Blogs

We formed Document Scotland back in 2012. Since then, we have worked on photography projects which have been exhibited, published, broadcast and shared with friends and audiences both at home and abroad. Highlights over these years include shows at venues such as the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and the many events we have staged across Scotland showcasing our own and other photographers' work about our nation.

Although we have received support down the years from organisations such as Creative Scotland and the University of St. Andrews, we now realise that in order to continue making and sharing our photography, and to be able to devote the time and energies these passions take, we need to find new ways of funding our work.

It is with this in mind that we are inviting you to become a patron of Document Scotland. From as little as £1 per month, you can get an exclusive opportunity to look behind-the-scenes at how we work and the photography we produce. Our patrons, across all tiers of support, will have access to content additional to the photography that we post on our Document Scotland website, which will remain accessible and free-to-view. 

Finally, our patrons will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are supporting documentary photography at a vital time in Scotland’s history. Your generous support will allow us to tell stories, to stage shows and to share exceptional photography being produced in Scotland. If there is anyone you feel might be interested in becoming a patron, please do not hesitate in passing this email on, or letting us know. 

We realise these are difficult times for so many people in society and as creatives we are only too acutely aware that resources are scarce. We hope you can find a way - however small - to help us continue our work. All tiers of support, will have access to the same work, and by supporting, via which ever pledge you are comfortable with, you become an active participant in our creative process. You don’t just support Document Scotland, you join us.  

Please visit our new site, where we explain more of the journey we’re on and why we ask for your support: https://www.patreon.com/DocumentScotland

If you wish more information, I’d be only too happy to chat with you. 

Sophie (and Jeremy & Colin)

Oxford University Press has just published a four-volume set The Collected Letters of Humphry Davy. Davy is a significant figure in both the history of science and literary history. One of the foremost chemists of the early nineteenth century, he was the first person to inhale nitrous oxide. He pioneered electrochemistry, using the Voltaic pile to isolate more chemical elements than any other scientist; and he invented the miners' safety lamp that came to be known as the 'Davy lamp'. His lectures and papers played a key part in the professionalisation of science, in the growth of scientific institutions, and in the emergence of scientific disciplines. He was the protege of Thomas Beddoes and Joseph Banks, and the mentor of Michael Faraday. He was also a poet, and a friend of poets, including Wordsworth, Southey, Scott, and Byron.

Davy has important connections with many of the people that sit on the edge of the pre-history of photography. Of these Thomas Wedgwood is perhaps the most important with his 1802 paper being written up by Davy for publication by the Royal Institution. Other names such as Banks, Faraday, the Herschels, Home and Wollaston were all part of the network of scientists, experimenters and the learned societies of the day that, indirectly or directly, were connected to photography. 

At £425 the set will be beyond the reach of individuals but it will be worth seeking out in libraries to understand the individual and institutional networks that Davy was a part of. 

See more here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-collected-letters-of-humphry-davy-9780198705864?cc=us&lang=en&  

With thanks to Tim Fulford. 

Following on from the pictures of  Staffordshire Photo Club here are a couple of images of Bolton Camera Club which are of a similar age. The Bolton Camera club started in 1884 and continues till this day. 

I am not associated with the club these pictures come from my collection of photographers using cameras.

Julia Margaret Cameron: Close Up is a new exhibition at Dimbola Museum and Galleries focusing on Cameron's astonishing close up portraits of great men. The selection was chosen by her son Henry for a volume of work he was compiling called Tennyson and his friends. Printed in large format, these images demonstrate Julia’s genius for photographing genius.

The exhibition will be shown alongside the rare volume of Tennyson and his Friends 1893 when Dimbola Museum and Galleries re-open.

As Dimbola is currently closed due to the Covid19 Pandemic it commissioned photographer Julian Winslow to produce a short film about the exhibition Narrated by Gail Middleton, it illustrates Julia’s remarkable legacy and her role as the pioneer of the close up.

Read more about the exhibition and its content here: http://www.dimbola.co.uk/julia-margaret-cameron-close-up/

To view this film click here. 

Photo London has released its recording of a panel discussion about Roger Fenton which was held in conjunction with the 2019 exhibition ‘The Essential Fenton’, curated by Bob Hershkowitz and shown at Photo London that year.

This discussion brought together experts on the pioneering photographer Roger Fenton. Dr Sophie Gordon, Head of Photographs at the Royal Collection Trust, Dr Hope Kingsley, curator for education and collections at Wilson Centre for Photography, and Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who all discuss Fenton’s extraordinary career and his ‘object photography’.

See the preview and register to see the full discussion here: https://photolondon.org/video/the-essential-fenton/?mc_cid=f1085b9350&mc_eid=c55776416e

During the Covid-19 lockdown we’ve all become acutely aware of one of the most essential values of digital preservation: remote access. Most physical collections, libraries, and archives have been closed down for several weeks. Working from home is problematic, especially when we keep in mind that rather than working from home by design or choice, we are actually at home during a crisis trying to work. In any case, primary access to collections is now digital more than ever. This brings the need for better understanding in digital preservation and the development of skills for digital curation to the fore more than ever before.

Making the case for, and delivering, a programme of digital preservation is still a tough (and expensive) challenge, but perhaps lockdown will help everyone understand its importance.

This two day event explores how we can best preserve and give access to our digital archives and collections. It includes:

• Practical workshops giving the basics of best practice in looking after digital material
• Talks and provocations outlining the strategic and curatorial challenges of digital preservation
• World café-style sessions in subject areas that attendees can propose
• Informal networking sessions in breakout spaces

The event is organised by: 

• The Photographic Collections Network
• Redeye
• The Digital Preservation Coalition

Find out more, see the provisional programme and book here: https://www.photocollections.org.uk/events/rethinking-digital-preservation-time-crisis 

I've been lurking for a while but this is my first post. I acquired a pair of painted salt prints stamped 'Mr. Kilburn 222 Regent Street'. I assume these are by William Edward Kilburn but I cannot find other examples of painted salt prints by him.

Can anyone point me in the direction of other examples or tell me more about the ones I have (date etc.)?

I attach a few images. In the last image I deliberately left a tiny part of the mount window in the image to show the placement of the stamps. Please excuse the reflections.

Glasgow's Street Level Photoworks has released a series of online photographer/artist talks from recently events. They comprise: 

• Recording of an artist talk by Peter Kennard at the book launch of 'Visual Dissent', Street Level Photoworks 2nd October 2019. See: https://youtu.be/rrQE2boay0g
• the launch of Roger Palmer's latest photobook SPOOR in September last year. SPOOR comprises groups of colour photographs made by Roger Palmer while following rail routes between towns and settlements of South Africa. The photographs were accumulated between 2014 and 2018 as Palmer drove along mostly minor roads through the country's nine provinces.https://youtu.be/VHnl18uaiC8
• Close Up artist talks, joined by Colin Gray as he reflected on his diverse career as a photographer and told us how he is adapting his practice during lockdown. https://youtu.be/kRrnEduwwUg

In the first third of the twentieth century, two French publications -- VU, and Art et Médecine-- introduced a 'New Vision' in the use of photographs to tell stories... an emphasis on sharply-focused 'documentary' uses of the medium.

VU Magazine

​VU magazine, which was launched in Paris in 1928 and continued through 1940, was a new kind of periodical -- the photo-illustrated magazine reporting world affairs.  Although the practice of combining photos and text began in the 19th century, in VU photographs became the dominant element, no longer merely illustrative of the text.

Perhaps most importantly, VU recruited and financially 'enabled' some of the most talented young freelance photographers of the era --André Kertesz, Germaine Krull, Man Ray, Brassaï, Alfred Eisenstein, and others -- each of whom was destined to change the face of photography.

Art et Médicine

During roughly the same period -- from 1929 to 1939 -- Dr. François Debat, owner of the Debat Pharmaceutical Company, published Art et Médecine, a high-quality monthly cultural journal available only to French Physicians.

Art et Médicine is most notable for richly illustrating each issue with photos by many of the same young photographers as VU... especially André Kertesz and Germaine Krull.  It also contained original articles by some of the most important French writers of the period -- including André Maurois, Jean Cocteau, Francois Mauriac, Jules Romains, Maurice Maeterlinck, and Collette.  The quality of the paper and printing of the journal is extremely high.

Those readers who have an interest in Photojournalism can view approximately 500 otherwise 'lost works' by André Kertesz, Germaine Krull, Man Ray, Brassai and others by clicking on the "Early Photojournalism" tab at my website: antiqphotos.com.

Bob Enteen

​Image: 462. SERGEI EISENSTEIN, 1929,
15 X 11.5 cm., taille douce photogravure, photo on back

I bought this framed photograph (print 283 x 232 mm) a week or so before Covid-19 locked us down and it has been propped against a wall in my study waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

I was initially drawn to its 1950s-ish B&W compositional style of abstract lines and blocks of light and shade but I found the subject matter somewhat enigmatic ... what's happening here? I describe it as "woman sitting silhouetted in a large prison-like window with ranks of low buildings in the middle distance".

Having now removed it from its frame (scanned and lightly cleaned the minor scratches and blotches of time) the pencilled inscriptions on the back are as follows:-

117 Stephenson Way
Corby
Northants

Pictorial
[Boots Picture Framing Department Ref. No.:-1/4640/650]
(1) Photo Great Window

I would like to be able to identify (1) the photographer, (2) the location and then that might lead me to (3) information about "what's happening here?". Any suggestions?

Stafford Photographic Society was formed in 1895. It is one of the oldest photographic societies in the  Midlands. A young man named Charles Fowke was primarily responsible for its formation, he gathered together other photographic enthusiasts and started the YMCA Amateur Photographic Society, so called because they met at the YMCA in Gaol Road. In 1898 the name was changed to Stafford Photographic Society.

The picture here of Society members was taken in 1907 on their summer outing to Alton which included lady guests. Tripods and box cameras are much in evidence.

Early meetings tended to be of a technical nature with members giving talks and demonstrations on such things as bromide and gaslight prints, lantern slide making and portrait lighting using magnesium ribbon.

The First World War put a temporary halt on activities. The club restarted in 1921 with 24 members enrolling at 5 shillings a year and ladies being invited to join for the first time. Flashlight photography was demonstrated in 1923 and the post-war programme included invited speakers, picnics and cycle outings which were very popular in the 1920s.

During the Second World War meetings were fortnightly, in spite of blackouts and other problems. After the war a cine group was formed and membership increased to 124 members by 1959

The 1970s brought competitions in prints and slides and in the 1980s audio visual presentations became popular, the first woman President, Mrs P. Hill being elected in 1988.

For many years the club logo was the Broad Eye Windmill and this changed only in 1968 to the film strip logo.The current club logo illustrates the digital changes of the new century.

With thanks to Peter Storey

www.staffordphotosociety.org.uk

This month, Photoworks begins a year of activities marking twenty-five years of Photoworks. To mark its anniversary year it commissioned Ibrahim Azab to create (PW)_H3RE N0W)//_SINCE TH3N, 2020, re-imagining the Photoworks archive by (re)using copies of its magazines. 

Photoworks says: "These are difficult times, and a time to rethink the world around us. Our programme for 2020 - Alternative Narratives - reflects this. We look forward to you joining us as we journey into our next 25 years. We'll be back this time next month with another Check In. Keep your eyes peeled for other updates from us in the meantime, including new digital content and news of opportunities for you, our community."

See: https://photoworks.org.uk/

This is another post to the blog concerning mistakes I have found in the titles and descriptions of Crimean War photographs in collections that I hope will come to the attention of curators.

While in the Crimea, Roger Fenton took a portrait of Frederick Augustus Maxse. In the picture, Commander Maxse, who at the time held the rank of commander in the Royal Navy, sits on a rock wearing in his navy frock coat with two stripes on his lower sleeve (see right). The image appeared in an exhibition of Fenton’s work held in London after he returned from the Crimea as catalogue number 167.

I recently noticed that the portrait of Commander Maxse held by the Royal Collection Trust (RCT) as accession RCIN 2500288 has the title Commander Henry Berkeley Fitzhardinge Maxse (1832-1883). However Henry Fitzhardinge Berkeley Maxse (note the correct order of his middle names) was in the army and not the navy. He was the elder brother of Frederick Augustus Maxse.

The RCT on its website has the following description of the image:

Commander Maxse served during the Crimean War as Aide-de-Camp to Lord Cardigan. He was injured in the Charge of the Light Brigade. After his return to Britain, he was presented with his Crimean medal by Queen Victoria on Horse Guards Parade on 18 May 1855. He later became Governor of Newfoundland where he died.

This description is true for Henry Maxse, but not for Commander Fredrick Maxse, who is the person in the picture. The RCT records April 1855 as the month and year the image was taken. Henry Maxse was not in the Crimea in 1855 as he was in England on medical leave for a wound he received during the Charge of the Light Brigade. However, his brother Frederick was in the Crimea in 1855 serving as naval aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan, the Commander-in-Chief of the British army. He appears on another of Fenton’s photographs of the staff at headquarters.

The Library of Congress in Washington also names the subject of the person in their Commander Maxse image as Henry Maxse, as does Getty Images. I also note that Amazon are selling the picture of Frederick Maxse under the name Henry Maxse and Wikipedia have published the same photograph under its entry for Henry Maxse.

I trust that changes will be made to the title and description by those collections naming the wrong man in the portrait.

The Association of Photographers (AOP) launch a series of breakfast talks with the most influential figures from the photographic community. A number of the talks will be of particular interest to BPH readers.

Talk 2 – Tuesday 9 June 09:00-10:00 - Commissioning Editors
With the COVID-19 dominating the headlines, how are the commissioning editors of the press looking at imagery?
Fiona Shields, commissioning editor of The Guardian Newspaper, Emma Bowkett commissioning editor FT Magazine.

Talk 3 – Tuesday 16 June 09:00-10:00 - Fine Art photography
How have you meshed your fine art brand of photography to create the images and planned work during this COVID-19 lockdown?
Julia Fullerton Batten, Othello De’Souza Hartley, Lottie Davis

Talk 4 – Tuesday 23 June 09:00-10:00 - Photojournalism
How has Covid-19 impacted your assignments and personal projects as a photojournalist, visual storyteller?
Gideon Mendel, Simon Roberts, Jillian Edelstein, Liz Hingley

Talk 5 – Tuesday 30 June 09:00-10:00 - Photography Festivals
What have been your greatest challenges managing the cancellation and delay of your eponymous Photography Festivals?
Michael Benson, Photo London, Shoair Malian, Photoworks, Scott Gray, CEO World Photography Organisation & Sony Awards

Talk 6 – Tuesday 7 July 09:00-10:00 - On-line Exhibitions
'What are the challenges and benefits creating an on-line exhibition?
Tracey Marshall, (Northern Narrative/Trace Art Collective), Karen McQuaid (the Photographer’s Gallery) Anne Braybon, (National Portrait Gallery), Del Barrett, 100Heroines

Talk 7 – Tuesday 14 July 09:00-10:00 - Virtual Galleries and Auction Houses
How does exhibiting and selling fine art photography perform on-line during the COVID-19 crisis and what will the challenges in the future for ‘real’ versus ‘virtual’ galleries and auction houses.
Ben Burdett, Director, Atlas Gallery, Brandei Estes, Head of Photography, Sotheby’s, Brett Rogers OBE, Director, Photographers Gallery

Talk 8 – Tuesday 21 July 09:00-10:00 - Reinventing On-line events
What have been your most popular on-line events hosted since the COVID 19 pandemic closed down your traditional modes of presenting?
Pranvera Smith, Founder Frontline Club, Melanie Phillips, British Journal of Photography, Shoair Mavlian, PhotoWorks

Talk 9 – Tuesday 28 July 09:00 – 10:00 – Photographic Agents
The role of the agent during and post Covid-19
Fiona Rogers, Webber Represent, Skye Trayler, Trayler & Trayler, Photographers Agent, Sophie Wright, Magnum, Rosie Wadey, East Photographic

Talk 10 – Tuesday 4 August 09:00-10:00 - Advertising Photography
As a specialist in advertising photography, what has been the impact on your
commissions?
Ed Robinson, Adam Hinton, Kelvin Murray, James Gerrad-Jones, Wyatt Clarke Agency

Talk 11 – Tuesday 11 August 09:00-10:00 Book Publishing
What impact has this COVID-19 lock-down had on the fine art photographic book publishing industry?
Stu Smith, Gost Books, Hannah Watson, Trolley Books

Talk 12 – Tuesday 18 August 09:00-10:00 - Photographic Awards
What are your challenges raising funds and creating events for your grants and photographic contests since the Corona virus pandemic has impacted daily lives on the global stage?
Harriet Logan, the Ian Parry Awards, Tristan Lund, curator, Marc Hartog, CEO 1854 Media/British Journal of Photography, Seamus McGibbon, AOP Executive Director

Book here: http://www.the-aop.org

PhD student, Rachel Maloney, the University of Brighton’s V&A Research Exchange Fellow, discusses how her research has had to adapt during lockdown. Rachel is an artist and researcher whose work focuses on memory and personal narrative within family photographs and archival collections. Her project outlined a practice-led research project that would investigate and re-frame the female narrative of materials held in the V&A’s photographic collections. She also planned to carry out research workshops that invited participants to share and discuss their personal family archives.

The V&A began acquiring photographs from as early as 1852 and it now houses one of the largest collections of photographic material in the world. This includes the recent acquisition of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Collection, which in 2018 was migrated from the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford to the V&A.

Read her blog and how lockdown forced her to look inward to her own family's photography archives here: http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/centrefordesignhistory/2020/05/27/research-in-lockdown-a-research-fellowship-in-lockdown/ 

The Royal Society played an important role in recording the introduction and progress of photography from the 1830s onwards. A new resources from Google Arts and Culture brings some of the Society's archives relating to photography to the fore.

See: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-invention-of-photography/fAJij3PkQZd1Lw 

Asahi Shimbum, the publishers of the Japans oldest photography magazine Asahi Camera which started publication in 1926 have announced that it will cease with the July 2020 issue. A reduction in advertising caused by COVID-19 and economic factors are cited as the reasons for the closure.  

Since its launch in April 1926 the monthly Asahi Camera has been Japan's most important camera magazine. In addition to introducing information on cameras and the works of leading photographers active in Japan and overseas. It has also held photography contests and other public events.

The magazine has provided an important insight in to Japanese photography and its demise marks a sad day for Japanese photographers.

The Ihei Kimura Photo Award will continue to be co-sponsored by Asahi Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun Publishing.

Read more about the magazine here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Camera

The curators of the Lee Miller archives, Lee Miller's and Sir Roland Penrose's son Antony Penrose and his daughter Ami Bouhassane will narrate a short film about Lee's work and life. 

The narrated film is called 'The Indestructible Lee Miller' and lasts approx 45 minutes. A question and answer session will follow. 

See more details: https://rps.org/events/regions/south-wales/2020/june/the-indestructible-lee-miller/

The Charles Dickens Museum is releasing the first of a new collection of colourised photographs of the great author, ahead of the 150th anniversary of his death on 9th June. The image shows Charles Dickens in 1859, aged forty-seven, with a warm expression, looking directly at the camera and sporting a bright yellow, green and blue Clan Gordon tartan waistcoat, over a brilliant white shirt, with light-coloured trousers, a textured navy jacket and a bow tie.

The original black-and-white collodion print chosen for today’s first image was made by photographer Herbert Watkins. The new photography and colourisation has been conducted by London-based portrait and still life photographer, Oliver Clyde.

Being There is a new publication from Michael Hallett. It consists of fragments of biographies that collectively follow the progress of picture journalism from the advent of the miniature camera through to the arrival and impact of the digital age. It covers a ninety-year period from c1923 to 2012 and provides a critical compilation of encounters with influential photographers and their visual icons.

It introduces snatches of life; the individual photographer’s biographies, the biography of the subject of the photographer’s gaze and to some extent the biography of the observer who intercepts the photographer and extends the story. This is not a history of modern photojournalism but a meander through the media’s past, just stopping at strategic points to mark in the detail and paint in the colour.

The predominant narrative to this book relates to the photographic documentary in Europe and America and the individual interviews reflect this. Many of these interviews have been published in the photographic press and are reproduced here in edited or expanded form, while others have been interviewed specifically for this book.They cover five periods:

• 1923-1940 with the emergence of the picture magazine;
• 1940-1975 the golden age of photojournalism and the arrival of the ‘colour supplements’;
• 1975-2000 which provides new thinking and looking;
• 2000-2010 that sees the arrival of the democracy of photography; while
• 2011-2012 reviews concerns and queries, outcomes and polarities of Armageddon and renewal.

Mike Hallett’s publication has evolved over a thirty year period and is now presented from a 2019 perspective. His conversations with such photographers as Tim Gidal, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Carl Mydans, Sebastiāo Salgado as well as more recent practitioners all reflect the time of their particular interview.

Further information from hallettpic@gmail.com

Published by CrabApple Publications, Worcester, UK
Softback Economy Edition available via Amazon
ISBN 9781714312023
260 pages, 96,000 words with pictures

The book is available from Amazon for £27.40 with free delivery.