‘Women and Work, 1975’, article on the Hackney Flashers in Aperture magazine as part of a series of articles highlighting forgotten exhibitions, ‘Photography as you don’t know it’ (Winter 2013) - View Publication.
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Two lots coming up at auction provide a link back to the photography's earliest days in 1839. Sotheby's auction of Fine Books and Manuscripts including Property from the Eric C. Caren Collection being held on 21 July 2020 in New York has two lots connected to Alfred Swaine Taylor, the pioneer of forensic medicine and an early experimenter in photography.
Lot 89 consists of a group of letters, from c1830-1870 which includes references to his photography experiments. Estimate: US $10,000-15,000.
Lot 90 is a photogenic drawing of a fern dated 2 December 1839. Estimate: US $10,000-15,000.
BPH readers may recall several groups of material from Taylor's former house which was offered by Lacy Scott & Knight in Bury St Edmunds, in 2017 and in one larger group on 5 October 2018, which included letters, books and personal effects covering his many professional and scientific interests including photography.
See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/auction-alfred-swaine-taylor-follow-up and http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/auction-report-alfred-swaine-taylor-archive-5-october-2018
The UK government has announced a £1.57bn package of support for cultural organisations to be delivered through grants and loans, and funding for capital projects. How much is new money, how much will need to be repaid and how much has come from previously announced commitments to the national infrastructure is unclear.
The package announced includes funding for national cultural institutions in England and investment in cultural and heritage sites to restart construction work paused as a result of the pandemic. The government claims 'this will be a big step forward to help rebuild our cultural infrastructure'.
The package includes:
- £1.15 billion support pot for cultural organisations in England delivered through a mix of grants and loans. This will be made up of £270 million of repayable finance and £880 million grants.
- £100 million of targeted support for the national cultural institutions in England and the English Heritage Trust.
- £120 million capital investment to restart construction on cultural infrastructure and for heritage construction projects in England which was paused due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- The new funding will also mean an extra £188 million for the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland (£33 million), Scotland (£97 million) and Wales (£59 million).
Decisions on awards will be made working alongside expert independent figures from the sector including the Arts Council England and other specialist bodies such as Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute.
Repayable finance will be issued on generous terms tailored for cultural institutions to ensure they are affordable. Further details will be set out when the scheme opens for applications in the coming weeks.
Although welcomed across the board by leading arts administrators and bodies such as the Royal Opera House, it is unclear whether the funding will actually support smaller organisations not already in receipt of public funding, those outside of London in the same way that London's national bodies look set to benefit, individual artists and freelancers, and venues that have been impacted by social distancing restrictions that are set to be in place for many months. The funding of capital projects may be premature when it is unclear that audiences will return.
Read the government announcement here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/157-billion-investment-to-protect-britains-world-class-cultural-arts-and-heritage-institutions?utm_source=27015a4b-f940-411c-b482-81dceba88625&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate
In 1862, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (who would be crowned Edward VII in 1901 following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria), undertook a tour of the Middle East as part of a structured programme intended to educate the young prince and prepare him for his future role as king. The prince had undertaken previous trips abroad, but on this ambitious itinerary he was accompanied by one of Victorian Britain’s pre-eminent photographers, Francis Bedford (1815 – 1894) and this was the first royal tour to be documented through photography. The exceptionally beautiful images taken by Bedford convey the sense of awe and wonder that these ancient sites still, to this day, possess.
Bedford’s remarkable photographs not only documented the historical landmarks and biblical vistas the prince and his entourage encountered, they also became an important, early record of the Ottoman dominions and the Holy Land. Throughout, Bedford’s task was, as the Photographic News put it, to record scenes that were ‘fraught with historic and sacred associations’.
Each of these carefully framed views was painstakingly composed, and, in our own era of Instagram, online visitors will be able to draw immediate parallels and contrasts. Not least, Bedford’s human subjects were required to remain completely still for several seconds so as not to appear as a blur. And, while Instagrammers require little more than a smartphone, Bedford needed an entire caravan of lenses, tripods, heavy crates of chemicals, glass plates, and a complete portable darkroom to achieve the rich depth and detail of his albumen prints.
Sights of Wonder is the third annual collaboration between the Barber, Royal Collection Trust and the University of Birmingham’s Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies, a partnership which aims to train up a talented cohort of early career curators in a professional setting. As with previous years, a small group of University of Birmingham MA Art History and Curating students takes responsibility for all aspects of an exhibition, from selecting the individual objects from the Royal Collection, establishing key themes, researching and writing interpretation to devising and contributing to the public programme. This year, alongside the usual curatorial dilemmas, the students faced the additional considerable hurdle of Covid-19, and very rapidly had to recast plans for a physical exhibition into virtual form. They rose to the challenge with aplomb, and have produced the Barber’s first show specifically designed for a digital platform, exploring the greater flexibility and deeper levels of engagement which this switch allowed them.
The exhibition can be enjoyed online as if we were accompanying the tour, following the trajectory of the journey, starting with Egypt. Here, we first appreciate the remarkable detail that Bedford’s lens captured in the ancient settings, from desert terrain to the finely carved texture of the stone blocks and pillars of the ruined temples of Karnak, in Thebes. Looking at these images, we may wonder, as the Prince of Wales and his photographer surely did, at the inevitability of the rise and fall of empires.
We then join the entourage in the Holy Land, Lebanon and Syria. Bedford and the royal party would have been acutely aware of both the biblical history and contemporary politics of the region, the latter as turbulent in the 1860s as today. Two years before the royal tour reached Damascus, the escalation of the conflict between Maronites – a Christian group – and Druzes – a religious community associated with Shi’a Islam – saw the destruction of the Christian quarter and the slaughtering of thousands of Christians. Bedford took photographs which showed the aftermath, The Street Called Straight and The Ruins of the Greek Church in the Christian Quarter as well as a portrait of Abd al-Qadir (1808 – 1883), the Algerian religious and military leader who played a key role in helping Christians escape the massacre. The tour then eventually travelled to the more peaceful but no less resonant city of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and then on to Athens, whose illustrious past would have been deeply familiar to educated Victorians through the works of the great classical writers and philosophers.
Stepping aside from the curators’ primary visual narrative, which draws out the complexities of the Victorian response to the Middle-East through Bedford’s images, our virtual visitors can also explore a range of other options online, from an interactive map of the journey, to detailed video demonstrations of the photographic process used by Bedford. Further resources and activities designed for a variety of age groups and interests are available for virtual visitors to use and share in this discovery section.
Robert Wenley, the Barber’s Deputy Director, said: ‘Bedford’s photographs were taken just a generation after the birth of the medium and yet they have a technical mastery and aesthetic impact that has rarely been matched. This is compelling in itself and arguably even easier to appreciate on screen than in a dimly-lit physical gallery, but the curators’ interpretation of these images takes us beyond their seductive surfaces, and opens up fascinating issues around the nature of empire and the resonance of biblical landmarks to a deeply Christian Victorian Britain. We are enormously grateful to both our student curators and Royal Collection Trust for working so fruitfully and energetically in partnership with us, particularly in such unpredicted and challenging circumstances’
Alex Sheen, Art History and Curating MA student, University of Birmingham, added: ‘Curating in a crisis is definitely not something we envisaged at the start of this project, but the rapidly unfolding situation opened up a valuable opportunity to learn how curation can adapt to the changing world. Through creating the digital exhibition, we now have the benefit of offering greater accessibility and therefore reaching a wider audience. Working with the staff at the Barber and Royal Collection Trust, we’ve aimed to curate an innovative and immersive experience, which visitors can enjoy from the comfort and safety of their homes, wherever they may be.'
Alessandro Nasini, Curator of Photographs, Royal Collection Trust, said: ‘Working with the students on this project has been an absolute pleasure and an enriching experience for all parties. The young curators had the challenging task of selecting a relatively small number of items from a large pool of material made available to them, analysing it, interpreting it and presenting it to the public. Some of these steps took place during visits to Windsor Castle, where our Photograph Collection is housed. We had the opportunity to look closely at the material, while exchanging ideas and openly discussing the many options offered by the material itself and our interpretation of it. From my perspective, it felt like such a refreshing and stimulating experience, almost as if I were looking at some of Bedford’s photographs for the first time. During one of the visits, the student curators also had the opportunity to learn about various behind-the-scenes processes and procedures every exhibition goes through, including the essential work from our colleagues in Conservation. I’d like to congratulate the students on their hard work on the exhibition and thank staff at the Barber Institute and at the University of Birmingham for supporting and facilitating this initiative and such a rewarding partnership.’
For more information about Sights of Wonder: Photographs of the Royal Tour visit barber.org.uk. Follow @barberinstitute on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for regular updates, news and opportunities to engage with the Barber.
Images:
Francis Bedford: The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid and two lesser Pyramids, Ghizeh, Egypt; The Prince of Wales and Group at the Pyramids, Giza, Egypt. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020
Frans Koopman writes...'we like to inform you that last Friday mr Aad Schoorl, alderman of Heemskerk, has unveiled an information board concerning Nicolaas Henneman. The board has been placed along the path where he was born, since 2018 called after him: Nicolaas Hennemanpad'
Heemskerk is a small, historic town north-west of Amsterdam. Henneman was born in Heemskerk in 1813, became a valet to Talbot, then his assistant, and ran Talbot's Reading printing establishment. When this closed he became a photographer for a short period in partnership Thomas Malone. He died in London in 1898.
With thanks to Professor Larry Schaaf and Frans Koopman, Genootschap ’t Hofland
It is little wonder the life of Hemi Pomara has attracted the attention of writers and film makers. Kidnapped in the early 1840s, passed from person to person, displayed in London and ultimately abandoned, it is a story of indigenous survival and resilience for our times.
Hemi has already been the basis for the character James Pōneke in New Zealand author Tina Makereti’s 2018 novel The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke. And last week, celebrated New Zealand director Taika Waititi announced his production company Piki Films is adapting the book for the big screen – one of three forthcoming projects about colonisation with “indigenous voices at the centre”.
Until now, though, we have only been able to see Hemi’s young face in an embellished watercolour portrait made by the impresario artist George French Angas, or in a stiff woodcut reproduced in the Illustrated London News.
Drawing on the research for our forthcoming book, Empire, Early Photography and Spectacle: the global career of showman daguerreotypist J.W. Newland (Routledge, November 2020), we can now add the discovery of a previously unknown photograph of Hemi Pomara posing in London in 1846.
This remarkable daguerreotype shows a wistful young man, far from home, wearing the traditional korowai (cloak) of his chiefly rank. It was almost certainly made by Antoine Claudet, one of the most important figures in the history of early photography.
All the evidence now suggests the image is not only the oldest surviving photograph of Hemi, but also most probably the oldest surviving photographic portrait of any Māori person. Until now, a portrait of Caroline and Sarah Barrett taken around 1853 was thought to be the oldest such image.
For decades this unique image has sat unattributed in the National Library of Australia. It is now time to connect it with the other portraits of Hemi, his biography and the wider conversation about indigenous lives during the imperial age.
https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344435/original/file-20200629-96659-13rvux8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" />
‘Hemi Pomare’, 1846, cased, colour applied, quarter-plate daguerreotype, likely the oldest surviving photographic image of a Māori. National Library of Australia
A boy abroad
Hemi Pomara led an extraordinary life. Born around 1830, he was the grandson of the chief Pomara from the remote Chatham Islands off the east coast of New Zealand. After his family was murdered during his childhood by an invading Māori group, Hemi was seized by a British trader who brought him to Sydney in the early 1840s and placed him in an English boarding school.
The British itinerant artist, George French Angas had travelled through New Zealand for three months in 1844, completing sketches and watercolours and plundering cultural artefacts. His next stop was Sydney where he encountered Hemi and took “guardianship” of him while giving illustrated lectures across New South Wales and South Australia.
Angas painted Hemi for the expanded version of this lecture series, Illustrations of the Natives and Scenery of Australia and New Zealand together with 300 portraits from life of the principal Chiefs, with their Families.
In this full-length depiction, the young man appears doe-eyed and cheerful. Hemi’s juvenile form is almost entirely shrouded in a white, elaborately trimmed korowai befitting his chiefly ancestry.
The collar of a white shirt, the cuffs of white pants and neat black shoes peak out from the otherwise enveloping garment. Hemi is portrayed as an idealised colonial subject, civilised yet innocent, regal yet complacent.
Read more: To build social cohesion, our screens need to show the same diversity of faces we see on the street
Angas travelled back to London in early 1846, taking with him his collection of artworks, plundered artefacts – and Hemi Pomara.
Hemi appeared at the British and Foreign Institution, followed by a private audience with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. From April 1846, he was put on display in his chiefly attire as a living tableau in front of Angas’s watercolours and alongside ethnographic material at the Egyptian Hall, London.
The Egyptian Hall “exhibition” was applauded by the London Spectator as the “most interesting” of the season, and Hemi’s portrait was engraved for the Illustrated London News. Here the slightly older-looking Hemi appears with darkly shaded skin and stands stiffly with a ceremonial staff, a large ornamental tiki around his neck and an upright, feathered headdress.
https://images.theconversation.com/files/344666/original/file-20200629-155349-1k731kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344666/original/file-20200629-155349-1k731kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344666/original/file-20200629-155349-1k731kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344666/original/file-20200629-155349-1k731kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344666/original/file-20200629-155349-1k731kv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" />
An idealised colonial subject: George French Angas, ‘Hemi, grandson of Pomara, Chief of the Chatham Islands’, 1844-1846, watercolour. Alexander Turnbull Library
A photographic pioneer
Hemi was also presented at a Royal Society meeting which, as The Times recorded on April 6, was attended by scores of people including Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and the pioneering London-based French daguerreotypist Antoine Claudet.
It was around this time Claudet probably made the quarter-plate daguerreotype, expertly tinted with colour, of Hemi Pomara in costume.
The daguerreotype was purchased in the 1960s by the pioneering Australian photo historian and advocate for the National Library of Australia’s photography collections, Eric Keast Burke. Although digitised, it has only been partially catalogued and has evaded attribution until now.
Unusually for photographic portraits of this period, Hemi is shown standing full-length, allowing him to model all the features of his korowai. He poses amidst the accoutrements of a metropolitan portrait studio. However, the horizontal line running across the middle of the portrait suggests the daguerreotype was taken against a panelled wall rather than a studio backdrop, possibly at the Royal Society meeting.
Hemi has grown since Angas’s watercolour but the trim at the hem of the korowai is recognisable as the same garment worn in the earlier painting. Its speckled underside also reveals it as the one in the Illustrated London News engraving.
Hemi wears a kuru pounamu (greenstone ear pendant) of considerable value and again indicative of his chiefly status. He holds a patu onewa (short-handled weapon) close to his body and a feathered headdress fans out from underneath his hair.
We closely examined the delicate image, the polished silver plate on which it was photographically formed, and the leatherette case in which it was placed. The daguerreotype has been expertly colour-tinted to accentuate the embroidered edge of the korowai, in the same deep crimson shade it was coloured in Angas’s watercolour.
Read more: Director of science at Kew: it's time to decolonise botanical collections
The remainder of the korowai is subtly coloured with a tan tint. Hemi’s face and hands have a modest amount of skin tone colour applied. Very few practitioners outside Claudet’s studio would have tinted daguerreotypes to this level of realism during photography’s first decade.
Hallmarks stamped into the back of the plate show it was manufactured in England in the mid-1840s. The type of case and mat indicates it was unlikely to have been made by any other photographer in London at the time.
https://images.theconversation.com/files/344670/original/file-20200629-155322-my59r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344670/original/file-20200629-155322-my59r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344670/original/file-20200629-155322-my59r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344670/original/file-20200629-155322-my59r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344670/original/file-20200629-155322-my59r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" />
‘New Zealand Youth at Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly’, wood engraving, The Illustrated London News, 18 April 1846.
Survival and resilience
After his brief period as a London “celebrity” Hemi went to sea on the Caleb Angas. He was shipwrecked at Barbados, and on his return aboard the Eliza assaulted by the first mate, who was tried when the ship returned to London. Hemi was transferred into the “care” of Lieutenant Governor Edward John Eyre who chaperoned him back to New Zealand by early December 1846.
Hemi’s story is harder to trace through the historical record after his return to Auckland in early 1847. It’s possible he returned to London as an older married man with his wife and child, and sat for a later carte de visite portrait. But the fact remains, by the age of eighteen he had already been the subject of a suite of colonial portraits made across media and continents.
With the recent urgent debates about how we remember our colonial past, and moves to reclaim indigenous histories, stories such as Hemi Pomara’s are enormously important. They make it clear that even at the height of colonial fetishisation, survival and cultural expression were possible and are still powerfully decipherable today.
For biographers, lives such as Hemi’s can only be excavated by deep and wide-ranging archival research. But much of Hemi’s story still evades official colonial records. As Taika Waititi’s film project suggests, the next layer of interpretation must be driven by indigenous voices.
Elisa deCourcy, Australian National University and Martyn Jolly, Australian National University
The authors would like to acknowledge the late Roger Blackley (Victoria University, Wellington), Chanel Clarke (Curator of the Maori collections, Auckland War Memorial Museum), Nat Williams (former Treasures Curator, National Library of Australia), Dr Philip Jones (Senior Curator, South Australian Museum) and Professor Geoffrey Batchen (Professorial chair of History of Art, University of Oxford) for their invaluable help with their research.
Elisa deCourcy, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow 2020-2023, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, Australian National University, Australian National University and Martyn Jolly, Honorary Associate Professor, School of Art and Design, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Mr Weber's group of photographers posed with their cameras at Bidston. Sitting on the wall (from left to right): W Murray, Thomas Moore, Mr Twigge, E Whalley; middle row: Mr Pendlebury (standing), Mr Wharmby, Mr Bolton, Mr Wilson; front row: J H T Ellerbeck, Mr King, H J Palmer, Mr Kirkby. John Henry Townsend Ellerbeck, 1870s.
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1425-ALB265-022
In the 1960's I had left college and worked part time as an assistant to Adolf Morath photographing industrial subjects. Mainly running around and changing the flash bulbs in the multi fash heads he had specially designed for him. He sometimes used the Bowens heads but prefered the ones he had designed himself.
I remeber him taking portaits with these lighte and being amazed that he could aim the lights so accuratley. (with no modelling lights).
For his industrial work he set up two 5"x4" cameras side by side but with different focal length of lenses. He opened the shutter of one camera and then the other camera shutter was fired triggering the flash, so he got two images for one set of flashbulbs PF 60's and PF100's were very expensive. I would then have to remove the dead bulbs ready for the next shot. Sometimes if we were photographing a very long view in a factory I would have to set up the lighting stands and because they were over a long distance one set would have to be triggered separately. There was a testing facilly on the firing box to make sure that the circuit was OK. I remember being terrified that I would accidently fire the bulbs before the shot was to be taken. Miraculously I never did.
I did not go abroad with Morath unless you count an asignment for the Irish Government where we toured round Ireland in his VW 6 volt van photgraphing industries that the government wanted to promote to encourage others to set up in Ireland ending by photographing the directors of the Bank of Ireland in Dublin. I have a photograph of this.
I also went Motherwell to the Ravenscraig steel works and other associated works around Gasgow and factories in Lancashire.
Gilly Read FRPS
This new publication asks and seeks to answer a number of questions. How is a historical photo collection established, and how does it then grow? What principles and ideas guide the people responsible for such a collection? What do we mean when we say that photographs carry more than their content that they represent, but are material objects at the same time? What can we learn from a close-up view from of a photo-archive?
Can photographs be separated from the space, the time and the social environment in which they were created? Or can we claim that a photographs’ history is, at the same time, the history of its use? What sources do we use in our work? What do historians do, and what more could they do, with photographs?
In this amply illustrated, bilingual volume, the historian-museologists of the Hungarian National Museum use specific examples to seek answers to these and other questions.
Material Photograph
Editor: Éva Fisli; Contributors: Etelka Baji, Katalin Bognár, Éva Fisli, Katalin Jalsovszky, Marianna Kiscsatári, Beatrix Lengyel, Ilona Balog Stemler, Emőke Tomsics
232 pages
Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, 2020
ISBN 978-615-5978-13-5
Available as a free download
See more here: https://mnm.hu/en/publication-issue/material-photograph?fbclid=IwAR15z8qo2lVsYpJEiyPB2JvpyeQtAQhjWraW37BhwnEOYYxI6nFUxyY-WbQ
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:
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
