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The National Archives has updated its Records at Risk Grants programme and information and added details of past recent recipients. The scheme is delivered in collaboration with the British Records Association and the Business Archives Council, to provide support for urgent interventions to save significant physical and digital records facing immediate peril, across the UK. It provides grants of up to £5,000, to protect records of cultural and research value from premature destruction or prolonged neglect. 

A case study of the Highland Archive Service which received a grant of £1100. It enabled HAS to conserve and digitise items identified at risk. The archive items identified as at risk were fifty-one glass plate negatives which were suffering from water damage, including mould and dampness, six hundred negatives (several of which were stuck together) and some tangled film reels including five 9.5 mm Baby Pathe scope reel c1920s. Having been left in a shed for an estimated ten-plus years, the mixed formats had been subject to extreme fluctuations of temperature and humidity and latterly water damage from a flood. The immediate threat was the risk of more deterioration in its current format and condition.

Recent recipients of grants with significant photographic content include: 

• 2023: National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh’s iconic Filmhouse cinema collection; 
• 2024: National Science and Media Museum – Billie Love Historical Picture Library 
• 2025:  BMT Media - to begin to digitise and store 1000s of artworks, photographic negatives, 16mm/8mm film, professional video tapes and amateur photographs in West Yorkshire to build its ‘archive of the ordinary’ – everyday life in Leeds & West Yorkshire. 

See: Details of grants here and details of current and Past Projects here

Image: Highland Archive Service (HAS)
 

The National Stereoscopic Association is pleased to announce its sixth annual "Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography" at the 51st annual 3D-Con held at the Hilton Minneapolis/St. Paul on 7 August, 2025. Presentations are welcome on any art historical, visual studies, humanities or social science scholarship in stereography from its inception to contemporary stereo-media. We project stereoscopically on the 3D-Con's big screen, and our growing community of international scholars represent diverse research from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.

Please fill out the contact information form on the web page below. Then upload on a separate file your abstract of 600 words maximum, followed by a biography of no more than 300 words, and up to five images (optional).

National Stereoscopic Association’s 51st Annual 3D-Con
cfp: Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography VI
Thursday, 7 August 7, 2025
cfpdeadline: 21 May, 2025
https://3d-con.com/history.php (Press the tab for “Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography.”)
Notification of acceptance by 6 June, 2025

Image: John Heywood, 1864

BPH has just learnt of the passing of John Chillingworth yesterday, aged 97 years.  As his website notes: 

As a teenager, he made a traditional entry into Fleet Street at the height of the Second World War. His initial ambition had been to make the tea for the darkroom staff of the country's leading picture magazine, but he rapidly proved his worth and was embraced as one of the close-knit Picture Post 'family'. Returning to the magazine after three years as an army conscript, his natural ability as a photographer was recognised by Tom Hopkinson, the magazine's legendary editor. Influenced by the consummate skills of his mentor, Kurt Hutton, he developed a naturalistic style, which enabled him to work virtually unnoticed on many of his assignments.

During the following six years, working alongside the country's pioneer photographic journalists, Chillingworth gained invaluable experience as a much travelled staff photographer. Later, when a freelance, he was commissioned by newspapers and magazines, as well as serving major international advertising and industrial clients. Then, as the visual communication partner in an advertising consultancy, he added the written word to his bank of creative skills.

Getty Images' Hulton Archive holds four hundred picture essays from his days with Picture Post, which used narrative photography to inform, entertain and influence the conscience of its million-plus readers. The National Media Museum also holds his images in its extensive archive.

John worked for Picture Post from 1949-1956, joining aged 22 years, as one of its youngest photographers. He produced over 400 photo-essays for the magazine. After 1956, John continued to take photographs and to create picture stories on a freelance basis. He ran his own management consultancy from 1970s.  I first met him in the 1990s when he came to Christie's and he used one of the original Leica or Contax cameras being auctioned of the type he'd used in the 1950s to do a new feature. We kept in touch.

He was and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and was described in 1989 as 'one of the maker's of photographic history'. 

As retrospective book was published by Dewi Lewis: 

John Chillingworth. Picture Post Photographer
Introduction by Matthew Butson
Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2013
ISBN 978-1907893438
Book details here

John H Chillingworth, born 18 January 1928; died 6 April 2025, aged 97 years. 

More to follow. 

Last week's presentation of the Bodley Medal to Sir Don McCullin (see below) the first photographer to be honoured provided an opportuntity for the Library to invite guests to meet Lydia Heeley, the Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography who was appointed last October, and hear about some forthcoming exhibitions, and see some recent acquisitions. 

The forthcoming Treasured exhibition in the S T Lee Gallery at the Weston Library will showcase some of the renowned items from Bodleian collection. Photography, of course, will feature. Amongst some of the photography are dog photographs from the collection of John Koh which the Bodleian acquired last year. The exhibition is free and will run from 6 June-26 October 2025.  Koh's collection will also be featured in a pop up exhibition in the main space of the Weston Library and in an exhibition titled Pets and People. The Bodleian is also sharing work from the Paddy Summerfield archive in an exhibition during the Photo Oxford Festival, curated by Alex Schneideman. Photo Oxford runs from 25 October-16 November 2025. 

As the Oxford Student newspaper notes exhibitions are planned and scheduled well in advance and the two main space in the Weston Library are allocated through to 2028. 

More to follow.

Top: Francis Hodgson inspects cased ambrotype and daguerreotype dog images. Left: Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian congratulates Sir Don McCullin on his medal; Right: Lydia Heeley (right) and colleague show off work from Paddy Summerfield. 

All photographs © Michael Pritchard

The National Trust publication Cultural Heritage magazine for spring/summer 2024 carries a conversation between the Trust's National Curator for photography, Anna Sparham and Robin Muir where they discuss the Trust's photography collections. The maagzine is free to download. 

The Trust is shortly to appoint an Assistant National Curator for photography on a one-yeat contract. 

Download here: https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/binaries/content/assets/website/national/pdf/chm-spring-summer-2024.pdf

The latest issue of The Classic is now available to view online or collect from one of the venues stocking the printed magazine. The issue includes interviews with publisher Bruno Tartarin; Claudia Baroncini, director of the Alinari Foundation; and with gallerist Stephen Daiter. Elsewhere Michael Diemar looks at the story behind Charles Jones and his photographs of vegetables, and there is a preview of AIPAD. 

Separately, the publishers have created a boxset, containing the first 12 issues of The Classic, plus a special 48-page supplement, entitled Through a Glass, Darkly. The boxset is limited to 250 numbered copies and unlike the regular issues of The Classic, Through a Glass, Darkly will not be made available as free download, nor will the articles be published anywhere else.

Download The Classic no. 13 here.

Findout more about the box set and special supplement here. 

Silvergrain Classics magazine has reported that the German Photo Council has been actively campaigning to have analogue photography officially recognized by UNESCO as cultural heritage. Analogue photography has been officially registered in the State Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia as the first step in this process.This has made it possible for the state to nominate analogue photography for inclusion at the German Federal level. The next steps are an expert review of the national nomination, and confirmation by the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs and Commissioner for Culture and Media. A decision is expected by spring 2025 at the latest.

UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage as 'the practices, knowledge, and expressions that communities recognize as part of their cultural identity, along with associated objects and spaces. Transmitted through generations, this heritage adapts over time, reinforcing identity and respect for cultural diversity'.

Read the full piece here

Silvergain Classics focuses on film photography and is available on subscription. It is published quarterly.

London's The Photographers' Gallery has a number of courses of interest.  V&A curator Hana Kaluznick is running an online course on Colour Photography: Histories and Techniques from 16 April. Writer and lecturer Stephen Bull is running an online course on Photography & Celebrity from 19 May, and writer and curator is leading a course on photography, truth and identity from 19 May. 

In addition, the Gallery archivist is offering 45-minute sessions on 7 June giving advice (online or in person) to chat through paper-based materials and:

• Preservation of the material (physical and/or digital)
• Making them accessible to a wider audience
• Digitisation
• Cataloguing

Details of the online courses, timings and their costs are here and the archive session here. 
 

I've recently read that although the autochrome was announced in June 1907, due to high demand,plates weren't on sale in Britain until October 1907.  I have two autochromes taken on the 18th of October 1907 in Sefton Park in Liverpool.
Does anyone know of any British autochromes that might be earlier?

That might be earlier?

I'm just curious.

The French Ministry of Culture has issued a call for projects to commemorate the bicentenary of photography in 2026/27 and is issuing an official label for those projects. Photography is almost 200 years old. On this occasion, the Ministry of Culture calls for a great popular and festive celebration of the Bicentenary of Photography, which will honor photography in all its forms and throughout the territory from September 2026 to September 2027. All those involved in photography, arts and culture are invited to take up this celebration and to design events, exhibitions, meetings, participatory projects, conferences, publications and educational workshops to make it a major cultural event.

Nearly two hundred years ago, Nicéphore Niépce managed to obtain, near Chalon-sur-Saône, the first photographic image permanently fixed on a photosensitive surface, thanks to a camera obscura. This event, kept in Austin in the United States, is known today as the Point de vue du Gras. His invention, taken up and always renewed, has revolutionized the representations of our world.

Photography has been writing our common history for two hundred years. The celebration of the Bicentenary of Photography is an opportunity to pay tribute and make all the professions of photography and culture known more widely. Initiatives driven by a spirit of cooperation, pooling and sharing of know-how will be encouraged. A label and a map will give the selected events high visibility, in particular via a dedicated website. The projects will be deployed throughout France and internationally.

Details: Call for projects for the "Bicentenary of Photography" label | Ministry of Culture

The Manifesto in English is Bicentennial-Photography-Manifesto-2024.pdf

Widely regarded as a master of darkroom photography, John Blakemore is celebrated for the richness and textures that he created within his prints. Using a technical harmony of the 5×4 film medium, the Zone System and an incredible mastery of the darkroom printing process, he shaped a signature tonal richness and opulence within his photography worthy of the title.

Using nature as his muse, John captured landscapes inspired by texture and space that can be appreciated by audiences regardless of their knowledge of the skill behind the printing.In 2024, Derby Museums accessioned 12 photographic prints of John’s into the collection of the city he had called home for over 50 years, bringing together prints from a range of projects including his iconic tulips and his Derbyshire and Wales landscapes. This new collection brings together a life’s dedication to technical skill, analogue practice and celebrating the natural world around us.

The evening will feature speeches and recollections from friends, colleagues and students in the world of photography, and the opportunity to view Earthly Delights – the last exhibition agreed by John during his lifetime – which is exhibited on the third floor of the Museum of Making as part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival. A bar will be open throughout the evening, with last orders called at 8.45pm.

Speakers for the evening:

James Hyman is the Founding Director of the Centre for British Photography and, with his wife Claire, owner of the Hyman Collection, which includes an extensive collection and archive of John’s work. In 2023 he curated the exhibition John Blakemore. Seduced by Light and interviewed John for the film of the same name.

Paul Hill was a lecturer with John on the trend-setting Creative Photography diploma course based in Nottingham and Derby in the 1970s. They often exhibited together over the years. He started the first photography workshop in the UK where John was a popular teacher over 20 years.

Daniel Wheeler is a photographer and educator based in the Midlands. He is the founder of the darkroom facility The Photo Parlour, now known as Make It Easy, and ran workshops on darkroom printing and bookmaking with John between 2014 and 2021.

Alina Kisina is a Ukrainian-British artist photographer in search of universal, timeless human qualities that reach beyond location, gender and social background. A friend of John’s for twenty years, she was informally mentored by him.

Jermaine Francis is a lens-based artist, who explores narratives relating to aesthetics, Power, class, race, and the social-political architecture of their manifestations. John taught him on the photographic course at Derby.

John Blakemore: A Celebration
Museum of Making
Derby, 16 April 2025

https://derbymuseums.org/event/the-museum-of-making-at-night-john-blakemore-a-celebration

Image: Paul Hill 

We are looking for an experienced Project Manager to oversee the digitization of an historic photography collection with a dedicated cross-departmental project team. The Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection is the largest and most important collection of photography at the V&A. It contains many items of global significance, including some of the earliest photographs, artworks by well-known photographers, invaluable documents of history and evidence of some 200 years of technical and scientific advances. The collection numbers an estimated 310,000 photographs, negatives, pieces of photographic technology, books, journals and archive items. Some 90% of the collection remains to be digitized. The Project Manager will refine and implement a digitization workflow of cataloguing, conservation and imaging with colleagues to unlock the collections' transformative potential.

The main purpose of the role is to plan, budget, monitor, report on and drive forward the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Digitization Project. The Project Manager sits within the Photography Section of the Art, Architecture, Photography and Design Department (AAPD). The project is an important part of the V&A’s wider cataloguing, digitization and collections care and access programme. The role includes managing a cross-departmental Project Team, consisting of photographs cataloguers and volunteers and liaising with managers in other departments to coordinate the work of a conservator, archives cataloguer and digital imaging assistants.

Project Manager
5 year FTC
Details here: https://vam.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/3792893?cid=3279&rsid=24732&js=0&LinkType=1&FromSearch=False

In this exclusive talk Cally Blackman looks at fashion as it was represented through the autochrome. It is based on her new book The Colour of Clothes: Fashion and Dress in Autochromes 1907-1930 (Thames and Hudson, March, 2025) which celebrates the unique beauty of the autochrome in 370 images that reflect the broad sweep of its usage. Couturiers embraced the way the process showcased their exquisite designs to luminous perfection—among them Fortuny, Poiret, Doucet, Vionnet, Lucile, Chanel, and Lanvin. Beyond the sphere of fashion, there are also examples from the Salon du Goût Français, France’s 'virtual' autochrome exhibition of luxury items, and Albert Kahn’s Archives de la Planète, a bold attempt to record the world’s cultures in autochrome

Cally Blackman studied Fashion Design at Central Saint Martin’s from 1972 to 1975 and returned to teach on BA Fashion History & Theory course in 2001. She is a fashion historian, lecturer, and author. Her research into autochromes is both original and extensive, with a large number of images she has sourced that have either never or very rarely been published since they were first made more than one hundred years ago. She has written several books including 100 Years of Fashion Illustration (2007), 100 Years of Menswear (2009), 100 Years of Fashion (2012) and co-author of A Portrait of Fashion (2015).

Fashion and Dress in Autochromes 
Cally Blackman
1 April 2025 at 1800 (BST)
Free. Register here:  https://tinyurl.com/mvpywvd4 

Image: Robert B Bird, Autochrome, c.1917. RPS, Bristol. 

Tate has announced its 2026 exhibition highlights. Of particular notes is Light and Magic which explores how pictorialism, the first international art photography movement, developed across the world from the 1880s to the 1960s. The exhibition was previously scheduled to open in December 2025.  Bringing together over 50 artists from Seoul to Sydney, New York to Cape Town and Brazil to Singapore, this truly international exhibition takes a fresh and inclusive look at the history of art photography.

Featuring never-before seen works from around the world alongside pieces from Tate’s Collection, Light and Magic highlights the vast and varied artistic possibilities of photography as a medium.

Light and MagicThe Birth of Art Photography
8 October 2026 – 14 February 2027
London, Tate Modern, Bankside
Ticket price to be confirmed
See: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/light-and-magic

The Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities has announced that the 8th Denis Cosgrove Lecture will be given on Monday 12 May at 5:30pm. This year's lecture will be on Camera geologica: photography and the art of resource extraction. It is presented by Dr Siobhan Angus, assistant professor of media studies at  Carleton University, Ottawa.The lecture will take place at Queens Building Lecture Theatre, Royal Holloway, followed by a reception. The lecture will be in person only. Siobhan Angus's book of the same title was amongst the most significant published in 2024.

The lecture focuses on Jonas NT Becker’s 'Better or Equal Use' series, which documents former coal mining sites in Appalachia redeveloped under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA). Becker prints his photographs using coal collected from the sites he documents, forging a connection between the mined material, the history it represents, and the photographs themselves. Becker's labour-intensive prints offer an entry point for exploring the relationship between aesthetics and extraction, with particular attention to the afterlives of mining. Accordingly, I explore the geological history of photography by analyzing the materiality of Becker’s carbon prints, with a focus on coal and gelatin.

Siobhan Angus works at the intersections of art history, media studies, and the environmental humanities. Her current research explores the visual culture of resource extraction with a focus on materiality, labor, and environmental justice. Angus is an assistant professor of media studies at Carleton University. She is the author of Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography (Duke University Press 2024). awarded the 2024 Photography Network Book Prize, and her research has also been published in Environmental Humanities, liquid blackness, and October.

Camera geologica: photography and the art of resource extraction
Siobhan Angus, Carleton University 
12 May 2025
Royal Holloway College, Egham, 
Free. To book click the link here

Image: Carleton Watkins, Malakoff Diggins, Nevada County, California. 1871. Albumen print. The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley

Legendary Scottish photographer and travel writer John Thomson (1837-1921) set off for Asia in 1862 and over the next ten years undertook numerous journeys photographing countries in Asia, including Siam, Cambodia and coastal China. The photographs from these journeys form one of the most extensive records of any region taken in the 19th century. The range, depth and aesthetic quality of John Thomson’s photographic vision mark him out as one of the most important travel photographers.

Thomson captured the individuality and humanity of the diverse people of Asia, whether royalty, monks or an oarsman. This exhibition highlights Thomson’s portraits of King Mongkut Rama IV (1804-1868) who signed the Bowring Treaty in 1855, and his royal entourage. Also featured are Thomson’s stunning landscapes, scenes of the Chao Phraya River, temples, dancers and musicians.

Siam Through the Lens of John Thomson. An exhibition to celebrate 170 years of Thailand-UK diplomatic relations
25 April – 20 May 2025
Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AW
For further information about John Thomson exhibitions - www.JohnThomsonExhibition.org

Geoff Barker has posted a blog on the British Antarctic (Southern Cross) Expedition, 1898-1900. The 1898-1900 British Antarctic Expedition was the first to spend winter on the Antarctic continent and record the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole. They also reached further south than any human had previously. The expedition was led by Carsten Borchgrevink who had become interested in Antarctic exploration while living in Australia. The State Library of New South Wales, Australia, holds a rare album of photographs compiled by one of the expeditions members, William Colbeck, which was used to illustrate this article.

Read the full blog here: https://geoffbarker.wordpress.com/2025/03/23/first-winter-expedition-on-the-antarctic-continent-1898-1900/

Image: Camp Antarctica, British Antarctic (Southern Cross) Expedition, 1899, William Colbeck photographs and clippings, State Library of New South Wales, PXA 2123

In celebration of International Women’s Day, 8 March 2026, and building on the success of our 2025 conference-a-thon, we invite scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts to submit abstracts for participation in a free, online, global, 24-hour symposium dedicated to celebrating the contributions of women to the medium of photography from photography’s announcement in 1839 to now. This unique event aims to highlight the diverse and impactful work of women and female-identifying photographers, and those working with photography, across all cultures and time zones.

We seek 15-minute papers or proposed 30-minute panel discussions (with 3-4 participants listed who consent to participating) that explore a broad range of topics related to women’s contributions to photography. These may include but are not limited to:

• Influential and underappreciated women photographers or historians.
• The role of women in shaping the photographic medium or its exhibition.
• Cross-cultural perspectives on women’s contributions to photography.
• Challenges and achievements of women photographers in various global contexts.

Our goal is to foster a rich, international dialogue that underscores the significant yet often overlooked achievements of women in the field. Presentations will be scheduled to accommodate various time zones, ensuring a truly global exchange of ideas. Presenters of papers should be prepared to make and upload a video of their talks by 22 February 2026, and assistance with the recording process will be provided by the conference organizers.

To participate:

Please submit a 300-word (maximum) abstract outlining your proposed paper or 3-4-person panel proposal HERE https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeybp1Z7Ewb3dk9sTrB... by 1 August 2025. Only abstracts submitted here will be considered for inclusion.

Selected papers will be notified by 1 October 2025, and detailed guidelines for presentations will be provided.

We encourage contributions from diverse perspectives and regions to create a comprehensive and inclusive representation of women in photography.

Join us in celebrating the vibrant and transformative work of women photographers worldwide!

Convenors: Kris Belden-Adams, PhD, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Mississippi and Dr Rose Teanby, Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, UK

 Key dates

Call for papers - closes 1 August 2025
Notification of acceptance - 1 October 2025
Due date for recording of presentation - 22 February 2026
Conference-a-thon - 8 March 2026

Website: www.womenofphoto.com

To see the 2025 Conference-a-Thon: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2025/