Blogs

University College Cork wishes to appoint an experienced Photographic Collections Curator. The Photographic Collections Curator  is vital to the achievement of the library’s strategic objectives, and plays a significant part in setting scholarly and professional standards of work for Photographic Collections and Collections team, and the development of photographic collections in support of research, learning and teaching.

UCC Library, uniquely amongst University libraries in Ireland, has been developing collections and an expertise in Irish photography.  The University has made three very significant international acquisitions in this area in recent years: the John Minihan Collection, the Alen MacWeeney Collection, and the Irish Press Archive.

This role will work across all sections of Collections which are involved in collection development and interpretation. The Photographic Curator will bring together information on the photographic collections and advise on their description, storage, digitisation and access.  They will lead and take responsibility for the development, curation and promotion of photographic collections.

For further details please access information via UCC Vacancies https://www.ucc.ie/en/hr/vacancies/ under Administrative/Technical. 

Applications must be submitted online via the University College Cork vacancy portal (https://ore.ucc.ie/ ).  Queries relating to the online application process should be referred to recruitment@ucc.ie, quoting the job-title.

Informal enquiries can be made in confidence to Crónán O'Doibhlin, Head of Research Collections email: c.odoibhlin@ucc.ie

The Prints & Photographs Division's National Stereoscopic Photography Research Fellowship is made possible by a gift from the National Stereoscopic Association (NSA) for fellowship and lecture funding. The purpose of the award is to support research within the Prints & Photographs holdings of stereoscopic photography and the unparalleled photographic history collections at the Library of Congress--including over 15 million photographs, rare publications, manuscript materials, historic newspapers, and extensive subscription database access.

The Fellowship committee will award up to two Fellowships annually (with award amounts from $3000 to $6000) to be used to cover travel to and from Washington, D.C., accommodations, and other research expenses to assist fellows in their ongoing scholarly research and writing projects on stereoscopic photography, or more broadly within the field of photographic history to the extent that research is connected in some manner to the Library's holdings on the format.

Eligibility and Guidelines

Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, independent scholars, creators, and other researchers with a need for Fellowship support are encouraged to apply. Individuals who are not U.S. residents but who otherwise meet the above qualifications may apply and be considered for a Fellowship, contingent upon visa eligibility. The Library of Congress is not able to assist with granting a visa.

In the interest of increasing awareness and extending documentation of Library of Congress collections, Fellows are required to make use of the Library's collections, be in residence for a minimum of two weeks during the award period, and share information derived from their research at the Library through publication in Stereo World or on the Library's Picture This blog, a public lecture, presentation at the following National Stereoscopic Association Convention, or other event, either during their residency or within six months of completing their research at the Library. Each Fellow must also notify the selection committee if their work results in formal publication and provide a hard-copy or online access to the work.

To Apply

Completed applications are due April 15, 2022, and notification will occur in August 2022. The Fellowship must be completed between January 1st and December 31st, 2023.

Information about applying for the fellowship is available at this link: https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/national_stereoscopic.html

Questions should be addressed to:
Micah Messenheimer
Phone: (202) 707-0591
Email: stereofellow@loc.gov

***

The Library of Congress is the world's largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States - and extensive materials from around the world - both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

BPH has learnt that Dr John Lambert Wilson who was active in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s for his researches on the photographically illustrated book died on 1 March 2022, aged 79 years. John, who was then based in Oxford, built up a formidable collection of books on early photography and those illustrated with photographs.

His PhD was titled Publishers and Purchasers of the Photographically-Illustrated Book in the Nineteenth Century, (University of Reading, 1995). John also compiled in 1992 Catalogue of a collection relating to the literature of photography, 1639-1905 which is unpublished in two volumes.

John also helped arrange an exhibition of photographic books and associated conference in Oxford and supported the British Library's mid-1990s project to catalogue its photographically-illustrated books where it acknowledged 'the use of his two catalogues of The Literature of the History of Photography'. He was an independent scholar and he was also a volunteer assisting with cataloguing the RPS Collection, then in South Audley Street, London.

John's interests shifted to early agrarian history, particularly the history of sheep breeding.  He is described by one friend as "a fine bibliophile and sterling English eccentric". 

Details are of his funeral are not yet available. 

The Royal Photographic Society’s Historical Group was formed on 22 March 1972 at a time when photography in Britain was undergoing a significant transition. The RPS, itself, was in a process of modernisation as it sought to remain relevant to British photography. The way photography was taught in higher education reflected a move away from the technical to a focus on approach and the content of the picture. New galleries showing photography were established, national museums and galleries began to take photography seriously and the Arts Council appointed its first photography officer. The period also saw major upheavals for the industry and the profession with recessions, a move to digital, and new ways for commissioners to source content. The way photography was experienced, shared and disseminated changed dramatically later in the period with the advent of new digital technologies.

The conference will examine how these changes have impacted British photography and photographers over the fifty years from 1972-2022. Papers may also look at how particular photographers’ work has evolved over the period. Some of the possible themes include, but are not limited to:

• Museums, galleries and collections: broadly and within specific institutions; the independent gallery scene; how the art world embraced photography; curatorial practice and presentation; the RPS Collection
• Education: how photographic higher education has changed; how photographic history has been used across disciplines and taught; the independent photography sector; photography in schools
• The market for photography: auctions, commercial galleries, dealers, collecting by individuals; the loss of photographic heritage; fine art photography
• The law: Intellectual property: photographers’ rights; privacy and surveillance
• Community groups: collectives; camera clubs
• Geographical perspectives: specific changes in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England; Britain’s position in international photography
• The public and photography: the popularisation of photographic history on television, genealogy, and local history; experience through newspapers, publications, and online
• Photography as a profession and industry: the markets and changes to industrial, commercial and social photography; photojournalism and advertising and editorial; manufacturing and retailing; the photographic periodical press; publishing and the photobook
• Photographers and Photography: changes to individual practice; new approaches to genres of photography e.g. documentary, landscape, etc
• Digital: its impact; new ways of sharing and engaging with photography

Proposals should be focused on the period from 1972 to the present and the British experience.

Submission

The conference welcomes proposals from academics, early career researchers, postgraduate students;  those working within photography, education and heritage, and photographers.

Proposals of up to 300 words with a short biography should be sent to photohistorian@rps.org has been extended to 28 March 2022.Papers should be 25 minutes in length. Papers will be grouped by theme at the conference.

The conference will open for registrations on 14 April 2022. It takes place at RPS House, Bristol, on 1 and 2 July 2022. 

British Photography since 1972: Commemorating fifty years of the RPS Historical Group
Conference: 1-2 July 2022, Bristol, UK

See: https://rps.org/1972

#Britishphoto1972

Image: a cover of The Photographic Journal from 1972. 

In 1888 in Leeds, Louis Le Prince shot what many now consider to be the world’s first films. Film-maker and researcher Irfan Shah will be talking to writer Paul Fischer about his ground-breaking new biography of Le Prince and trying to discover the truth about the many myths surrounding the man behind the camera.

Complimentary drink on arrival

The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures
Paul Fischer
Thursday, 28 April 2022 at 1900
Leeds Central Library, Local and Family History, Second Floor, Leeds, LS1 3AB
Book here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/leedslibraryevents/the-man-who-invented-motion-pictures/e-yvbvmq

Details of Paul Fischer's book are here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571348640-the-man-who-invented-motion-pictures/

The Muslim woman has been a consistent subject of representation across regimes of historical colonialism and Orientalism, in events such as the Arab Spring and post-9/11, and mediated widely via news and social media. These have included variegated representations from the odalisque to the ‘oppressed’ which have converged the identity of the Muslim woman to the single image and symbol of the hijab (veil).

Spanning across different bodies of work, this lecture will introduce and plot Nurul’s photographic, annotative, and participatory research that have engaged with representations of Muslim women from the daguerreotype to data. These projects will be discussed alongside the medium of photography and the data shift, which transforms the self into data, rendering those in the margins as ‘absent data’. Through self-reflexive means and methods, the context of ‘absent data’ will become site for artistic explorations and aspire towards a recalibration of Muslim women identifies via the role of the Muslim woman as ‘actor’ in rethinking processes of image-making.

Nurul Huda Rashid (she/her) is a researcher-writer currently pursuing her PhD in Cultural Studies. Her research focuses on images and narratives, visual and sentient bodies, feminisms, and the intersections between them. These have been articulated through projects such as Women in War (2016-ongoing), unknown woman/wanita kami (2021), Hijab/Her (2012-2014), and through collaborations such as Pulau Something (2021) and New Curriculum for Old Questions (2019). Nurul loves smelling old books, looking after plant babies, and hopes to adopt a cat someday.

Image, Data, Actor: Unpacking Images of Muslim Women 
moderated by T:>Works’ Artistic Director Dr. Ong Keng Sen
T:>Works, free with registration
Thursday, 31 March 2022, 200 (SGT) | 1300 (BST) | 1400 (CET) | 0800 (EST)
Online: register here: https://tworkssg.wordpress.com/digital-lecture-image-data-actor-unpacking-images-of-muslim-women-by-nurul-huda-rashid/

This looks like an interesting exhibition. To mark the centenary of Ernest Shackleton’s death, a new exhibition, Shackleton’s legacy and the power of early Antarctic photography, will be on display in the Royal Geographical Society’s Pavilion from 7 February.

Documenting the role of photography and literature throughout Shackleton’s career, the exhibition presents the influences and motivation which led him to a lifetime commitment to the polar region and building public awareness and understanding of the continent. At its heart lies the exceptional story of the Endurance expedition – a pivotal moment in Shackleton’s polar career, turning disaster to triumph, and where his focus on the power of photography to document the experience was paramount.

Drawing on original documents and photography – some previously unseen and newly digitised – guest curator Dr Jan Piggott, former Keeper of Archives and Rare Books at Dulwich College, has chronicled Shackleton’s early life, schooldays, career, his own writing and love of poetry, and achievements before and after the world famous Endurance expedition, complementing the Society’s 2015 Enduring eye exhibition curated by polar historian and writer Meredith Hooper.

The exhibition also includes images by contemporary photographer Enzo Barracco, whose Noise of the Ice project in Antarctica was inspired by Shackleton.

Shackleton’s legacy and the power of early Antarctic photography
Until 4 May 2022
Open Monday to Friday from 10.00am-5.00pm and on Saturdays from 10.00am-4.00pm
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR
Free Booking not required. The exhibition will be closed on bank holidays

https://www.rgs.org/events/spring-2022/shackletons-legacy-exhibition/

Dr Mirjam Brusius, best known to BPH readers, as a scholar with a focus on W H F Talbot and his work, has won the David Dan Prize for history, alongside eight other outstanding early- and mid-career scholars of history.  A selection committee of eminent scholars assessed hundreds of nominations from around the world as part of a rigorous process to select the winners, who will each receive $300,000 to recognize their achievements to date and support their future work.

Mirjam is a cultural historian with an interest in the circulation of objects and images in and between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. She specializes in the history of photography, museums, collecting and race in colonial contexts. Her most recent book on the inventor of photography, W.H.F. Talbot, Science, and Empire, will be published with The University of Chicago Press. This is an expanded version of her monograph Photography and Museological Knowledge: William Henry Fox Talbot, Antiquity, and the Absence of Photography (De Gruyter, 2015). She is also the co-author of William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography (Yale University Press, 2013, with Katrina Dean and Chitra Ramalingam).

She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, and is a regular media contributor on issues related to memory culture in Britain and Germany.

She is particularly interested in where museum objects come from and where they go, why some objects are displayed while others remain in storage, and what happens to repatriated objects. She also explores the scientific misuse of antiquities and the afterlife of objects beyond museums. 

Brusius started writing about the ‘journey’ of museum objects more than a decade ago, before the topic was at the heart of public debate. Today, the public increasingly questions where objects that adorn European museums really come from, but Brusius tries to focus on the less obvious answers, exploring the “in-between” spaces – what happens between archaeological excavation and the museum display, for example. 

As co-founder of the “100 Histories of 100 Worlds in 1 Object” grassroots project, Brusius combines historical research with curatorial practice to facilitate a more egalitarian dialogue between Western museums and communities of origin. The project began as an alternative history to the British Museum’s collection, but thanks to collaborators in and from the Global South, the project has become more: it is now a global network that aims to enrich current debates on repatriation and decolonization by foregrounding voices that were formerly underrepresented.

After completing a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, Brusius held postdoctoral fellowship positions at the Max Planck Society, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford. She is currently a Research Fellow in Colonial and Global History at GHI London. She is also a member of the Global Young Academy. She is in the process of completing a book on the movement of ancient artefacts from the Middle East to Western museums (Oxford University Press) and a short monograph on the politics of museum storage.

See: https://dandavidprize.org/laureates/mirjam-brusius/

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirjam_Brusius

The Bodleian Libraries have announced the appointment of Phillip Roberts as the Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography. Phillip joins the Libraries from 7 March. He had been Associate Curator of Photography and Photographic Technology at the National Science and Media Museum (NSMM) since 2019. 

Phillip holds PhDs from Cardiff University and the University of York. Before joining the NSMM he was Research Assistant (Science and Industry) at Birmingham Museums Trust. He sits on the board of directors for the Amber Collective and has published widely on the histories and cultures of photographic media. His PhD from the University of York (2018) was titled The Emergence of the Magic Lantern Trade in Nineteenth-Century England and that from Cardiff (2013) Cinema and control.

As part of the Bodleian Libraries Special Collections team, he will develop the Bodleian’s growing photography collection through strategic acquisitions, collaborate with specialist conservation staff and work with scholars in the University to help to make the collection accessible to students and researchers. The role also includes a major commitment to sharing our holdings with the public through exhibitions, public programmes and digitisation. The curatorship was made possible by a transformational gift from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation.

On his appointment, Phillip Roberts, said: "I could not be more proud to be the Bodleian's Curator of Photography. Over the last few years, the Bodleian has cemented itself as one of the key guardians of our photographic heritage. We have recently acquired vast new archives of work by WHF Talbot, Helen Muspratt and Daniel Meadows. The Hyman collection offers a wonderful history of 20th century British photography, and the Chadwyck-Healey collection is the world's greatest collection of photobooks. Securing such riches in a short amount of time is remarkable, and speaks to the Bodleian’s commitment to preserving our photographic history.  I look forward to building on this work, and making the Bodleian home to one of the world's great collections of photography."

Susan Thomas, Head of Archives and Modern Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries, said: "Photography exists in the Bodleian's collections in many different ways. These materials – both astounding and everyday – have been an important part of the Bodleian's holdings for years, and it is exciting to now be in a position to share them more widely with the world. Phillip comes to us at a time when we are actively developing our photography collections for the future, and we are thrilled to welcome him to Oxford."

Separately, the NSMM Head Curator, Geoff Belknap, is leaving to join National Museums Scotland. 

Dick Weindling has written an online article titled 'We Photographed Magicians, Music Hall Performers and Royalty' which discusses the London photographic studio of Campbell Gray Ltd. The firm photographed Harry Houdini, David Devant amongst many others. Dick is still looking for additional information on the firm, and its proprietors Messrs Gray and Campbell. 

The article can be read here: http://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2022/03/we-photographed-magicians-music-hall.html

A short film is to be released to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Percy Richard Salmon (1872-1959). For a period from the 1890s until his death he was active as a amateur photographer, journalist for the photographic periodical press, freelance writer and as a photographer recording his village of Melbourn, Cambridgeshire. He was sub-editor on the British Journal of Photography and editor of Photographic News (which merged with Amateur Photographer) and contributed to the Cambridge Independent Press and Chronicle. The film has been researched and is presented by Dr David Barber. 

See more here: https://rps.org/Salmon

Photographing Protest: resistance through a feminist lens is a new exhibition opening at Four Corners, London, from 18 March, which showcases striking images by photographers from across generations, who have used their cameras to support political struggle and social change in Britain from 1968 to today.

The exhibition centres the voices and perspectives of women and nonbinary photographers, and those who have been making work within a feminist framework, challenging the male-dominated history of protest reportage.

Photographing Protest reveals how images of resistance resonate across generations. The exhibition opens with rarely seen images by activist photographer Sally Fraser, who captured defining social movements of the 1968 era, from the Hornsey Art College student sit-ins to the fiery beginnings of the Women’s Liberation movement. Social protests of the 1980s and 90s are shown through the prolific work of Format, the all-women photo agency: at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp, on the Miner’s strike frontline, at Reclaim the Night marches and more.  Alongside, the exhibition explores  a new generation of photographers engaging with contemporary struggles: anti-racism, LGBTQI+ community rights and climate justice among others, to ask how feminist protest photography can be an agent for today’s political change.

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of online talks, FEMINISM, PHOTOGRAPHY AND RESISTANCE, produced in collaboration with Kylie Thomas, researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD) in Amsterdam, and the editor of a special issue of MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture journal on photography and resistance (forthcoming). You can read about the full programme by clicking on the link below. 

Photographing Protest: Resistance Through a Feminist Lens
18 March 2022 – 30 April 2022
Four Corners, London
See: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/photographing-protest-resistance-through-a-feminist-lens

Thomas Annan of Glasgow. Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph is an open access book by Lionel Gossman and published by by Open Book Publishers in 2015.

It is available for free download here as a PDF .

Bringing together insights from environmental history and photographic history, this lecture will focus on climate and weather as subjects understood in and through photographic images, and the ways in which weather and climate shape the very possibility of photography in the first place. Focussing on specific historical examples, we will explore how weather changes are seen, felt and experienced by people, in relation to the ways in which photography “senses” changes in the atmosphere around it, and also with respect to the emotional atmosphere or collective mood captured by photographs of extreme and unusual weather.

Join Professor Georgina Endfield, Professor of Environmental History, and Professor Michelle Henning, Chair in Photography and Media, for a fascinating illustrated lecture.

Public Lecture Series 2022: Arts, Sustainability and the Climate Crisis
School of the Arts - University of Liverpool
A lens on the weather: historical perspectives on photography and climate
Wednesday 25 May @ 1730-2000 (BST)
Free, book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-lecture-a-lens-on-the-weather-tickets-251299733267

For decades, renowned author and photo critic Vince Aletti has accumulated one of the largest private collections of fashion magazines in North America. Join Ryerson Imaging Centre Director Paul Roth and Aletti in conversation as they discuss his most recent publication, Issues (Phaidon, 2019), which features select seminal issues from his archive. He will speak about the history of photography within this medium, explore the intersection of art and commerce, and describe how photographers from outside of the fashion world influenced the magazines they appeared in.

Vince Aletti is a writer, curator, collector and critic whose work can be found in Aperture, Art + Auction, Photograph, Artforum and Vogue Italia. Formerly a music critic for Rolling Stone, Aletti went on to be the art editor of the Village Voice from 1994–2005 and the paper’s photo critic for twenty years, after which reviewed photography exhibitions for The New Yorker. He has published extensively on the impact of fashion magazines on the history of photography, and won the International Center of Photography’s prestigious Infinity Award for writing in 2005. His most recent book is Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines (Phaidon, 2019).

Webinar
2 March 2022
1900 (EST) | 0000 (GMT)
Book here:  https://ryerson.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BtRaXaS9RiKiMH7t8jUrYQ

See details of the book here: https://www.phaidon.com/store/fashion-culture/issues-9780714876788/

Since the screening of Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay www.donotbendfilm.com I have continued to research the life of Bill Jay and the impact that he had on those around him. Subsequent research has unearthed further lost artefacts and stories that make connections between photographers and bring insight into how inter-connected the photographic community was in the 1960s and 70s between the UK and US.

In Search of Bill Jay will take the listener on a journey as I describe the process of researching Jay, making the film and subsequent events since its first screening at the Martin Parr Foundation in 2018. It will feature voices not heard in the film and stories not told, it will bring clarity to myths and suggest further areas for research. Just like the film it will be a fast paced rollercoaster ride!

All episodes will be posted at www.unitednationsofphotography.com and wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, and iTunes on the A Photographic Life podcast channel.

The V&A Museum has appointed Fiona Rogers as the inaugural Parasol Women in Photography curator. Rogers was at  Magnum from 2005 to 2020, ending up as Chief Operating Officer, and most recently she was Director of Photography and Operations for Webber Represents. She will start at the V&A on 7 March 2022. 

She is the founder of Firecracker which was set up in 2011 to promote women, those identifying as women and non-binary working in photography and has been a powerful voice in bringing women in photography to the fore. She also  acts as a trustee of the Martin Parr Foundation and The Peter Marlow Foundation, and advises the Royal Photographic Society. She has authored (with Max Houghton) Firecrackers: Female Photographers (Thames & Hudson, 2017) celebrating contemporary women practitioners.

The Parasol Women in Photography curator was advertised last autumn (see: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/job-and-news-v-a-announces-the-parasol-foundation-women-in-photog) 

Details of Firecracker can be found here: https://fire-cracker.org/

I'd be interested in any information members can give me with respect to an album of fairly small images that I think were taken in or around Bethesda, a slate mining town in Wales. Some of the images show work at the slate mines and these images often have numbers and notes to the back. Other images show life in the town or the countryside around it. Many of the images are so good that I cannot help feeling there was some kind of commerical operation/motivation behind the production of the album but maybe it was produced by a talented amateur looking to record the places and activities around him or her. I attach a few images.

The Royal Horticultural Lindley Library is seeking an experienced cataloguer to catalogue its extensive collection of analogue photography relating to the history and practice of horticulture, as part of Heritage Lottery funded digitisation project to increase access to its heritage collections. This is a two year, part-time post working 21 hours a week. The photography collection sits within the RHS Heritage Collections and comprises of prints, transparencies, glass negatives and lantern slides, covering horticultural practise and personalities, plant portraits, gardens and gardening. 

Key accountabilities include: cataloguing designated collections to agreed standards using the Library collection management system (currently Axiell CALM); enhancing related documentation, such as accessions and donor records and creating relevant authority files; maintaining good location control; improving housing and storage of collections to conservation standards. 

Salary is £16,000 (£26,600 fte). For a full job description and person specification, please visit https://www.rhs.org.uk/about-the-rhs/opportunities. To apply please complete and return the short online application form to: recruitment@rhs.org.uk.