I have begun to post the contributions and conversations that have been featured on the A Photographic Life podcast as raw audio for research purposes etc. This will be an evolving archive and is available at https://photographyoralhistories.co.uk/ It contains from photographers from across the world but also British based practitioners.
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The Classic Photograph Fair is delighted to announce its second edition, taking place at historic Conway Hall in charming Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1R 4RL, 13 May, from 9am -4pm. The Classic Photograph Fair is London’s only free photography fair, which focuses on classic and vintage photography.
Taking place during Photo London, The Classic Photograph fair celebrates photography dating from the earliest years of the medium. Over 20 exhibitors, including UK and continental dealers, will be present, and exhibitors will also include contemporary artists working with early processes, such as Anthony Jones’ cyanotypes and Michael Ford’s silver daguerreotypes. The works on offer will include a range of vintage material – daguerreotypes, paper negatives, salt prints, albums, cased images – through to the 20th century, on the subjects of exploration and science, film and theatre, fashion and press photographs.
Founder Daniella Dangoor says, “This fair is a wonderful opportunity for lovers of photography and first-time buyers to explore a range of material. Prices will range from £50 to tens of thousands.”
The Classic Photograph Fair
13 May 2023, 9 am – 4 pm
FREE ADMISSION
Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square London WC1R 4RL
See: https://www.classicphotofair.co.uk/
Sponsored by Chiswick Auctions
Sparked by a set of 19th century glass plate negatives, this talk will discuss the first photographic campaign to record the Bayeux Tapestry, which brought it to prominence as an iconic artwork in the British imagination. Photographing the Tapestry was an innovative process undertaken for the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1872. Special techniques and equipment including solar enlargement, photocollage and hand-painting were combined to make a 214 foot long coloured photograph representing the Tapestry at life size scale. This object played a vital role in understanding the Tapestry in Britain for decades afterwards and generated further copies in other media including the 1886 embroidered copy of the tapestry made by the Leek Embroidery Society, now in Reading Museum.
This talk will place the first photography campaign of the Tapestry within current research into institutional photographic practices, cultural diplomacy through photography, and photographic replication of artworks.
Ella Ravilious's talk draws on research that will be published by The Burlington Magazine in its forthcoming May issue, which is devoted to Photography.
Hosted by Photo London
Photographing the Bayeux Tapestry
24 April 2023 at 1800 (BST)
Register and: SIGN UP
The collections of 19th century stereo photographs (stereoviews) and historical maps on which this exhibition is based, had their origins over the past two decades in teaching and research on the historical geography of industrial development in what became known as the American Manufacturing Belt.
Through the lens of the stereo photographer, exploring the novel technology of 3D visual effects, the exhibition examines key industrial sectors, such as the railroads, oil production, coal mining and the rise of the iron and steel industry. The varied geographical manifestations of the technologies and developments involved are further examined using a variety of cartographic resources.
This is the first time that images from a large collection of US industrial stereoviews of this kind have been exhibited in the UK, if not in Europe. While some will be familiar to 19th century photographic historians, others are very rare or are newly discovered and are not found in even the largest US public collections. Likewise, scans of original maps, dating back as far as a railroad map from 1831, are used to illustrate the wider geographical contexts of economic development, as well as pinpointing the locations at which photographs were taken.
Where the original images will support it, large format anaglyphs have been created of selected scenes, to allow photos to be studied in 3D and in much greater detail than is possible using small format stereoviewers alone. It will become apparent that stereoviews represent an immensely valuable, but strangely neglected resource for the study of historical geography, quite apart from their important place in the history of photography.
The exhibition is designed and curated by Professor Richard Healey of the School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences at the University of Portsmouth. The support of the School in creating the displays is gratefully acknowledged, together with the contribution of a number of technical specialists in scanning and digital reproduction from across the university.
The exhibition runs from Monday 17 April to Friday 19 May. Opening hours are Monday to Friday 10.00am - 5.00pm with two additional opening dates on Monday 8 May (bank holiday), and Saturday 20 May.
Seeing Double: Stereo Photography, Historical Cartography and the US Industrial Revolution 1840-1920
7 April 2023 - 19 May 2023
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR
Details: https://www.rgs.org/events/summer-2023/seeing-double/
Hello. Having the late lamented Pete James of the Birmingham City Library called to mind, can anyone tell me what the current status of the photographic collection there might now be? Is there anybody there with a curatorial knowledge of the collection, or has the entire enterprise been mothballed? I would be very grateful to know - I haven't yet forgiven Birmingham for demolishing the previous building.
Might anyone recognize the gent in this ambrotype by John Beattie of Bristol 1858-70s https://archives.cliftonbridge.org.uk/beattie-john he was a spiritualist and to take a portrait outside his studio might indicate a special sitter there is a masonic symbol on the lower edge as with other mats by Beattie.
In October 2022, the Signet Library’s ongoing re-cataloguing project threw up something remarkable: a sixth surviving complete copy of Hill and Adamson’s 1846 album A Series of Calotype Views of St. Andrews - the sole copy to reside in Edinburgh itself. This was the only album that the pioneering Scottish partnership produced in multiple copies, and the Signet Library volume appears to be the most complete surviving example, retaining its original binding and 25 calotypes including that on the title page. It joins examples at the Library of the University of Glasgow, the Avery Library at the University of Columbia, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and two copies at the Library of the University of St. Andrews. The Hay Fleming Library at the University of St. Andrews is home to a vitally important incomplete copy.
The Signet Library in Edinburgh is the headquarters and library of the Society of Writers to His Majesty’s Signet (the WS Society for short), a registered charity which comprises Scotland’s oldest corporate body of lawyers. On 31st March 2023 historians of photography joined an audience of Writers to the Signet and their guests at an event to celebrate the completion of conservation work on the Signet Library album and to reflect on its history and significance. The album itself was on display as part of a small exhibition from the Signet Library’s historic photographic collection, and guests heard a short talk on the album’s background and creation. The exhibition paid especial attention to the role in the Hill and Adamson partnership of Jessie Mann, now recognised as the world’s first female photographer but whose precise part in the success of the calotypists on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill is only now coming into proper view.
Unlike many of the surviving albums from the Hill and Adamson partnership, the Signet Library album possesses early Victorian provenance, pointing to the possible purchase of the album from David Octavius Hill by the Library in 1849. The Signet Library Librarian of the time, the bibliographer and historian David Laing, had been a sitter for Hill and Adamson, and was engaged in a special purchase of rare and illustrated books at the time that appear also to have included Hill’s youthful essay in lithography Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire. It’s indicative of the status of photography in the 1840s art world that whereas Sketches entered the Signet Library catalogue both under the name of its artist and under “Perthshire”, A Series of Calotype Views of St Andrews was entered under “St. Andrews” alone with no entry for its creators at all. This does however mean that the album stands every chance of being the first photobook acquired by a major library for the sake of its subject matter and not for the novelty of its medium.
The hand-out at the March event included a full analysis of the contents of all surviving copies of the St. Andrews album and an expanded version of this along with a full digital surrogate for the Signet album will be provided on the WS Society website shortly. (Given the album’s scarcity and vulnerability this surrogate will be the principle means of scholarly access going forward). It is also hoped to publish a full paper on the album and its significance in a recognised journal in the near future.
In the meantime enquiries about the album can be addressed to James Hamilton, Research Principal at the WS Society at jhamilton[at]wssociety.co.uk.
The Getty Research Institute (GRI) has acquired a major collection of Indian and South Asian photographs from Ken and Jenny Jacobson. Numbering approximately 4,625 images from the 19th and early-20th centuries, the collection documents the people, social customs, religious practices, architecture, and landscape of the subcontinent during the princely state era under the British Raj, which ended with Indian independence in 1947.
“Created during the European domination of the subcontinent and often through a colonial lens, this remarkable group of photographs contains copious research material that will support the study of South Asian culture and enable critical examination of this complex historical period,” says Mary Miller, director of the GRI. “The Jacobson collection stands as a unique and foremost resource for research and teaching that is further heightened when combined with the Getty Research Institute’s holdings.”
As dealers and knowledgeable collectors, the Jacobsons assembled this unique collection over five decades from 285 sources. It mirrors the history of the medium as practiced on the subcontinent with a full range of processes from daguerreotype to photochrome.
The collection will be cataloged over the course of a number of years and made available to researchers at the GRI.
An article published in the latest issue of 'The PhotoHistorian' (RPS Historical Group journal, no. 195) about 3D coverage of the 1902 Coronation is now available as a free download via https://pressphotoman.com
The 1850s were a transitional decade for photography and a space where wealthy amateurs often shaped and informed its direction. Experimenting within its technical constraints, Frances Edmund Currey, land agent for the 6th Duke of Devonshire’s Irish properties, constructed a multi-layered chronicle of life in and around Lismore Castle.
His work encompasses personal memoir, social history, documentary record and artistic ambition. Focussing on photographic albums held by the Chatsworth Trust, curator Sarah McDonald evaluates Currey’s differing relationships to the medium and his rising significance as one of Ireland’s pioneering photographers.
Francis Currey (1814-1896) was one of the earliest photographers in Ireland and was a member of the Photographic Society of London from 1853 until his death. He was employed as the agent for the Duke of Devonshire at Lismore Castle.
Opening Reception, Saturday 20 May, 3pm
Followed by a walk to see the This Rural at The Mill at 4pm (https://lismorecastlearts.ie/whats-on/this-rural)
Lismore Castle Arts
Lismore
Ireland
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.
Drawing from the author’s personal collection of photo wallets from the 1900s to the 1990s, Annebella Pollen's book charts a century of popular photography in Britain: the birth of a new mass leisure pastime mainly marketed towards women, the growth of camera ownership after the Second World War, and behind it all, the working conditions of the people processing the films. 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
Annebella Pollen
Four Corners Irregulars #10
£12, hardback, 112 pages, 22 × 16 cm
Published: 11 May 2023
ISBN 978-1-909829-22-0
Pre-order: https://www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/books/more-than-a-snapshot
Newcastle’s Side Gallery is to close on 9 April 2023 as a consequence of the loss of it’s Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status last November. This had provided the gallery with £120,000 annually for the previous four years. The gallery received £70,880 in ACE transition funding to help it move from public funding to other sources. The gallery blamed ‘critical funding cuts and the cost of living crisis’ for the closure.
This week the Gallery launched a public crowdfunder with a target of £60,000 to support re-opening in September 2024, although it says ‘our future is uncertain, and we now face the possibility of permanent closure’. It has lost six staff members and curator Kerry Lowes is coming up with a survival plan.
There is a sense of déjà vu with the current situation and loss of NPO status and its associated funding. Back in 2011 Side Gallery also lost its NPO status and a petition was then launched then to save it. An Early Day Motion (EDM) was tabled in Parliament on 11 May of that year calling on the Arts Council to review its decision.
Side Gallery re-opened in 2016 after a two year refurbishment funded with £1.12 million for the National Heritage Memorial Fund and £90,000 from the Arts Council. It re-gained its NPO status in 2018.
The gallery is run by Amber Film & Photography Collective CIC with the significant Amberside collection of photography held Amberside Trust. The Amber film and photography collective, which came together in 1968 to capture working-class life in the North East, opened the gallery in 1977. The Amberside Collection was reported in 2022 to comprise some 20,000 photographs, 10,000 slides and 100 films. These, together with their associated paper files take up 36.19 cubic metres and there are currently approximately 6 TB of digital assets.
Details of the crowdfunder are here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/saveside
By 1000 on Sunday, 9 April the crowdfunder had raised £38,748 of £60,000, by 2132 on Sunday, 9 April is stood at £40,921.
The total required has been increased to £75,000. The call has reached £63,486 at 1334 Sunday, 23 April.
Image: Side Gallery
Hello! I am looking for any information concerning Jacques Galitzenstein, a photographer (possibly Austrian) who was based in Cairo towards the end of the nineteenth century. He also seems to have sometimes operated under the banner of the Anglo-American Photography studio. I am particularly interested in his photographs of travellers in Arab clothing.
Please feel free to contact me either by replying to this blog post or by sending me an email at steph.hornstein[at]gmail.com.
Thank you!
Stéphanie
The latest issue of Scientia Canadensis deals with photography, science, technology and practice with a series of papers covering these themes. Each is available to freely download. The papers comprise:
Photography: Science, Technology and Practice / Joan M. Schwartz
“Coils of Sunshine”: Charles Smeaton’s Magnesium-Wire Photography in the Catacombs of Rome, 1866-1867 / John Osborne
At the Cutting Edge of Halftone Printing: William Augustus Leggo and George Edward Desbarats / Kate Addleman-Frankel
“Perfect Dry Plates for Canada”: Gelatine Dry-Plate Manufacturing in Canada in the Late Nineteenth Century / Shannon Perry
Photography in the Arctic Archipelago during the First International Polar Year, 1882–1883 / Marthe Tolnes Fjellestad
Early Canadian Aerial Photography: The St Croix River and the International Boundary, 1921 / Dirk Werle
Seeing, Saving, and Remembering Barnardo’s Children: Technologies of Access and Preservation in Historical Research / Nina Lager Vestberg
Conceptualizing ‘Science’ in the Photography Collections at the National Science and Media Museum / Geoffrey Belknap
Photography: Science, Technology, and Practice in Nineteenth-Century Canada / Joan M. Schwartz
Scientia Canadensis
Volume 44, numéro 1, 2022 Photography: Science, Technology and Practice
Available via this link: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/scientia/2022-v44-n1-scientia07177/
Photographs and archives are participants in and products of discursive practices: photographs configure the meaning of place, and archives shape the meaning of photographs. How can we use the notion of place better to understand photographic archives as both defined by and empowered by intersecting discursive practices? In this paper, I consider photographs of place, as place, in place, and out of place in archives as a way to investigate photographs as primary sources from a perspective informed by geographical concerns, archival theory, and institutional practice.
Joan Schwartz is Professor Emerita in the History of Photography & Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture at Queen’s University, Ontario and currently Visiting Leverhulme Professor in the Centre for GeoHumanities at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her career has combined the roles of historical geographer, archival theorist, and photographic historian. As co-editor of Picturing Place (with James R. Ryan) and of Archives, Records, and Power (with the late Terry Cook), her work focusses on photography and the geographical imagination and on archives as spaces of power. She is currently completing a four-year project, "Picturing Canada: photographic images and geographical imaginings in British North America, 1839-1889," funded by SSHRC.
Photographs of place, as place, in place, and out of place in archives
Hybrid | Online-via Zoom & IHR Wolfson Room NB01, Basement, IHR, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
2 May 2023, 5:30PM - 7:00PM
Free, book here: https://www.history.ac.uk/events/photographs-place-place-place-and-out-place-archives
Photographer Ans Westra had a long and rich relationship with the Alexander Turnbull Library, depositing her significant collection of documentary photographs over many years. Following her death on 26 February 2023 Turnbull staff members Mark Strange (Senior Conservator Photographs) and Paul Diamond (Curator Māori) reflected on her legacy. You can read their blog on the National Library of New Zealand website and browse Ans' digitised work.
Many other tributes were paid to Ans' by the photographic community and the arts and culture sector, including this blog by Athol McCredie (Curator of Photography at Te Papa Museum of New Zealand). {Suite} Gallery are the agents for Ans' work, and their site includes more biographical information, examples of her extensive photographic legacy and a link to the recording of her funeral.
An exciting role at the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, is available. The Turnbull collection is among the most pre-eminent photographic archives in Aotearoa New Zealand. It contains around 1,600,000 items from the 1840s to the present,
The Curator Photographic Archive manages the Photographic Archive, taking responsibility for developing the photographic collection through donation and purchase, strategically developing and maintaining collection plans, engaging and negotiating with donors, providing research services, undertaking outreach activities, developing proposals for digitisation and exhibition programmes.
For more information about the collections see https://natlib.govt.nz/collections/a-z/photographic-archive
For details of the position see https://fa-eqqg-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateE...
Applications close: 17 April 2023.
This is the reverse of a Kodak factory print from no later than 1889. I am trying to decipher the codes used and would appreciate any suggestions - however determined - as to their possible meaning. This image was produced in the US. They may be annotations familiar to collectors or photo specialists.
A 1927 copy of Photographic Facts and Formulas by EJ Wall, FRPS has yielded an unexpected link to the celebrated photography firm of Ramsey & Muspratt. Signed on the flyleaf 'P.A.L. Brunney,' and once owned by the Department of Geography at Cambridge University
Can you help trace its journey to my local 2nd hand bookshop in Berwick upon Tweed? http://pressphotoman.com
