Blogs

The Museum of Gloucester is celebrating the two hundred and twenty-first anniversary of the birth of polymath Charles Wheatstone in Barnwood, near Gloucester. Although his name is still remembered all over the world, Wheatstone never got the credit he really deserves. This prolific inventor, musical instrument maker and professor of experimental philosophy was a shy person and, unlike some of his contemporaries and their modern equivalents, never blew his own trumpet.

Whilst some inventions which he helped promote have been wrongly attributed to him, others have been credited to somebody else and history has not been kind in honouring him. There are no monuments to him, no statues to remember his achievements by, and even his grave in Bethnal Green is so undistinctive that it is difficult to find.

Photo historian Denis Pellerin, from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, will take you on a three dimensional journey to discover the inventor of Stereoscopy (which we now call 3D) and show how this invention, which, strangely enough, Wheatstone never considered as his most important, changed the way the Victorians perceived the world around them. Stereoscopy gave birth to a craze which may not have lasted very long but produced millions of amazing images and has been through several revivals since it first started back in the 1850s.

Nearly two hundred years after its discovery, Stereoscopy is not only the magic carpet it was for Wheatstone’s contemporaries, taking them to far away places without leaving their fireside; it has also become a wonderful time machine, showing us the Victorians, famous or anonymous, as they really were, in a way no traditional photographs can.

Details and booking: https://www.museumofgloucester.co.uk/events/celebrating-charles-wheatstone-in-glorious-3d

On 16th January 1862, 204 men and boys died following the Hartley Colliery Disaster in Northumberland. New research published today to mark its 161st anniversary - at www.pressphotoman.com - investigates when the 'after the accident' photographs in the Royal Collection were taken. 

Image: Royal Collection Trust.  W & D DOWNEY (ACTIVE 1855-1941). Hartley Colliery after the accident 30 - 30 Jan 1862. Albumen print | 15 x 20.4 cm (image) | RCIN 2935022

International photographic societies and camera clubs burgeoned in the late nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The mutual support and collaboration amongst individual members along with the practical and educational undertakings of these self-reliant photographies is a fitting focus for the recognition of photographers who could assert themselves and see themselves as a community of practice of their own making.

The educational projects of photographic societies and camera clubs were shaped by an infrastructure that enabled collaborative forms of communication; products of socio-technical networks that fostered new relationships of learning between the individual and the collective. From the late 1870s, the number of clubs and societies began to soar: the fourteen groups recorded in the British Journal of Photography Almanac in 1877 had grown to 365 by 1910. Almost weekly the pages of the photographic press reported the foundation of new clubs and societies. At a time when the number of amateur photographers themselves was expanding, and club life was seen as a respectable social occupation, the cooperative ethos on which these ‘local schools’ were built was considered by contemporary commentators as a ‘culture of rational exchange’ and fostering an ‘ideal of sociability identified with liberal education, eloquence and good fellowship’ (Sawyer, Photographic News, 1883: 286). These organisations ranged from amateur groups that emulated learned societies to less socially exclusive and formal, and to camera clubs based in hospitals, workplaces or mechanics institutes. There were national societies, such as the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, the National Photographic Association of the United States, the Société Française de Photographie, the Japan Photographic Society, and a plethora of album clubs and postal camera clubs exchanging prints or lantern slides for aesthetic critique.

Historical accounts of clubs and societies are sparce, because many of these groups, considered to be minor, were not listed in the photographic annals and the greater numbers of their collections have been broken up, dispersed, and even lost. Yet, club life from an understanding of how people learnt (or should learn) photography, allowed its membership to receive by various ways a collaborative and efficient training and, through group participation, to escape some of the technical pitfalls which beset many photographers who proceeded to work alone.

This one-day workshop opens a critical conversation about the under-researched emergence and decline of these clubs and societies, outlines new ways to research, theorise, and interpret their educational projects, and asks what this reveals about the values and meanings that members attached to these practices and of how photography consolidated and strengthened the bonds amongst those groups.

The workshop welcomes papers for 20 minute presentations from students, early career researchers, those working in photography, education and heritage, visual and popular culture, media and communication studies, medical humanities, social and cultural history, history of art, material and design cultures, and any other related fields of research.

What roles have the learning communities of photographic societies and camera clubs played in the histories of photography and visual culture? How did club life, at times recognised as popular and progressive, fraternal, instructive and sociable, cement cooperative strategies for growing bodies of amateur and professional photographers to learn from one another? Were these clubs and societies mostly ‘fraternal’ male groups? How did this space intersect with narratives of gender and subtexts of brotherhood in its educational and entertainment uses for female groups? Did any standout for their female or children’s membership?

Proposals may explore, but are not limited to:

• Global histories of the camera club and photographic society (from any historical period)
• Photographic societies and camera clubs as supplementary schooling
• Amateur groups emulating learned societies
• Launch of the Amateur Photographer in 1884 and the rise in popularity of Amateur Societies
• International, national and regional differences in the organisation of both photographic societies and camera clubs
• The role of periodicals in drawing together societies and clubs and consolidating communities of practice
• Education, sociability and instruction within the practices of clubland culture
• Society networks and intersecting communities of learning
• The RPS and female ‘Colour Group’ members
• The relationship between gender and clubland
• Camera clubs specifically for women or children
• Collaborative education to enhance members’ active participation
• Scientific, medical, colonial photographic committees, societies or clubs
• The material culture of clubrooms, exhibitions, soireés, meetings, lantern evenings
• The social and cultural roles of exhibitions of societies and clubs
• The relationship between the RPS and affiliated provincial camera clubs
• Power relations in the clubroom
• The legalities of club life and presidents, secretaries and officials, especially in small self-regulated clubs 
• The relationship between postal, microscopical, album or lantern slide clubs and modern communication technologies in urban and non-urban contexts
• Amateur photographers and the survey and record movement
• Links with other types of bodies that sponsored photographic societies such as field, naturalistic and archaeological societies, companies
• Photographic federations, unions, associations, and inter-society arrangements
• The rise and decline of clubs and societies   
• Researching societies and clubs in archives and special collections

Paper proposals should be submitted as one Word or PDF document to Dr Jason Bate j.bate@bbk.ac.uk by Monday 20th February 2023. The document should include:

• Your full name
• Email address
• Institutional affiliation (when applicable)
• Paper title
• Proposal of no longer than 250 words for presentations of 20 minutes
• Short biographical note (100-150 words)

Event format: The event will take place in the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre at Birkbeck in London (UK) in person, and we will be able to accommodate fifteen presentations, and offer £50 towards travel expenses for up to four PhD students. 

Keynote speaker: Dr Michael Pritchard, photographic historian and Director of programmes for the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.

CfP: Photographic Societies and Camera Clubs
Thursday 25 May 2023
Birkbeck College, University of London, in person
Deadline for paper proposals: by Monday, 20 February 2023
Dr Jason Bate e: j.bate@bbk.ac.uk

The Albert Kahn departmental museum in France has released nearly 25,000 colour photos of early 20th-century life into the public domain and over 34,000 others that are free to use as part of a project to assure visual history is not forgotten. Called Archives of the Planet, the project was started in 1908 by French banker Albert Kahn who wanted to photograph humanity around the world. Kahn hired 12 professional photographers who visited 50 countries until the project concluded...

Read the story here: https://petapixel.com/2023/01/11/nearly-70000-color-photos-of-early-20th-century-are-now-free-to-use/

Visit the museum collection here: https://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr/

From its origins, both cinema and photography recorded the daily life bodies: workers leaving the factory, women dancing the serpentine dance, babies having breakfast, urban strollers or the bourgeois families’ portraits. The wonderful and strange capacity to offer a presence amplified the new forms of Modernity’s corporeal culture, and corporeality became one of the great issues for cinema and photography. Among the many bodies that began to appear in the images between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, we are interested in observing the sick bodies, both victims of physical and mental illnesses....

14th International Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema
Visions of the sick body Physical and Mental Pathologies’ Representations in Photography and Early Cinema
Girona, 8 and 9 November 2023
cfp deadline 30 April 2023

Read more and details: https://www.girona.cat/shared/admin/docs/1/4/14seminari_call_for_papers.eng.pdf

The announcement of photography’s invention in January 1839, first in Paris and then in London, introduced a ‘new power’ into British life. This new power—the capacity to automatically capture the images created in a camera—was soon being used for every conceivable purpose.

A New Power traces the development and dissemination of photographic images within Britain during the medium’s first fifty years. Comprising over 160 items, the exhibition features not only early daguerreotypes and salted paper prints but also paintings, sculptural busts, periodicals, prints and even elements of the first computing engine, along with various kinds of copies of photographs used to illustrate newspapers and books. By showing how photography intersected with all aspects of a nascent modernity—including industrialisation, science, art, the role of women, celebrity culture, journalism, publishing, race, class, colonialism, and consumer capitalism—the exhibition reveals photography’s crucial role in making Britain the society it is today.

The exhibition’s curator, Geoffrey Batchen, is Professor of History of Art at the University of Oxford. A scholarly symposium responding to the exhibition will be held at the Bodleian Library on March 18.

A New Power. Photography in Britain 1800-1850
S T Lee Gallery, Weston Library, Oxford                                       
1 February 2023 – 7 May 2023
Free admission 
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/a-new-power

A peak at the exhibition installation underway, courtesy of Geoff Batchen. 

I an trying to find information/contact details for these photographers:

Alan Richards

John Stonex

Michael Taylor

Peter Wilkinson

D Baxter

Edward Pritchard

Ron Chapman

Tony Morris

Dunstan Pereira

Malcolm Aird

Fill Bullock

David Gaynor

Any information gratefully received. 

The National Science and Media Museum is about to undergo a radical and ‘once-in-a-generation’ transformation ready to inspire millions of visitors to Bradford City of Culture in 2025. Huge changes will be delivered by December 2024, through a £6 million capital project called ‘Sound and Vision’, including two new galleries, a new passenger lift and improvements to the main entrance. 

To facilitate these works, the National Science and Media Museum has announced a period of temporary closure from June 2023 to summer 2024. The Sound and Vision Project will create two significant new galleries and increase the museum’s overall accessibility and relevance to key audiences.  

The galleries, accompanied by an engaging activity programme, will showcase key objects and stories from the museum’s world-class collections of photography, film, television, animation, video games and sound technologies. Thanks to National Lottery players, the project has been awarded initial funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop the transformational plans. The project also has support from the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund 2022-24 and Bradford Metropolitan District Council. 

When the museum opened in 1983, it was home to ‘the largest cinema screen in Britain’ and continues to run an IMAX and Pictureville Cinemas, which remains a big part of its visitor offer. During the closure period Pictureville Cinema and Bar will continue to operate, open seven days a week with an enhanced programme, as this has separate entrance arrangements and facilities. 

The museum already provides many opportunities to learn about the principles of light and sound. It is at the forefront of STEM education and communication thanks to Wonderlab, its passionate team of Explainers, collaborative work with schools, plus festivals and events that bring the collections to life. The development of the new galleries will transform the heart of the museum, updating core collections displays to increase their relevance to local communities and deliver fully on the Science Museum Group’s mission to inspire futures and ambition to be open for all. 

• The development will involve the complete remodelling of two floors of the building, opening up unused spaces and reimagining the display and interpretation of the core collections. 
• In addition to the new galleries, the project will see the ground floor of the museum  reconfigured, creating a new public space and an enhanced visitor welcome. 
• The installation of an additional passenger lift and the renovation of the existing lift will increase accessibility and enable all visitors to move around the building with ease. 
• The project has sustainability at its heart, with set goals around energy and carbon reduction, resource efficiency, responsible procurement and sourcing of products and services used in the gallery, alongside wellbeing, and community skills and engagement strategies. 
• The displays and interpretation will be informed by close consultation with local communities to ensure the museum’s relevance to visitors and engage underrepresented audiences.  
• The new galleries will ensure the museum’s position as a cultural cornerstone when Bradford becomes City of Culture in 2025 and will align with ambitions to harness young audiences and foster new creative opportunities across the district. 
• Sound and Vision also complements the city’s ambitious ten-year culture strategy Culture is our Plan and supports the wider region’s commitment to building a digital economy.  
• A vibrant activity plan sits alongside the development of the new galleries. It supports greater access, new employment and volunteering opportunities and is focused on enabling more people – irrespective of class, race, age, ability, gender or faith – to engage with the museum.  
• During the temporary closure period, a range of outreach activities with community groups and schools– in person and online – will enable audiences to stay in touch and track progress. 

The existing displays on levels three and five of the museum will gradually be removed from the beginning of February, so visitors are invited to come and say a temporary farewell to their favourite objects in the coming weeks. Wonderlab, the Kodak Gallery, Games Lounge and temporary exhibition space will remain open until the summer, with a dynamic public programme culminating in Bradford Science Festival 24 May – 4 June. 

In 2025, the city of Bradford expects to welcome visitors in unprecedented numbers. Thanks to this radical transformation, Bradford’s national museum will be a key attraction, inspiring wonder amongst audiences and ensuring its relevance for many years to come. 

Jo Quinton-Tulloch, the museum’s Director said: 

“This major investment in the museum will radically transform our visitor offer both in terms of content and accessibility. In the new galleries, visitors will be able to find stories that resonate with them, showing how all areas of our collections – from photography to gaming – are embedded in every aspect of our lives, and inspiring the next generation of creatives, inventors and scientists. During the period of museum closure, we look forward to welcoming cinema visitors and working with local residents to curate the new galleries. 

With the additional lift and revamped foyer, we will be able to welcome many more visitors, which will be vital as we approach Bradford’s year as City of Culture in 2025. The new permanent displays on levels three and five and the enhanced public space in our new foyer will futureproof Bradford’s national museum for decades to come.” 

Anne Jenkins, Executive Director of Business Delivery at The National Lottery Heritage Fund added: 
“We are delighted to be supporting the National Science and Media Museum to develop their ambitious plans to transform their site and make this national and local treasure one of the star attractions for City of Culture 2025. In addition, the museum’s commitment to community engagement and skills development ensures that the Sound and Vision Project will have a lasting and meaningful impact.” 

UPDATE 19 Jan 2023

The NS+MM and provided a statement on collection access: 

We are committed to facilitating research, and wherever practicable, access to the collections. We are still working through detailed plans for the temporary closure period but we can reassure you that the collections certainly won’t be inaccessible for the full closure period. Please keep up to date via our website and social media channels, and feel free to check in again nearer to the closure date if you need to plan ahead. You can contact our collections team here: Access to our collection | National Science and Media Museum

Details of the Sound and Vision project can be seen here: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/about-us/sound-and-vision-project

Are you a Royal Photographic Society member?  Did you take first take photographs as a child or a teenager? Would you be happy to share your childhood memories and experiences with a researcher?

Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual and Material Culture at University of Brighton, is conducting research about the history of photography by children, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, for a new book and exhibition.

If you would like to participate in this research by sharing your stories and perspectives, and perhaps also your photographs, please follow this link for more information, including a questionnaire and a consent form. 

https://brighton.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/rps-questionnaire-childhood-and-photography-memories-an-2

The announcement of photography’s invention in January 1839 introduced a ‘new power’ into British life that was soon exploited by those interested in commerce, science, culture, journalism and art. This day-long symposium considers how the first fifty years of photography in Britain intersected with the nation’s growing modernity, revealing photography’s crucial role in making Britain the society it is today.

A New Power: The symposium
Saturday 18 March 2023, 9.30am–5.40pm
Oxford: Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre, Weston Library
Free event, limited seating, booking required
Details and programme are here: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/mar23/a-new-power-symposium

Autograph is looking for an experienced curator to work on their contemporary exhibition programme which focuses strongly on photographic practice and to take lead responsibility for project managing touring and collection loans in the UK and abroad.

Based at Rivington Place, in Shoreditch, London which houses their two public project spaces, small scale screening facilities, a learning studio and their specialist photographic collection, you will:

• Develop and deliver selected aspects of Autograph’s artistic programme (which includes: exhibitions, publications, commissions, residencies, collection projects and digital programmes) taking lead responsibility for touring and loans.
• Provide logistical support coordinating and implementing all practical aspects of programming across exhibitions, UK and international touring, publications and projects on and off site.
• Assist with the development and promotion of Autograph’s photography collection.
• Contribute to an integrated, thematic approach to all programming with learning and engagement, digital engagement  and audience development colleagues.

You will work alongside one other Curator who leads on commissions and residencies to deliver Autograph's exhibition programme at their galleries in Rivington Place, and in a variety of other settings.

Autograph is looking for someone who identifies strongly with their values and mission, has extensive knowledge of contemporary exhibition practice and a particular interest in curating photography. You will need to be a strong communicator and an excellent project manager who is comfortable working with a wide range of partners, artists and interest groups, to deliver the responsibilities set out in this role.

To tie in with the Wilson Art Gallery and Museum's exhibition, Clear of People, is a symposium that explores artist perspectives on the consequences of military conflict in Eastern Europe. The event brings together a panel of acclaimed artists and academics who will discuss their work and research, including first-hand accounts of how artists are continuing to make work amidst the conflict in Ukraine.

Presentations come from from Michal Iwanowski (artist and Lecturer in Photography at Cardiff Metropolitan University), Claudia Heinermann (artist) and Anastasiya Afonina (Lecturer at Lviv Academy of Art), followed by a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Tom Allbeson (Senior Lecturer in Media History, School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University). Through their work the speakers will draw on archival and personal accounts of both historical and present-day conflicts, giving voice to individuals and communities that have been impacted by war across generations.

Supported by Cardiff Metropolitan University and the Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, this event is part of the closing weekend of the exhibition, Clear of People, by Michal Iwanowski.

Symposium: It’s Personal: Artist Perspectives on the Consequences of Military Conflict
4 February 2023 from 1045-1530
The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum
Clarence Street
Cheltenham
GL50 3JT

Details of the event and exhibition are here: http://www.cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/event/its-personal-artist-perspectives-on-the-consequences-of-military-conflict/

Since its inception, photography has been used by the heritage sector to document and disseminate its historical and cultural assets with the aim of furthering study and enhancing scholarship. With the digital age comes new imaging technologies and methods such as multispectral imaging (MSI), reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) and photogrammetry or 3D imaging .

This lecture will consider these new technologies and their practical uses within the heritage sector and explore how they have been influenced directly from the ideas of early photographic pioneers such as Henry Fox Talbot and Sir John Herschel, to inform the work of exploratory technical researchers Hewlett Packard and NASA. It will draw on specific examples from the archives of the John Rylands Research Institute and Library (JRRIL) and the leading-edge technologies utilised by its Imaging Team.

Tony Richards is Senior Photographer at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester. He is currently the lead photographer for advanced imaging techniques. The JRRIL Imaging Team are at the forefront of supporting Digital Scholarship through the use of these advanced imaging techniques to inspire and support further research of Special Collections Library material. Tony is also a practitioner of historic photographic processes and is interested in how current digital methods influence his historical practice.​

Free: book here: https://events.rps.org/4LrdQ66/5a2N4L6Zyb9

The Wilson Bentley photographs of snowflakes held at the Natural History Museum have been digitised. An album of 355 of the original prints dating from 1885, by the man who came to be known as Snowflake Bentley was bought by London’s Natural History Museum in 1899, and the collection has now been digitised and made available to view online.

Details here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jan/04/snowflake-bentleys-19th-century-images-of-snow-crystals-put-online

View online: https://nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?context=L&vid=44NHM_INST:44NHM_V1&docid=alma9915394302081

The annual Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards celebrate excellence in photography and moving image publishing. They recognise individuals who have made an outstanding or original contribution to the literature, art or practice of photography or the moving image. Two winning titles are selected: one in the field of photography and one in the field of the moving image. The author/s or editor/s of each winning book receive a £5,000 cash prize.

Submissions are welcome from publishers, authors, collectives and individuals self-publishing their work. There is no entry fee.

Details: https://kraszna-krausz.org.uk/book-awards/

The National Gallery is seeking a skilled Photographic Archive Assistant for 18 months to work on a large-scale project to digitise and audit Collection material in the National Gallery’s Photographic Archive. The project is delivered as part of the gallery’s Digital Dossier Programme (DDP), an ambitious research infrastructure and knowledge-enabling change programme that aims to make ‘everything we know about our pictures available to everyone’. 

Details: https://nationalgalleryjobs.ciphr-irecruit.com/templates/CIPHR/jobdetail_1651.aspx

The Curator of Astronomical Photographs, reporting to the Executive Director of the Harvard College Observatory, provides vision, leadership, advocacy, interpretation, and passion for the Observatory’s Astronomical Photographic Glass Plate Collection (Glass Plates). The Curator also serves as catalyst and coordinator of activities dedicated to connecting faculty, students, and an international community of scientists and researchers, to the Glass Plates to advance their scholarship and the mission of the HCO. The Curator will support conservation activities and advise on both short term and long term plans pertaining to stewardship of the Glass Plates. The Curator will be responsible for overseeing the work of LHTs and possibly Curatorial Assistants undertaking both physical and digital projects and will execute administrative tasks associated with daily operations of the Observatory Plate Stacks. 

The Curator will have enthusiasm and demonstrated ability in sharing and interpreting the Glass Plates for teaching purposes, in digital contexts, in publications, and through exhibitions and programming. The Curator will be adept in communicating the value and contemporary relevance of astronomical photography to experts and general audiences.  

The successful candidate will understand and appreciate the history of astronomy, particularly as it relates to optical observation methods and the roles that gender and care work have played in advancing the field; the ability to master over time all aspects of Glass Plate stewardship; enthusiasm for working with faculty and students; a proclivity for adopting new technologies and methods that will improve access to and use of the Glass Plates; and a collaborative and collegial outlook.

For more information see the full job posting:

https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Search/home/HomeWithPreLoad?partnerid=25240&siteid=5341&PageType=JobDetails&jobid=1980489

The V&A has announced that the second and final phase of the V&A’s Photography Centre will open 25 May 2023. Once open, the Photography Centre will become the largest space in the UK for a permanent photography collection, and the seven galleries – four of which will be new additions – will showcase the museum’s world-leading holdings and enable visitors to experience photography and its diverse histories in new ways. Phase One, Galleries 99 and 100, opened in 2018. 

The V&A has collected and exhibited photography since the founding of the museum in the 1850s, and today its collection is one of the largest and most varied in the world. Phase One of the museum’s Photography Centre opened in 2018, with three galleries designed by David Kohn. May 2023 sees the completion of the second and final phase of the Photography Centre with an additional four galleries, with base-build designed by Purcell, and fit-out designed by Gibson Thornley Architects.

Two of the new rooms will showcase global contemporary photography and cutting-edge commissions in rotating displays. The other new spaces – a room dedicated to photography and the book, and an interactive gallery about the history and use of the camera – will shine a light on the processes involved in photography, as well as the study and presentation of the medium. These new rooms join the three existing galleries, with two galleries for changing displays from the collection and a space dedicated to digital media, which will also present new content.

Highlights of the opening displays will include recent acquisitions exhibited at the museum for the first time, including works by Liz Johnson Artur, Sammy Baloji, Vera Lutter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tarrah Krajnak and Vasantha Yogananthan, as well as a monumental photographic sculpture by Noémie Goudal.  Two major new commissions supported by the Manitou Fund will also be unveiled, with a photographic series by leading Indian artist Gauri Gill, and a digital commission by British media artist Jake Elwes. The Manitou Fund has committed to funding six commissions for the Photography Centre, which will see a new print and digital commission in 2023, 2025 and 2027. On completion, the Photography Centre will also feature new, themed displays, presenting works from the 1840s to the present day, beginning with Energy: Sparks from the Collection, exploring how all photographs need some form of energy to exist, and a smaller display, How Not to Photograph a Bulldog, featuring dog photography manuals from the Royal Photographic Society Library. 

Marta Weiss, V&A Senior Curator of Photography and Lead Curator of Phase Two of the Photography Centre, said: “Photography lies at the heart of the V&A. The museum has collected photography since 1852 and continues to acquire the best of contemporary practice. As photography plays an ever-increasing role in all our lives, the expanded Photography Centre will be more relevant than ever. We look forward to welcoming visitors to explore the medium’s diverse histories and enjoy our world-leading collection.”

About the Photography Centre:

 Room 95

Inside the Camera

Room 95 will be an interactive gallery exploring how cameras work and how they are used, from the Victorian view camera to the first iPhone. The highlight will be a walk-in camera obscura, demonstrating the optical phenomenon that is the basis of how all cameras work. A timeline of cameras will show their evolution, with accompanying animations explaining the inner workings of these iconic devices.

Room 96

Room 97, The Parasol Foundation Gallery

Photography Now

Two new galleries will be dedicated to showcasing recent acquisitions of global contemporary photography, including special commissions. Highlights in the inaugural display will include works by Liz Johnson Artur, Sammy Baloji, Vera Lutter, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and Vasantha Yogananthan, all acquired with the support of the V&A Photographs Acquisition Group. A series of self-portraits by Tarrah Krajnak, acquired with the support of The Parasol Foundation Trust, will also feature. A spectacular anamorphic sculpture by Noémie Goudal will bring photography off the wall to explore both geological time and the nature of perception.

A new commission, supported by the Manitou Fund, from leading Indian photographer Gauri Gill will also be unveiled. This new body of work depicts temporary architecture on the outskirts of Delhi, ingenuously constructed by farmers from repurposed materials. The makeshift dwellings housed farmers bringing their concerns from the village to the capital, in response to new laws that threatened their economic security.

 Room 98, The Kusuma Gallery

Photography and the Book

A flexible space dedicated to Photography and the Book will reflect how books have been a fundamental way of presenting photography since the 1840s. The Kusuma Gallery, which has been funded by The Kusuma Trust, will visibly house the extensive Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Library, following the transfer of the RPS Collection to the V&A in 2017. The RPS Library contains journals, books, pamphlets and manuals from all over the world, spanning topics from aerial photography to X-rays. More than 20,000 books, published over nearly 200 years, will be available to visitors by request, with a selection of browsing books on open shelves.

The Kusuma Gallery will also feature changing displays of photographic books, periodicals and archival material.  The first display will be How Not to Photograph a Bulldog, a light-hearted foray into one of the many topics covered by the photographic manuals in the RPS Library.

Films about the RPS Library and photographic processes will be shown on digital terminals for visitors to enjoy. This flexible space will also be used for teaching and other programming. 

 Room 99, The Modern Media Gallery

Digital Gallery

One of the three Phase One galleries, The Modern Media Gallery continues to be dedicated to digital media, challenging definitions of what photography is and generating questions around the use of photography today. The gallery will showcase a new digital commission by Jake Elwes, supported by the Manitou Fund.

Room 100, The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery

Room 101, The Sir Elton John and David Furnish Gallery

Photography 1840s-Now

Developed during Phase One of the Photography Centre, these galleries will be entirely rehung for the 2023 opening. A new display, Energy: Sparks from the Collection, will explore the diverse kinds of energy in photography – both the hidden processes intrinsic to creating a picture, and the subjects in front of a camera. Featuring works from the 1840s through to the present day, it will demonstrate how, from the advent of photography, power in all its diverse forms has sparked the imaginations of photographers.

Situated in the V&A’s Northeast Quarter, the Photography Centre reclaims the beauty of seven original 19th-century picture galleries, restoring them to their original glory and purpose. Planned in two phases, the Centre is part of the V&A’s FuturePlan development programme to revitalise the museum’s public spaces through contemporary design and the restoration of original features.

Beyond the physical gallery spaces, a key focus for photography at the V&A is research and the development of new sector-leading initiatives. A major strand is The Parasol Foundation Women in Photography Project, established in 2021 to support women in photography. Led by the inaugural Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography, Fiona Rogers, and funded by Ms. Ruth Monicka Parasol and The Parasol Foundation Trust, the Project encompasses a curatorial post alongside acquisitions, research, education and public displays. The Project’s first acquisition by Tarrah Krajnak will be included in the opening display at the V&A. Also in May 2023, five winners of the inaugural V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography will be exhibited at Peckham 24 – south London’s vibrant three-day contemporary photography festival. The prize is dedicated to supporting and championing the work of women in contemporary photography and will run for three years.

The V&A is also delighted to announce additional support from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. Alongside significant funding of Phase Two of the Photography Centre, the Foundation has generously extended their commitment to a series of two-year Fellowships in photography for early-career curators until 2028. The V&A is pleased to announce the appointment of Mary Phan as the second Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, who will be in post until 2024.

The Photography Centre is being made possible by Sir Elton John and David Furnish, The Kusuma Trust, The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, The Parasol Foundation Trust, Modern Media, Shao Zhong Art Foundation and many other generous supporters.

I'm researching the Derby Master Class project.  Initiated by Nigel Trow at the Derbyshire College of Higher Education in 1975/76 it brought a number of internationally recognised photographers to the course at the institution.  It ran for several years as a very distinctive feature of the course before gradually reverting to a more recognisable Visiting Artist programme.  I have the archive materials assembled by Richard Sadler, who taught at Derby through the period (courtesy of his Estate) and hope to publish a small monograph on the subject.

In addition I have other materials, catalogues, pamphlets, magazines and cuttings on a range of photographic activities relating to the late seventies and eighties that I'd happily pass on to anyone conducting research into the period.  If you are interested I will shortly post the listings of what is available.

Regarding the Master Class programme - if you were involved, as staff, student, or otherwise I'd be interested in making contact.

Image: Minor White, portrait by Richard Sadler, taken Nov. 1975 at Derby Master Class, Derbyshire College Of HE.

The Guardian newspaper has reported that the largest photography library in Africa has opened in Ghana’s capital, Accra, showcasing the work of the continent and diaspora’s forgotten, established and emerging talent.

Founded by Ghanaian photographer and film-maker Paul Ninson, the Dikan Center houses more than 30,000 books he has collected. The first of its kind in Ghana, a photo studio and classrooms provide space for workshops while a fellowship programme is aimed at African documentarians and visual artists. An exhibition space will host regular shows, the first of which is Ahennie, a series by the late Ghanaian documentary photographer Emmanuel Bobbie (also known as Bob Pixel), who died in 2021.

Read the full piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/dec/20/africas-biggest-photography-library-opens-in-ghana-accra-dikan-center

The Dikan Center website is here https://www.dikancenter.org/ and notes: 

Dikan is a Ghana-based non-profit organization committed to visual education through the advancement of visual storytelling. We also work to increase public access to the art of photography. Dikan will be the first photo library established in Ghana, and currently has in stock of more than 30,000 photography and film books with special collection of photo books of Africa.

Our objective is to inspire, train and support photographers and filmmakers in Ghana and Africa as a whole. Dikan aims to make visual education accessible to everyone, promoting public awareness of photography through educational outreach, immersive workshops, online education, studios and events.