Blogs

Until recently John Deakin has been missing from photographic history. He resisted his talent fiercely, treating success with mistrust and greeting failure with indifference. His career began with Vogue but, despite achieving recognition for the photographs he took there he never took it seriously and never expected it to make him a living. Deakin's bad behaviour was legendary and he remains the only staff photographer in the magazine's history to be hired and fired twice by the same admiring but exasperated editor.

Deakin yearned to be a painter like his friends Francis Bacon, Robert Colquhoun, Lucian Freud and Michael Andrews, whom in time he would photograph. In turn, Andrews and Freud both painted his likeness. Loved and loathed in equal measure, Deakin was a celebrated part of the artistic circle that convened in the pubs and clubs of Soho, London's bohemian quarter, the lure of which eventually led him away from regular employment.

Gods and Monsters is drawn largely from a portfolio commissioned by Vogue in 1951 and 1952 of twelve contemporary artists, shown here in its entirety for the first time, along with other portraits of painters and sculptors Deakin made for the magazine at various times throughout his brief career. Vogue has agreed to lend its vintage prints, which in their ragged state show the patina of age and handling that accrues to a magazine's raw material. Further, like so much of Deakin's oeuvre, they are lucky to have survived him. They were only re-discovered in Vogue's archives in the early 1990s.

Details of the exhibition can be found here.

In a Strange Land:  Perceiving and Interpreting Unfamiliar Environments will take place from June 25–26, 2013 in the Springer Auditorium, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. It is a multidisciplinary international symposium organized by The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Shpilman Institute for Photography, Tel Aviv, in conjunction with the exhibition Displaced Visions: Émigré Photographers of the 20th Century. Moderator: Dr. Nissan N. Perez

The Speakers:

• Prof. Marc Augé, France (Chair)

Globalization, Space and Migration

• Prof. Svetlana Boym, Harvard

Nostalgia, Estrangement and Off-Modern Space

• Prof. Boris Groys, NYU

After History: Alexandre Kojève as Photographer

• Prof. Hagi Kenaan, Tel Aviv University

An Unfamiliar Familiarity: Photography and the Everyday  

• Prof. Malcolm Le Grice, UK

The Influence of European Émigré Artists on the Development of Experimental Cinema                                                                                          

• Prof. Michael Levin, Founding Head of the Multidisciplinary Art Department, Shenkar College

Trying to Achieve a Union Between Prussianism and the Life-cycle of the Muezzin

• Mr. Bernard-Henri Lévy, France

Title to be announced

• Dr. Nissan N. Perez, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Strangers in a Strange Land: The Photographic Vision of the Émigrés

• Prof. Shelley Rice, NYU

Local Space/Global Visions

• Mr. Yigal Zalmona, Former Chief curator at Large, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Immigrants or Natives: The Identity Discourse and Early Israeli Art

All lectures will be conducted in English.

25.6.13 between 9:30 – 16:30; 26.6.13 between 09:30 – 17:00

75 NIS per day/120 NIS for both days. Special student price: 40 NIS per day/70 NIS for both days.

Space is limited; please confirm your attendance by phone: 02-6708895/6.

I am researching my great grandfather Henry Sutton who was an Australian inventor. In the 1890s Henry lived in London and was a member of The London Camera Club. Henry invented a halftone photographic process called Electro-Phototypy, He set up a Company called Sutton's Process Syndicate Ltd in 1891 which ran out of 4 Tokenhouse Buildings and the place of production was in Blackfriars Rd just around the corner from Fleet St. His process was used in two weekly newspapers and a number of book publishers used his process also.

Henry was also a photographer and exhibited many of his photographs at the time and won a Gold Medal for one of his stereoscopic photographs, a number of his photographs were published at the time and I have managed to find a few but I'm sure there are more. One of the private investors of Henry's process was the photographer Samuel Bourne, Henry also knew Captain Abney, Lord Rayleigh etc.

In 1892 he met Nikola Tesla, Tesla and Henry arranged with Rayleigh and Preece from the Telegraph office to use another invention of Henry's to transmit a photograph via the telegraph.

I am trying to find out more information about this transmission and anything in relation to the above information about Henry. I have more information if you think you might be able to help me or know anything please let me know.

Lancashire archives has revealed some of its photography holdings including the work of John Mercer's earliest experiments in colour photography using dyes and fabric printing circa 1850.

Read more at: https://www.thevisitor.co.uk/lifestyle/lancashire-s-pioneers-of-photography-1-9160626

Barry Lategan who has died after a long illness aged 89 years was one of Britain’s leading fashion, portrait and advertising photographers from the 1960s to the 2000s. He was best known for his portrait of Twiggy, for his Vogue covers, and his advertising work. Many of his photographs are immediately recognisable. He was awarded an RPS Honorary Fellowship in 2007.

Lategan was born in South Africa and came to Britain in 1955 to study at the Bristol Old Vic theatre school. National service with the RAF intervened and it was during a tour in Germany that he joined the camp photographic society and photography took over his life. Lategan retuned to South Africa in 1959 and assisted Ginger Odes.

He returned to London in 1961, working in some of the leading studios, and photographing fashion. In 1966 he was introduced to Twiggy, then 16 years old, and created what became the face of the 60s. This helped propel Lategan’s career and he had his first Vogue cover in 1968 of a fur-clad Lesley Jones. He worked regularly for Vogue until 1981. He set up his own studio in 1967 in Chelsea. His photography was included in Bailey and Litchfield’s Ritz magazine, and he was the subject of a BBC2 Arena programme broadcast in 1975.

In 1977 he moved to New York to focus on commercial and advertising work, including directing television commercials, and personal projects. 

On his return to London in 1989 he continued with his advertising work and TV commercials for companies such as Jaeger, Pirelli, Vodafone and Gordons, winning numerous awards in both mediums. During his career he photographed many well-known models, celebrities from fashion, film and music, and royalty.

In 2006 Lategan suffered a serious fall which caused a serious brain injury and affected his behaviour. He was diagnosed in 2016 with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) which he and his family discussed publicly to raise awareness of the condition.

Lategan was involved with AFAEP, now the Association of Photographers, and helped select the inaugural AFAEP Awards in 1984. He held his first exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, in 1975, and was widely exhibited during his career (including by the RPS). Along with many of his contemporaries he enjoyed a long association with Olympus Cameras.

His work is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and V&A Museum, London, and elsewhere.

The Barry Lategan Archive is now being managed by his son, Dylan.

https://www.barrylategan.com/

Text: © Michael Pritchard
Image: Barry Lategan, c1950s. © Estate of Barry Lategan / Barry Lategan Archive

Professor Kelley Wilder, director of De Montfort University’s (DMU) Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC) is leaving  the university at the end of this month as the university concludes a wider staff consultation and redundancy programme. Wilder has been at DMU since 2008 when she was appointed to develop and write the ground-breaking MA Photographic History and Practice course which started in 2009. The MA moved online from the 2024/25 academic year. She was awarded her Professorship in 2019.

The PHRC was established in 2011 with Professor Elizabeth Edwards as its inaugural director. It specialised in international and interdisciplinary research on photography and its theories and practices from the 19th century to the present day. Wilder took over as director in 2016.

Kelley Wilder is photographic historian and historian of science of international repute. Her interests range across cultures of science and knowledge generated by photography and photographic practice, and photographic archives.  She has published papers and several books and has a particular interest in the photographic practices of nineteenth century scientists, notably, William Henry Fox Talbot, Sir John Herschel, Henri Becquerel and others. Prior to joining DMU Wilder was the assistant editor of the Talbot Correspondence Project. She has a book in development and other research projects in hand. 

The MA course and PHRC have been responsible for nurturing and training a new generation of photographic historians and artist-practitioners. Many of the PHRC’s former students now occupy positions across academia and museums and galleries in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America.  In addition, the university library’s special collections has become an important repository of photographic history materials. It houses the former Kodak Ltd research library, several photographic institutions’ archives and significant collections of historical photographic materials.The university also hosts online photo-history resources.  

The PHRC will continue and its teaching staff will remain in place. BPH understands that a new director will be announced shortly, and new MA and PhD student supervisory teams are being set up for existing students. The autumn seminar programme is in place and it is likely that the annual conference in 2026 will go ahead. The university has contacted students individually. 

DMU’s redundancy programme is part of a wider restructuring announced in May with, then, 94 posts at risk and 80 roles set to be cut. The Leicester-based university is repositioning itself as it seeks to cut spending by £22 million in 2025, manage falling student numbers, and deal with the costs of setting up new campuses in London and Dubai. The latter was set up after DMU terminated a partnership with World Study Group in 2024 which is now the subject of a costly dispute. The restructuring announcement led to calls for the Vice Chancellor and Executive to resign.

See: BBC news story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3nnge3v1wo
Staff profile: https://www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/academic-staff/art-design-humanities/kelley-wilder/kelley-wilder.aspx
Kelley Wilder's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelley-wilder-62b0457a/

Images: top: De Montfort University; right: Kelley Wilder. left: (l-r) Roger Taylor, Elizabeth Edwards, Kelley Wilder and Stephen Brown co-founders of the PHRC celebrate its first anniversary in May 2012. Photos top and left: Michael Pritchard.    

Launching in December, 2010 The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957 is the complete, fully text searchable facsimile archive of the Picture Post, the iconic newspaper published in Britain between 1938-1957 that defined the style of photojournalism in the 20th century. It is primarily intended as a resource for academic institutions.

As the latest addition to Gale Historical Newspaper Collections, the Picture Post provides students and researchers with online access to a remarkable visual record of the 1930s to 1950s – from the humorous and light-hearted snapshots of daily life in Britain to the serious and history-defining moments of domestic and international affairs.

Featuring the work of Berty Hardy, Kurt Hutton, John Chillingworth, Bill Brandt, Humphrey Spender, Thurston Hopkins and many more iconic photojournalists.

The online archive consists of the complete run of the paper – from its first issue in 1938 to its last in 1957 and includes almost 50,000 pages – all newly digitised in full colour from originals from Getty Images’ Hulton Archive, holders of the Picture Post Photographic Collection.

For further information see www.gale.cengage.co.uk/picturepost

From last year's recreation of an entire room evocative of the ancestral home of Fox Talbot, early photography specialist dealer of 19th and early 20th century photographs from New York, Hans P. Kraus Jr,  will show a glimpse of how early photography revolutionized the tradition of portrait making with an exhibition of important 19th century photographs.

The exhibition, entitled A 19th Century Portrait Studio, will showcase photographs from such influential early photographers as Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Nadar, Roger Fenton and Hill & Adamson. Compelling, intimate and historically fascinating, the photographs depict a range of subjects and processes including daguerreotypes, tintypes, salt prints and albumen prints. One of the highlights is a stunning albumen print of young Eliza D. Hobson at Croft Rectory, Yorkshire, circa 1860, by Lewis Carroll, best known as the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

A 19th Century Portrait Studio will be on view at the Winter Antiques Show, booth # 26, at the Park Avenue Armory from January 21 through 30, 2011. Details can be found here.

Photo:  Lewis Carrol (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (English, 1832-1898) Eliza D. Hobson, taken at Croft Rectory, Yorkshire, circa 1860 Albumen : 15.5 x 12.5 cm

The image of Christina by Mervyn O'Gorman will be familiar having been used to promote the exhibition Drawn by Light. The Royal Photographic Society Collection which is still showing at the National Media Museum, Bradford. The Mailonline is trying to find out who Christina was in a feature here. It has interviewed Drawn by Light curator 'and Leeds University lecturer' (better known to BPH readers a National Media Museum curator) Colin Harding who did some biographical research without finding an answer. He has suggested that she was not O'Gorman's daughter but possibly a niece. 

O'Gorman was born in Brighton is 1871 and studied science at University College, Dubin. He later worked in electrical engineering and had a penchant for cars, eventually being crowned vice president of the Royal Automobile Club. 

The talented entrepreneur married Florence Rasch in 1897, and during the first World War, he became a lieutenant-colonel in the RFC.

When he died in 1958 at the age of 87, Melvyn's obituary described him as 'a man of agile mind and Hibernian eloquence'.

The article is well worth a read and if you know the answer to who Christina was and what happened to her please contact BPH. It would be nice to scoop the Mail!

Image: The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Media Museum. 

Alex Schneideman writes... My friend Paddy Summerfield, who has died, was broadly considered Oxford’s greatest photographer since Henry Fox Talbot. Summerfield, a child imbued from infancy in Oxford’s history and art was raised in the same house in Summertown from the age of two until he died.

Having studied at Guildford School of Art (not without controversy) Summerfield became known as a photographer in the 1980s but it was not until the publication by Dewi Lewis in 2014 of his seminal work, Mother and Father that he came to the forefront of British documentary photography.

The photobook depicts Summerfield's parents in the garden of their north Oxford home as they tended to the lawn and plants and to each other. As the book progresses we watch as his father increasingly cares for his mother, her eventual disappearance and then the loss of his father too. In most of the photographs the parents’ faces are turned away from the
photographer-son. Summerfields images were typified by a certain spirituality and he maintained that his work had always been about “abandonment and loss” as his parents had turned their attention inward following the tragic early death of his older sister when Summerfield was two years old. However he insisted that ‘Mother and Father’ stood as a durational “love letter” to them both.

Summerfield’s first major publication was important because it established his groundbreaking use of a unique and emotional photographic ‘perspective’. His work would become representative of what became known as the ‘psychological perspective’ - in which Summerfield’s compositions place the viewer in the emotional apex of the scene, blurring the boundaries between the subject, the photographer and the viewer.

Several more books were to follow including The Oxford Pictures (2016), Empty Days (2018), The Holiday Pictures (2019) and Home Movie (2021). Each subsequent title added to Summerfield’s reputation as one of the most important contemporary British documentary photographers.

Summerfield’s photography was typically black and white but in his final years he worked mainly in colour using an old ‘flip phone’ to photograph the garden and the people who
surrounded him. Some of these were published in his final book, The Beginnings of Eternity (2023).

In 2019 Summerfield married his partner, Patricia Baker-Cassidy, who by this time had become his de-facto producer. Baker-Cassidy brought order to the chaos of Paddy’s now notorious bins of thousands of negatives that he had accumulated over decades. A visitor to the Summerfield home would often find Paddy ensconced in writing, reading or discussion with friends and photographers while Baker-Cassidy worked diligently with a film scanner, as together they put together numerous maquettes for planned new publications.

The well respected Oxford Photography Group was often hosted by Summerfield and Baker-Cassidy at his home. He supported the group and worked closely with individual photographers, many of whom went on to be published, exhibited and collected.

Almost ten years after the publication of Mother and Father a new body of work was made by a group of photographers (including Alex Schneideman, Vanessa Winship, Sian Davey, Matthew Finn, Alys Tomlinson, Nik Roche and Jem Southam) who wanted to preserve the garden where Mother and Father had taken form and and to pay homage to Summerfield’s work. The resulting images were published as ‘Pictures from the Garden’ (as ever by Dewi Lewis) and an exhibition was staged in Oxford supported by The Photographers Gallery.

Summerfield’s work was supported by curators, academics and other photographers such as Richard Ovenden, Nicholas Serota and Martin Parr, Bill Jay and Peter Turner, then editor of Creative Camera. Summerfield’s own exhibition list is long and varied. He exhibited in solo group shows alongside such photographers as André Kertesz, Martin Parr, John Goto and Gerry Badger (who has written extensively about Summerfield’s work as well as providing texts for his publications). His work is held in national, international, private and institutional collections. It should be noted that Dewi Lewis’s sustained support of Paddy’s work brought it to the widest possible audience.

This year the Bodleian Library completed their acquisition of Summerfield’s extensive archive where plans are underway for a major exhibition in Autumn 2025.

It was a great honour for me to give Paddy what would sadly turn out to be his last solo show, The Holiday Pictures, at Flow Photographic Gallery in 2019. Sue Davis, the founder of The Photographers Gallery, then in failing health herself and accompanied by Zelda Cheatle made the trek from her home in Surrey to North West London to see the show - it was to be the last photography exhibition she would visit before her death some months later.

Paddy was the most photographic person I have ever known. It was as impossible to distinguish the man from the medium as it is sometimes to discern the sea from the sky on a blue day when both seem to merge into one.

Paddy leaves a daughter, Lucy and his wife Patricia.

Paddy Summerfield
18th February 1947 - 11th April 2024

Obituary by Alex Schneideman
London, April 2024

Image: (top) Alex Scheiderman, Paddy and Patricia; (lower two) Paddy Summerfield, from his Mother and Father series. 

Beryl Diana Vosburgh, who for many years ran Jubilee Photographica, a shop selling old photographs and photographic equipment, in Pierrepoint Row, Camden Passage, London, died on 6 July 2016.

Beryl was a familiar face at the early auctions of photography and the name 'Jubilee' would be heard repeatedly in the days when a buyer's name was called out in the auction room and printed in the realised price sheets. She attended the first photography fairs and was a long-serving committee member of the Historical Group of the Royal Photographic Society which she joined in 1973. She was a founding member of both the Group and the Magic Lantern Society. Her shop was one of the first in Britain specifically devoted to historical photography and only closed in 2002. 

Beryl Roques was born in 1932 in Edmonton, north London. She attended RADA where she met Richard 'Dick' Vosburgh, the actor, writer, lyricist and broadcaster. They married in 1953 and remained together until his death in 2007 living in a beautiful town house in London's Islington. They had a son and five daughters.

While she was studying at RADA she was snapped up to be one of the main anchors of the 1952 BBC Radio series: The Younger Generation Under 20 Parade. It was described in the Radio Times as 'A programme on things to read, see, and hear, presented mainly by under-twenties'. She starred in this weekly series throughout 1952-53. Her resulting acting career highlights included: Miss Phillips in BBC Radio's Mrs Dale's Diary; Princess February in The Golden Cage for Children's Hour; the 1954 Home Service series entitled Home and Away with Dora Bryan and the BBC Revue Orchestra; alongside Phyllis Calvert in Monday Matinee presents Craig's Wife; 1961 film: A Little of What She Fancied and 1962's Associated Rediffusion TV series No Hiding Place.

In 1965 she became one of the regular presenters of the popular BBC children's programme Play School. She presented 35 episodes of the show alongside regulars Eric Thompson, Derek Griffiths, Johnny Ball and Brian Cant.

In 1977 her real-life actress daughter Tilly Vosburgh played her offspring in Secret Diaries for Yorkshire Television (her other daughter was played by Sophie Thompson). Also in 1977 she performed in a Jubilee theatre show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Beryl supported Dick's successful career in television, radio, theatre, film and magazine, often assisting him on projects when he had plays on Broadway, on tour and in the West End and looking after the children when Dick was heavily involved in a project.

She played various roles in the demo tapes for her husband's musicals: Windy City, A Day in Hollywood A Night in the Ukraine and A Saint She Ain't to name a few. Beryl appeared in Jango (1961).  Away from her acting and shop, she was a professional photographer, photographing theatrical productions and taking the Spotlight pictures of countless high-profile actors and actresses.

Michael Pritchard writes...As a boy in the 1980s I got to know Beryl through the RPS Historical Group. I remember visiting her shop, taking care to visit on a Wednesday or Saturday, when it was open. Beryl's shop included plenty of cartes de visite, stereocards, albums, stereoscopes, lantern slides, cameras and the more accessible end of the market. She had a particular interest in photographic jewellery. When one visited she was more likely than not to press a photograph in to your hand as a gift irrespective of whether you bought something. She regularly donated material to institutions or to individuals if she felt it was the right home for it. Beryl was kindly, knowledgeable and wonderful company over dinner at her College Cross house. 

Images: courtesy The RPS, The Photographic Journal, February 1975. 

UPDATE: Amy Vosburgh has been in contact with details of Beryl's funeral which will take place on 18 July at Golders Green Crematorium. Anyone wishing to attend is asked to contact her on 07866 718030.

UPDATE 2. Thank you to Amy for additional information about Beryl's film and television career. 

BPH has learnt with much sadness of the peaceful death on sunday evening of the museum director, historian and broadcaster Colin Ford, aged 91 years. Colin was the founding Head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, in 1983 and led the museum for its first decade. He was actively involved in photography from 1972 until his death.  

Colin's career started in the world of theatre, following a MA at University College, Oxford. He joined Kidderminster Playhouse as manager/producer bringing 150 productions to the public before he moved on to the Western Theatre Ballet. Two years later he was visiting lecturer in English and drama at California State University. He emerged into the world of visual imagery at the British Film Institute joining in 1965 as Deputy Curator.

Then, as the National Portrait Gallery's first Keeper of Film and Photography from 1972, he was tasked with building up its collection of photography and initating a collection of film. Although the Gallery had photography in its collections Colin's appointment was a deliberate move to actively collect photographs in their own right - the first by any national institution. Within a few months of joining the NPG Colin was caught up in the Royal Academy's ill-thought out decision to sell at auction three volumes containing 250 calotypes by Hill and Adamson presented to a former RA president. The intervention of Roy Strong and Colin along with a groundswell of public opinion led to the sale being abandoned and the albums were eventually secured for the NPG by an anonymous donor for £32,000. The auction did much to raise awareness of the importance of photography and the need to tighten up the export of historical photographs. Colin was still involved with the export of historic photography into the 1990s as the government advisor on the subject. The albums formed (with Roy Strong) one of his many books An Early Victorian Album: The Hill Adamson Collection (1975).

Colin's scholarship on Julia Margaret Cameron began in the mid-1970s and occupied much of his career and he was due to be guest of honour at a symposium being held at Dimbola in June 2026. He secured Cameron's 'Herschel Album' for £52,000 for the NPG and it followed him to the NMPFT, now the National Science and Media Museum, where it is still housed. With Julian Cox he authored a catalogue raisoneé of Cameron's photographs in 2003.  

During the 1970s Colin was involved, often chairing, networks of photography collections and was part of a group advocating for a national museum of photography. When the Science Museum sought to deliver such a museum Colin was appointed in February 1982 as Keeper, later Head, of the nascent National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford. The story of the NMPFT has been widely told, not least by Colin, and there is more to say about its gestation and history on another occasion.

Colin brought with him a passion and enthusiasm for the project, along with a similarly-minded group of colleagues able to deliver on his vision, all the more necessary in the face of concerted opposition to locating a national museum in Bradford. It opened to the public in June 1983.  Under Colin's tenure as Head the museum acquired the Kodak Museum collection in 1985 which it used as the basis for a major new gallery telling the story of popular photography which opened in 1989. The project was led by one of his significant curatorial appointments, Roger Taylor. The museum made a number of important acquisitions including Graham Smith and Chris Killip's Another Country, the Andor Kraszna-Krausz/Focal Press archive, the Zoltan Glass archive, the purchase and gift of photographs by Lewis Carroll, and saw collaborations with many photographers including David Hockney. 

The NMPFT received the Museum of the Year Award in 1988 and had been visited by 3½ million visitors by its fifth birthday. In 1989 the museum's contribution to photography's 150th anniversay was the Makers of Photographic History conference which brought together many of the great names of twentieth century photography. That year Colin noted we 'have turned a very entertaining showplace into a centre for research and understanding.' The museum became the most popular outside of London with 750,000 annual visitors at its peak. Colin noted that his one regret of his time in Bradford was that he had not been able to set up a chair in the history of photography at the University of Bradford. 

In 1993 Colin left the NMPFT to become director of the National Museum of Wales in October. At the time he stated that after ten years it was time to let a second generation of leadership take over. The background for his move is perhaps also best left for another occasion, but Colin continued to remain actively committed to photography. The British Journal of Photography which had regularly challenged the setting up of a museum in Bradford noted that he had 'left behind a formidible legacy' and wished him well. Left unsaid was a frustration, that remained with Colin until his death, that the museum was always subserviant to, and reliant on, the Science Museum, and he had never realised his early ambitions for a national museum of photography.  

Although there is much more to say about his life, his many publications and exhibitions, it is worth highlighting his long-standing interest in, and advocacy for, Hungarian photography. He wrote the catalogue that accompanied the first exhibition in Britain of André Kertész which opened at the Serpentine Gallery in 1979, followed by The Hungarian Connection at the NMPFT in 1987. In 2011 the exhibition Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th century at the Royal Academy drew together many of the key Hungarian photographers from the twentieth century several of whom Colin knew personally. He always cited André Kertész as one of the greatest photographers in the world. 

Outside of the museum world in the 1980s and 1990s Colin was a host and broadcaster on the BBC arts programme Kaleidoscope and regularly appeared on BBC Radios 3 and 4 discusing the wider arts and as an interviewer. He was an opera and music lover and as his brother, Martyn, notes 'his knowledge of music was more than that of any non-professional musician I have ever known. Colin was passionate about grand opera (a passion we did not share!), light opera, musical theatre and symphonic music.' He was a member of the Garrick Club where he curated exhibitions of photography. 

Colin was involved with the formation of the European Society for the History of Photography from its inception in 1977 and the NMPFT hosted the Society's 1985 symposia. He was involved as a trustee of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and in 2005 undertook a review of the Foundation's activities and aims; he was a vice chair of the Julia Maragaret Cameron Trust for twenty-five years, and was chair of the Committee of National Photographic Collections from its outset in 1988. He served on the Advisory Board of History of Photography journal from 1989 to 2009. Away from photography he chaired the Peel Entertainment Group, a global entertainment specialist and talent agency based in Skipton, for sixteen years. 

Colin was awarded a CBE in 1993. He received the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1999 and for a number of years from 2003 he supported the Colin Ford Award for curatorship given by the RPS. The Society's Historical group continues to host a Colin Ford lecture, the next of which is scheduled for 2026. He received the Hungarian Order of merit for his contributions to photography in 2013. 

Colin leaves his wife, Sue Grayson Ford, a son, Tom, and grandchildren, plus brother Martyn. His archive is to be desposited with the Bodleian Library and his collection of photography books given to the National Museum Cardiff.  

© Michael Pritchard

See: An interview with Colin Ford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDIU437VzV8 Colin was also interviewed as part of the British Library's Oral History of British Photography and other interviews with him exist. 

Images: (top): Colin Ford with his collodion portrait in the style of Cameron at his 90th birthday event at the Weston Library, Oxford, May 2024 / © Michael Pritchard; Colin Ford with the Herschel album, 7 January 1975, unknown photographer, NPG x135971; the National Museum of Photography, as it was originally known before 'Film and Television' were added to the exterior signage, NMPFT;  (l-r) Colin Ford, Graham Smith, Chris Killip and Gustav Ahrens, MD of Agfa Gevaert at the presentation of Another Country, unknown photographer; 

A paper just published in Studies in Conservation by Kim Bell and Robin Canham of Queen's University Library, Canada, has analysed the card mounts of stereocards, based on a limited sample of North American cards recently donated to the library. Their analysis by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy has indicated the significant presence of different heavy metals in the mounts, reflecting the chemistry used to colour them. This should not be a particular surprise as Victorian wallpapers, book cloths, papers and textiles have long been recognised as problematic. Bell and Canham's research is the first time XRF has been applied to stereograph card mounts. 

It is worth quoting part of their conclusion: While this is an initial study, this research identified the significant presence of potentially harmful heavy metals, specifically arsenic-, lead-, and chromium- based pigments on nineteenth century stereograph cards and highlights the pervasive use of toxic substances in Victorian-era consumer goods. These findings extend our understanding of the historical usage of toxic pigments beyond popular previously recognized mediums such as wallpapers, textiles, and books, and demonstrates the prevalence of health hazards in historical collections. and, they add, it is imperative that GLAM [galleries, libraries, archives, and museums] workers know the inherent risks present in their collection materials to protect themselves and their communities.

Although Bell and Canham do not make any assessment of the direct risk to individuals handling cards, by being in proximity with stereograph card mounts, or the risk through inhalation or ingestion, this new knowledge should act as a prompt for collections to update their risk registers, and ensure that staff and visitors are properly attired, made aware of the risk with handling or storage, and that any risk is mitigated.

Toxicity in 3D: XRF Analysis for the Presence of Heavy Metals in a Historical Stereograph Collection at Queen’s University Library, Canada
Kim Bell and robin Canham
Studies in Conservation, published 14 January 2025, online, open access
Taylor and Francis
See: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00393630.2025.2450976

Image:  The desktop setup of the Bruker III-SD pXRF with sample stage accessory on top. The stereograph card was placed on top of the sample stage with the edge of the card just covering the examination window. A sheet of Mylar® polyester film was placed on top of the stereograph to prevent abrasion. The accessory shield was placed on top of the film. Photo credit: Robin Canham.

With thanks to Rebecca Sharpe for drawing attention to the paper. 

A unique visual archive of 19th century Victorian Britain, including illustrations and photographs of events ranging from the Great Exhibition of 1851 to the Boer war, will be available online for the first time from today. The Illustrated London News archive holds 250,000 pages and as many as three quarters of a million illustrations, from as far back as 1842.

With its debut in 1842, The Illustrated London News became the world’s first fully illustrated weekly newspaper, marking a revolution in journalism and news reporting. The publication presented a vivid picture of British and world events – including news of war, disaster, ceremonies, the arts and science – with coverage in the first issue ranging from the Great Fire of Hamburg to Queen Victoria’s fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace.

The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the photograph is of outstanding aesthetic importance and of outstanding significance for the study of the history of photography.

Roger Fenton (1819-69) was a highly-regarded British photographer and one of the first- ever war photographers.

Best known for his images of the Crimean War, he also produced landscapes, portraits, still-lives and tableaux vivants during a career which only lasted just over a decade. Pasha and Bayadère was created in 1858 as part of a series of about fifty Orientalist photographs inspired by Fenton’s expedition to the Crimea. These were an expression of a general craze for all things oriental that can be seen in European art in the second half of the nineteenth century and reflected the Victorian fascination with the ‘exotic’ Middle East. In the photo, staged in his London studio, Fenton himself appears as the ‘Pasha’ (a Turkish military or civil official), watching a bayadère, or dancing girl, perform. The role of the musician is played by the English landscape painter Frank Dillon.

The photograph is one of only two examples of this image, the other being in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Getty’s version is uncropped and believed to be a proof, making this version, cropped for exhibition, in a sense unique. It was not intended to be a documentary image of daily life in Turkey or Egypt, but a fantasy about what the Orient stood for. Fenton’s aim was to marry the Orientalist subject matter popular in painting of the period with the new medium of photography to create a work of high art. Regarded as one of the best in his Orientalist series, and one of Fenton’s best works overall, Pasha and Bayadère is technically highly accomplished, with a strong composition and beautiful lighting.

Lord Inglewood, Chairman of the Reviewing Committee, said: “Photography is sometimes undervalued in this country, but Pasha and Bayadère demonstrates how the best photographs can hold their own aesthetically against other art forms. As well as being a remarkable image, the work is also important for the study of the history of photography. The fact that the Getty Museum chose to make their own version of this image the subject of a scholarly monograph shows just how highly Fenton’s work is regarded outside the UK.”

The decision on the export licence application for the photograph will be deferred for a period ending on 1 May 2010 inclusive. This period may be extended until 1 August 2010 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the photograph at the recommended price of £108,506 is expressed.

Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the photograph should contact the owner’s agent through:

The Secretary
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
Wellcome Wolfson Building
165 Queen’s Gate
South Kensington
London
SW7 5HD
Telephone 020 7273 8270

The V&A Museum is seeking a Project Archivist and Project Cataloguer to work on and support the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) digitisation project. The RPS Project is a vital part of the V&A’s broader programme of cataloguing, digitisation, collections care and access. It aims to safeguard the collection and provide meaningful access to benefit and inspire current and future generations. The initiative is headed by recently appointed Amy Mayhew, who reports to V&A senior curator of photography Martin Barnes. 

Project Archivist. The main purpose of the role is to catalogue the Royal Photographic Society archive in accordance with the International Standard for Archival Description (ISAD(G)) using the Museum’s Collections Management System.

Project Cataloguer. The main purpose of the role is to create new catalogue records for objects in the RPS collection and, with the Project Manager, to supervise volunteers to input basic cataloguing data. The V&A seeks to accelerate digitization through a new RPS Project Team, with cataloguing as a central focus.

Both roles are three-year, full-time, fixed-term contracts. 

The RPS collection is the largest and most important collection of photography at the V&A. It contains many items of global significance, including some of the earliest photographs, artworks by well-known photographers, invaluable documents of history and evidence of 200 years of technical and scientific advances. The collection numbers an estimated 310,000 photographs, negatives, pieces of photographic technology, books, journals and archive items. Some 90% of the collection remains to be catalogued, imaged and digitised. 

Applications for both jobs close on 18 July 2025. See the links above for full details. 

The Albert Kahn departmental museum in France has released nearly 25,000 colour photos of early 20th-century life into the public domain and over 34,000 others that are free to use as part of a project to assure visual history is not forgotten. Called Archives of the Planet, the project was started in 1908 by French banker Albert Kahn who wanted to photograph humanity around the world. Kahn hired 12 professional photographers who visited 50 countries until the project concluded...

Read the story here: https://petapixel.com/2023/01/11/nearly-70000-color-photos-of-early-20th-century-are-now-free-to-use/

Visit the museum collection here: https://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr/

Because of the facial expressions of some soldiers photographed by Roger Fenton in 1855 during the Crimean War, it was suggested by Richard Pare in the 2004 book All the Mighty World that they may have been suffering from what we now call shell-shock. Pare drew particular attention to Fenton’s portrait of Captain Lord Balgonie (see below). In the picture, Balgonie is said to look older than his 23 years and has what have been called haunted eyes with a distant stare (see right).

In 2015, a review of an exhibition of salt prints in the Tate Gallery in Culture Whisper contained the sentence ‘Photography ….. enabled Roger Fenton to capture the shattered and shell-shocked look of soldiers in the Crimean War’. The Balgonie portrait has been described by Taylor Downing in his 2016 book entitled Breakdown: The Crisis of Shell Shock on the Somme as the ‘face of shell shock’. In addition, Sophie Gordon in 2017 in Shadows of War regarded the portrait as a ‘tragic depiction’ of Balgonie, who she described as looking dishevelled, unfocused and appearing to suffer from shell shock.

People photographed by Fenton usually had sombre expressions and often looked into the distance away from the camera. Captain Henry Verschoyle, who was a Grenadier Guards hero, was also captured by Fenton with a similar look in his eyes. To me, Balgonie looks tired. He could also have been suffering from an ailment caught during the harsh Crimean winter of 1854-55. He appears no more ‘dishevelled’ than many others photographed at the time by Fenton. Hair was worn long by many in those days and Balgonie had probably just got off his house after riding to Fenton’s make-shift studio in Balaklava.

In a letter home in April 1855, Fenton reported that ‘My hut seems to be the rendezvous of all the Colonels and Captains in the army, everybody drops in every day and I can scarcely get time to work for questions nor eat for work’. It seems to me that Balgonie may have dropped in on Fenton like many of his contemporaries. Shell shock is a term used for those who break down under the stress of war and I doubt if a broken man would go to Fenton’s hut out of curiosity to see what went on there and to have his portrait taken?

Balgonie was born in 1831 and served in the Grenadier Guards in Crimea. He was present at the major battles of the Alma, Balaklava and Inkerman in 1854. His obituary in the Dundee, Perth and Cupar Advertiser on 4 September 1857 reads:

He might have returned home with perfect honour long before the close of the Crimean campaign - many a stronger but less chivalrous and less sensitively honourable man did so – but he resolutely remained at his post till the downfall of Sebastopol although there is little doubt that his doing so, amid all the hardships and exposure of camp life must have implanted or at least fostered in his constitution, naturally delicate, the seeds of that disease which has prematurely ended a career so hopefully and auspiciously begun. Lord Balgonie, in the autumn 1855, returned to Melville House, the family residence in this county, laden with honours. He had gained all the Crimean medals except Kinburn besides that of the French Legion of Honour. He took ill in a few days after reaching home, and his life has been little more than an alteration of partial recoveries and relapses ever since, all borne with a serenity and patience truly wonderful. Last winter his Lordship went to Egypt in the hope of gaining that improvement in health denied to him in his own country, but the season proved unpropitious there, and in May last he returned to England weaker and more prostrated than he had left it. From that period he gradually sunk until Saturday last, when his solemn change came. In the full flush of autumn beauty, gently and happily he died………

The above mentions that Balgonie was awarded medals for his service in the Crimea and stayed on until after Sevastopol had fallen. It is also known that he undertook the mentally demanding role of an aide-de–camp to General Bentinck, which would have been impossible for him to carry out if he was a broken man. The obituary notes that Balgonie had a weak constitution and implies that he died young because he was worn out by the hardships and privations of the Crimean War. His visit to the dry warm climate of Egypt in winter when ill after the war indicates that he may have had respiratory problems, which he could easily have picked up in the Crimea.

In conclusion, I believe that the hypothesis that Balgonie was or may have been shell-shocked when photographed by Fenton in 1855 is just pure unfounded speculation without any basis in fact. Unfortunately, this shell shock interpretation is now in danger of becoming the accepted truth.

Many collectors would love to lay their hands on what is probably Malta's most precious photography collection. One of the biggest archives on the island, the Richard Ellis glass plate negatives number about 40,000, dating from between 1862, when the Englishman landed in Malta, to his death in 1924.

After almost 150 years, the name of Richard Ellis is still synonymous to photography. He was one of the first photographers in Malta, although at that time there was Orazio Agius, Preziosi and a few other Englishmen.

Richard Ellis ended up in Malta quite by chance in April 1861. He had studied photography in Paris, which was the hub of the emergent art, and came to Malta at the age of 19 with his adoptive parents, James Conroy and his wife Sara, as the family were caught up in the Garibaldian struggle. On settling in Malta, Mr Conroy opened a photo studio in Senglea and Richard Ellis acted as his assistant. Nine years later they opened a studio in Strait Street, Valletta, and in 1871 Mr Ellis left the Conroys and set up his own studio.

Apart from buildings and scenes of Malta, Mr Ellis took many photos of ships, crews and ongoing projects. His son, John, gave up a career in medicine and joined the business to help his father and produced what must be the first X-ray images taken in Malta in November 1896.

John's son, also called Richard, continued to run the business in 1931, after the death of his father. He continued to take photos just like his grandfather had done and saved the Ellis archive from devastation in World War II by moving the negatives to the safety of a Wardija home. The building in Valletta where the photographs had been stored was badly damaged.

The 261-page book, "Richard Ellis: The Photography Collection", contains over 200 photos of Valletta and Floriana, reproduced from the original glass plate negatives taken by Ellis, some of which are over 140 years old, and documents important aspects of Malta's social history, as well as the history of the Ellis family. Published in 2007, it was the first of three volumes.

According to the local artist-photographer, Patrick Fenech, there is an urgent need for a national photography museum as entire archives are being sold off abroad, one in particular was a collection of 500 photos dating back to the period between the world wars, including cameras and related paraphernalia, which was sold for only £200!

Mr Fenech has been researching The Ellis archive for three years and he claims he has not even gone through half the collection yet. His wish is to have the vast archives, including equipment and massive studio cameras, displayed – “if not in a national museum, in an Ellis Photography Museum!”

The full report can be found here, and some information on the Ellis family legacy here.