industry of many moving parts; photographs are made of precious metals and materials that have complex histories. This series unpicks some of the politics of colonial projects and environmentalism, and how these link to analogue industries. We will draw on these discussions to enable us to develop more sustainable thinking and practice in photography.

This is a three-part, online workshop taking place over three Tuesdays in August: 1st, 8th and 15th from 5-7 GMT pm online. Experience open - we welcome practitioners wanting to build critical thinking skills.

Session 1: Groundwork: Towards A Decolonial Ecology (1st August)

Engagement with debates surrounding empires, environmentalism and analogue industries, and how these entangle in our present epoch of the Anthropocene:

How was colonialism rationalised and how does this continue to permeate contemporary photographic industries and worlds? What are some critiques of environmental movements? Who or what was sacrificed to make way for analogue industries?

In session activities include show & tell and short writing tasks

Self-directed work includes watching a video lecture by Dr. Malcom Ferdinand

Session 2: Material Mapping (8th August)

In this session we will analyse the material base of photographs and examine the many worlds that they entangle with. What are the metals, minerals and animal products that form photographic film and papers ?

You will be guided through how to trace materials relevant to your own practice (ie dye/ toner / paper) and generate a map of images that poetically describes the relations between this material and wider human and more-than-human worlds.

Self - directed work includes reading an article and preparing images for the final session.

Session 3: Light & Leaf: Connecting Worlds (15th August)

This final session culminates in a chlorophyll printing workshop. Chlorophyll printing is a simple photographic process that uses sunlight to print images directly on the leaf surface.

This session aims to combine the critical explorations of the first two sessions, with ecological printing methods.

Image, Empire & Ecology: Critical Perspectives
Alice Cazenave, co-director at the Sustainable Darkroom
Online, 1st, 8th, 15th August 2023
£80-95
Book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/image-empire-ecology-critical-perspectives-tickets-668066483837

The contribution of women to the first century of photography has been overlooked across the world, including in New Zealand. With few exceptions, photographic histories have tended to focus on the male maker.

This important book tilts the balance, unearthing a large and hitherto unknown number of women photographers, both professional and amateur, who operated in New Zealand from the 1860s to 1960, either as assistants in the early studios or later running studios in their own right.

It takes the reader on a journey through the backrooms of nineteenth and early twentieth-century photographic studios, into private homes, out onto the street and up into the mountains, and looks at the range of photographic practices in which women were involved. Through superb images and fascinating individual stories, it brings an important group of photographers into the light.

Publication date: June 2023
NZ RRP (incl. GST): $75
Extent: 368 pages
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-9951384-9-0

Book weblink

Exhibition: Through Shaded Glass Mā te
Whakaata Kauruku, Te Papa, 7 June – 22 Oct 2023

Exhibition weblink

The contribution of women to the first century of photography has been overlooked across the world, including in New Zealand. With few exceptions, photographic histories have tended to focus on the male maker. This important book tilts the balance, unearthing a large and hitherto unknown number of women photographers, both professional and amateur, who operated in New Zealand from the 1860s to 1960, either as assistants in the early studios or later running studios in their own right.

It takes the reader on a journey through the backrooms of nineteenth and early twentieth-century photographic studios, into private homes, out onto the street and up into the mountains, and looks at the range of photographic practices in which women were involved. Through superb images and fascinating individual stories, it brings an important group of photographers into the light.

Publication date: June 2023
NZ RRP (incl. GST): $75
Extent: 368 pages
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-9951384-9-0

Book weblink

Exhibition: Through Shaded Glass Mā te Whakaata Kauruku, Te Papa, 7 June – 22 Oct 2023

Exhibition weblink

Thank you all for your patience. I'd like to give you an update on our website upgrades. We are progressing with getting the right person in post and commencing scoping and work on all the research websites. Please bear in mind that this involves websites and open research in areas other than photographic history. By working together, we have put in place a long term solution that will hopefully lead to stable delivery for many years to come. Currently we expect that by the end of August we should begin bringing sites back online one at a time, and I will announce when each one is up and running.

For those of you who are anxious about moving forward with your research over the summer, several enterprising Talbot scholars have come up with hacks that do give you some results. For instance, although Talbot Correspondence search is not working, a google search for, say, 'Talbot, Brewster, Spectrum' will give you a letter as a result in your search, with the full transcript. This hack unfortunately doesn't seem as effective with the exhibitions websites.

Several of our sites don't seem to be affected at all and are running as normal.

Roger Fenton's Crimean Letterbooks

PhotoClec

Members of the Royal Photographic Society

The Journal of Amelina Petit de Billier

are all working well, even if not always perfectly. We will carry out the minor fixes on these websites after re-launching the ones most affected.

Again, I want to thank you all for your patience, and for the many users who have written directly. As soon as we begin relaunching sites, I will post again here.

For over 100 years, when you’d often have to wait a week to see your photos, film processors used photo wallets - cheery illustrated envelopes - to return your pictures to you. They showed what subjects were considered suitable for a snapshot: bright-eyed children, laughing couples, adorable pets and perfect landscapes; they also reinforced prohibitions by what they omitted.

On Thursday 29 June join Annebella Pollen (Professor of Visual and Material Culture at University of Brighton) to discuss her latest book More Than A Snapshot: A Visual History of Photo Wallets. The book charts a century of popular photography in Britain: the birth of a new mass leisure pastime mainly marketed towards women, and the growth of camera ownership after the Second World War. It commemorates a time when you never knew if you had captured a treasured memory or your finger in front of the lens.

More than A Snapshot: A visual history of photo wallets with Annebella Pollen
29 June 2023, doors 1830
Tickets £3 with a complimentary drink or £12 with a copy of the book (and a drink)
Village Books, 10-12 Thorntons Arcade, Leeds, LS1 6LQ
Book here: https://villagebooks.co/products/talk-more-than-a-snapshot-a-visual-history-of-photo-wallets-with-annebella-pollen

Hundred Heroines has launched the Dorothy Wilding Appreciation Society to create a legacy and nurture the next generation of women photographers from Gloucester. 

It writes...