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Recent challenges such as the climate crisis have pushed the field to consider how photography shapes and is shaped by the environment. From the mining of natural resources to the effects of mass digital storage, the environmental impact of photography is at the forefront of discussions in photography research, education and practice. For this conference, we would like speakers to reconsider the history of photography using the environment, broadly understood, as a departing point. What kind of histories can be written about photography in its environment? Would it be useful to understand photography as an environment? We look for papers that not only examine photography from the point of view of current environmental concerns, but also, how photographic practices, images and archives have developed in relation to natural, industrial and other environments. By centering the environment as an analytical category, we hope to discuss the ways in which natural, colonial, personal, digital and other types of environments have shaped photography as well as how photographic histories can help to understand environmental histories.

We welcome 15-minutes papers on topics that address themes like (but not limited to):

• How exactly has photography participated in the construction and disruption of environments?
• What has been the environmental impact of the production, consumption, circulation and storage of photography, in the past as well as the present?
• Histories of environmentally friendly photography before the 21st century.
• How have distinct environmental conditions around the globe influenced photographic practices, the development of photographic processes, and the course of the history of photography more specifically?
• What contributions can the field of photographic history make to deepen understanding about the climate crisis?
• How can photographic historians draw on their knowledge and expertise to assist in nurturing care for the environment and its sustainability for future generations?

Please send paper proposals to phrc@dmu.ac.uk by 1 February 2023, embedding in the document your name, contact details, up to 5 keywords and institutional affiliation (when applicable).

Photography in its Environment
Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
12-13 June 2023
Hybrid (in person and online)
Follow on Twitter @PHRC_DeMontfort
Conference hashtag #PHRC23

Image:  Mark Kasumovic, Skipsea #2, inkjet print, 50 x 60 in, 2020

The National Portrait Gallery in London has announced that it will reopen its doors on 22 June 2023, following the most significant redevelopment in its history. Supported by longstanding supporter and Reopening Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills, visitors to the new National Portrait Gallery will experience a complete redisplay of the Collection, a transformational refurbishment of the building, as well as an enhanced welcome and greater access through the new Ross Place entrance. The re-opening exhibitions will include photography. 

The redevelopment project – titled Inspiring People – has included a comprehensive redisplay of the Gallery’s Collection from the Tudors to today, which will be displayed in beautifully refurbished galleries, and the restoration of the Grade I listed building and many historic features. The designs, by Jamie Fobert Architects working in partnership with Purcell, and thanks to the historic gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, will incorporate the Blavatnik Wing, the entire first floor encompassing nine galleries, which will explore society and culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The designs will also see the return of the Gallery’s East Wing to public use as the Weston Wing, restoring original gallery spaces and creating new retail and catering facilities. The Gallery’s Ross Place entrance will create three new doors, converted from large windows, opening up the North Façade of the building in St Martin’s Place. A new Learning Centre will also welcome visitors of all ages with studios, breakout spaces, and high-quality facilities.

See:  www.npg.org.uk

In November 2022 I bought this portrait photo in an East Lothian shop selling second-hand goods and have been trying, without success, to identify (1) the photographer who signed the print and (2) the 'sitter' who is the subject of the photo.

Because I bought the photo in Scotland I have searched the two volumes of SCOTTISH STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHERS TO 1914 (D. Richard Torrance [2011]) using a variety of possible names. However the names do not appear to have ethnically Scottish origins.
The signature is unconventional and therefore not easy to read and my best guess FOSO O, NIASSCHE could well be wrong.  Alternative names might be: TOLO O; M'ASSCHE

Size of print:- 176 x 239 mm

So I'm wondering if there is anyone here at BPH who might recognise the photographer's name or might recognise the sitter.

Can anyone help solve a carte-de-visite 'mystery' involving the celebrated firm of W. & D. Downey? I recently purchased a Downey cdv of St. Nicholas Church, Newcastle (now Newcastle Cathedral) c. mid-1860s.

What is intriguing is that the address cited on the verso - 4 Eldon Square - is not the same as that used on every other Downey card of the period that I've seen - 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

A blogpost I've written ('If photographs could speak' - 7th December 2022) suggesting various explanations has more details - www.pressphotoman.com

It also includes a link to a twitter thread in response to the post.  

Are you an enthusiastic and inspiring leader? Join our team and help deliver our mission, vision, values, and artistic programme. This role is an exciting opportunity to lead Photoworks in our next chapter, playing a key part in delivering the organisation’s ambitious plans for the future.

The Director will lead Photoworks in shaping the overall strategy, planning, policy and development of the organisation. Leading the strategic vision and artistic direction of the organisation including exhibitions, biennial festival, commissions, learning and engagement, publishing and digital content. 

About Photoworks

Photoworks champions photography for everyone. We are an international platform, global in reach, and have provided opportunities for artists and audiences since 1995. We do not have a physical venue, but our online channels are always open. Our programme brings new experiences to audiences and opens up new ways to encounter photography. Photoworks is a registered charity and the only organisation with a national remit for photography in England. Our work is supported by public funding through Arts Council England’s National Portfolio. 

Deadline for applications is 9am Monday, 9 January 2023.

Details: https://photoworks.org.uk/opportunities/were-hiring-director/

If I wanted lessons in colour photography in 1933-1935 and was willing to pay, where would I go? Full disclosure: "I" am László Moholy-Nagy, my ex-wife Lucia Moholy has set up the lessons in the UK for me (probably in London) and I go on to use Dufaycolor, Vivex and the Finlay colour processes among others. Could I have got lessons through the RPS colour group? Who was not just using these processes, but teaching them at the time? Lucia would go on to teach at the London School of Printing and Kindred Trades (later London School of Printing and Graphic Arts) and the Central School of Art and Design, in case either of these are possibilities? All help appreciated and credited!

I recently came across an interesting postcard in the belongings of a deceased 92 year old relative. It is of an array of corpses laid out for a photograph with an inscription in Spanish. It is printed in sepia monochrome.
Wondering if it is Mexican revolution c1910. Anyone any idea how this would be in the possession of a Northern England working class family?

Photography has shaped the ways we imagine the recent past and how we experience life in the present day. The Photographic History MA will provide you with the skills needed to explore photographic materials, practices, processes, and critical field scholarship. Along the way, it will also equip you with real-world professional expertise through remote fieldwork experience at well-known photography organisations.

The internationally renowned teaching staff are based at the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC), bringing with them outstanding links with major photographic collections, archives, galleries, and museums worldwide. Networking through vibrant research seminars, workshops, and conferences, you will gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship between photography, history, and culture, while enhancing your research skills and employability in the field.

Aimed at anyone with deep interest in photographic practice, communication media, visual history, or archival collections, the Photographic History MA will prepare you for further study and careers in the culture sector. We equally welcome per-module applications, an option especially suitable for field professionals and employers looking for Continuing Professional Development—CPD opportunities.

As this course is delivered online by distance learning, you will need access to the internet and a computer with software capable of reading and writing Rich Text Format documents, such as Microsoft Word.

Key features

• Flexible mode of delivery allows you to study around your job, family, and other commitments.
• Full-time, part-time, and per-module study options enable you to develop your studies at your own pace with ongoing support from our expert academic staff.
• Completing an independent project for an external photography organisation equips you with real-world professional skills and expertise.
• Focus on social and cultural photographic practices expands your knowledge of the cultural and social significance of photography throughout its history.
• Consideration of digital and analogue photography provides you with deep understanding about the changing socio-political role of photography and its cultural conception.
• Work alongside a renowned team of expert scholars from the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) and beyond.

Details: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/study/courses/postgraduate-courses/photographic-history-ma-degree/photographic-history-ma-degree.aspx

The recently published proposal for the British Institute of Professional Photography (formed in 1901 as the Professional Photographers' Association) to join the Royal Photographic Society (formed in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London) has the potential to fully bring both the amateur and professional sides of photography together.

Although the RPS has always had a professional membership, despite occasional abortive attempts to restrict it to amateurs, its membership remained mainly amateur. The PPA deliberately restricted its membership to working photographers. 

The attached chart (PhotoSocs%201840-2023.pdf) for download provides some historical context, showing principal British photography organisations from 1840-2023. 

Details of the proposal are here: https://rps.org/BIPP

The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford has secured £100,000 for its forthcoming Sound & Vision galleries. The award has come from the DCMS/Wolfson fund which aims to help museums and galleries make their collections as accessible to the public as possible, whether that be through building accessible ramps and facilities, improving collection storage to protect them for the future or getting more of their collections out on display.

Renée Mussai writes to let BPH know that after more than two rewarding decades at Autograph, she is resigning as the organisation’s Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial & Collection. 

Rather than simply moving on, she intends to be moving with … and will continue to support Autograph’s mission as a critical friend and associate, staying involved with select projects such as editing the forthcoming ‘Black Chronicles’ book (release date tbc). 

She says..."As one chapter ends, another begins … I will step down as Senior Curator here at Autograph in December, and in early 2023 begin my new role as Artistic Director and Chief Curator at The Walther Collection, a charitable arts foundation based in New York, USA and Neu-Ulm, Germany, with a renowned international exhibition and publishing programme. 

Image: Renée Mussai, London, 2020 © Maliq Mitchell 2020.

This collaborative practice-based project between the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries and the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens will use the Museum’s rich collections of industrial photographs and related material in local/regional/national collections to map, reframe, and create innovative visual interpretations that capture the changing socio-economic characteristics and conditions of women’s work in Sunderland. In doing so, it seeks to produce novel inclusive narratives for the Museum by juxtaposing historical and new photographic imagery depicting women’s work and enhance public engagement by empowering local women, those identifying as women and non-binary to share their stories and photographs.

Research questions

How can historical photographs and narratives of Sunderland’s industry illuminate the changing meaning and nature of women’s work?

What roles can lens-based media play in representing women at work and their labour beyond established documentary practices and against a changing landscape of work in the regional industries?

How can different types of photographic imagery depicting women’s work and oral histories be synthesised and preserved in inclusive museum narratives?

Expressions of interest are invited for a practice-based PhD offered by University of Sunderland in partnership with Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens through the Northern Bridge Consortium: Collaborative Doctoral Awards Competition.
Deadline for EOI: 28 January 2023
Towards an Inclusive Re/visualisation of Women’s Work‌
More information: http://www.northernbridge.ac.uk/media/sites/teaching/northernbridge/MoschoviAlexandra_Sunderland_WinterGardens.pdf

I am currently working on a major research project concerning Modfot and am looking to make contact with these photographers if possible. If anyone has any contacts please pass them on or let the person know that I am looking to make contact. I am aware that some may longer be with us.

These are the photographers I would like to speak with:

Malcolm Aird, Fill Bullock, George Bunzl, Geoffrey Franglen, H S Fry, Peter Keverne, Tony MOrris, Dunstan Pereira, Doreen Pollock, Alan Richards, John Stonex, Michael Taylor, Peter Wilkinson, D Baxter, Edward Pritchard, Ron Chapman

Big thanks

Grant

I have around 100 large format colour black and white negatives circa late 1950s. I couldn't tell, but they looked like they were in some plastic sleeves that had deteriorated or some plastic coating (that seemed to have a blue tint). The chemicals in the film or the coating could have reacted with each other. Has anyone come across this before? Is there some way the negatives can be salvaged? Some solution or something to remove the outer plastic?

I've attached some photos. Any suggestions?

Grant Scott has put out a call for information on the 1967 exhibition Modfot One and the promotion of contemporary photography in the UK in the 1960s. Please get in touch if you think you have anything to contribute in the way of memories, facts and stuff. 

Contact: Dr Grant Scott e: gscott@brookes.ac.uk

For information on Modfot see: https://the-golden-fleece.co.uk/wp/modfot-one/

The Burlington Magazine is seeking submissions of articles for a special issue devoted to photography scheduled for 2023. The Burlington Magazine is the world's leading art periodical and seeks to publish articles on original research, new works and discoveries.

Details on submissions: https://www.burlington.org.uk/about-us/about-the-magazine/submit-an-article

What are photographs ‘doing’ in museums? Why are some photographs valued and others not? Why are some photographic practices visible and not others? What value systems and hierarchies do they reflect?

What Photographs Do explores how museums are defined through their photographic practices. It focuses not on formal collections of photographs as accessioned objects, be they ‘fine art’ or ‘archival’, but on what might be termed ‘non-collections’: the huge number of photographs that are integral to the workings of museums yet ‘invisible’, existing outside the structures of ‘the collection’. These photographs, however, raise complex and ambiguous questions about the ways in which such accumulations of photographs create the values, hierarchies, histories and knowledge-systems, through multiple, folded and overlapping layers that might be described as the museum’s ecosystem.

These photographic dynamics are studied through the prism of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, an institution with over 150 years' engagement with photography’s multifaceted uses and existences in the museum. The book differs from more usual approaches to museum studies in that it presents not only formal essays but short ‘auto-ethnographic’ interventions from museum practitioners, from studio photographers and image managers to conservators and non-photographic curators, who address the significance of both historical and contemporary practices of photography in their work. As such this book offers an extensive and unique range of accounts of what photographs ‘do’ in museums, expanding the critical discourse of both photography and museums.

What Photographs Do
Elizabeth Edward and Ella Ravilious
UCL Press, 2022
ISBN: 9781800082984
Free download: https://bit.ly/3OntzJw

Or buy in softcovers (£30) or hardback (£50) at  https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/192312

The book is a developed history of the radiological sciences – covering the back-story to Röntgen’s discovery, the discovery itself and immediate reception the early days of radiology leading to classical radiology (the pre-digital world). The 1970s as the ‘golden decade’ of radiology will be covered in detail, with the development of CT, MRI and modern interventional radiology. It will appeal to interested members of the public, to those working in the field, and to historians of medicine and science. 

Invisible Light. The Remarkable Story of Radiology
Adrian Thomas
Routledge, 2022
Hb: 978-0-367-34426-9 | £31.19
20% Discount Available - enter the code FLE22 at checkout
Details: http://www.routledge.com/9780367344269

This is one of nine Assistant Curator posts that sit in the Art, Architecture, Photography and Design Department. As such, the main purpose of the job is to provide curatorial support in the development, care of, documentation and research, presentation and interpretation of a part of V&A’s Collection, in this case the Photography Section. Assistant Curators spend a significant portion of their time working on object-related activity that pertains to the care and display of collections, maintaining documentation and developing interpretation to allow for their presentation to wide audiences.

As a member of the Department, the postholder will also play a role in the wider work of the V&A, contributing to policy, projects and public programmes and supporting fundraising and income generation. Assistant Curators also play a role in their relevant department and will be part of the community supporting the museum’s scholarship in the Photography Section. In short, this is a wide-ranging role in which the postholder will be able to develop their skills in all aspects of museum curation.

Open to internal applicants only. 

Details here