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There have always been unacknowledged or under-acknowledged forces that operate around photography. Some of them are human, like family members, camera assistants, darkroom personnel, curators, editors and the like. Others are non-human, like algorithms, chemicals, equipment of various sorts and transportation. The explosion of AI has pushed the field of photography studies to once again consider the practices surrounding photographs, but has at the same time neglected existing assistants like the skills force, the editors, image technicians, programmers, curators, and historians that enable and narrate photographic making. In the face of so many assistants, the primacy of the photographer as a central person through whom we understand photography recedes.

For this conference we would like speakers to consider the role and agency of human and non-human assistants in the making, collecting and dissemination of photographs. We look for papers from diverse methodological perspectives that not only enlarge the notion of the photographic assistant, but also consider the role of those assistants (or that assistance) in the formation of photographic practices, images, archives and histories.

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

• Technological, physical or chemical photographic assistants
• Catalysts like War and Conflict, the Environment, and Race as assistants to photographic practices
• Non-human assistants and AI
• Senses as photographic assistants
• History of assistants and their changing roles
• Agency of the Assistant
• Issues of authorship
• Practice as a collaborative endeavour
• Supply lines and transportation

Please send paper proposals to phrc@dmu.ac.uk by Friday the 2^nd of February 2024, embedding in the document your name, contact details, up to 5 keywords and institutional affiliation (when applicable).

Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University
Conference: 17-18 June 2024
Hybrid event, Online and at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Details: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/annual-conference-2024/

In a message to friends and colleagues Dr Catherine Troiano has announced that she has re-joined the V&A Museum, London, as Curator of Photography, with a focus on contemporary and digital practices. She was previously the National Trust's inaugural Curator, Photography. That role has been filled by Anna Sparham. 

She was at the V&A Museum as an assistant curator from 2015-2018 and then Curator, Photographs from September 2018.  She completed her PhD at De Montfort University's Photographic History Research Centre. 

Catherine's 2019 appointment at the Trust was announced here: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/national-trust-appoints-troiano-as-national-photography-curator in 2019. 

Made at Lacock Abbey by William Henry Fox Talbot in August 1835, the world’s first photographic negative changed the world. A new exhibition, Celebrating the Negative launching on 3 July at the Fox Talbot Museum will display images by John Loengard, a highly acclaimed American photographer, who travelled the world during the 1990s visiting archives and photographers’ studios to see the original negatives of images that have changed photography and the world.

The images show the original negatives in the hands of the archivist or photographer which brings their scale into play and points up the fact that the negatives are objects as well as images.

The negative is not just another picture – it is THE picture. There is an intimate connection between the negative and the subject. Looking at a negative you are looking at an artefact of a time and place. The sun that shone on Abraham Lincoln on that day in 1863 was captured by that negative. All of the positive prints from that negative were made later, probably on a different day and by different sunlight and almost certainly not in the presence of Lincoln. Loengard says of Fox Talbot’s discovery: "It is a quirk of nature that silver and chlorine combine in the dark but separate when struck by light, leaving behind tiny, black, round particles of silver.

The 1st Negative

Talbot asked Lacock’s village carpenter to make up a few small wooden boxes to which he could insert his microscope lenses. These cameras, dubbed ‘Mousetraps’ by Talbot’s wife Constance, due to their size and shape, were the cameras through which he was finally able to capture an image.

On a sunny day in August, 1835 he aimed a mousetrap camera at the latticed window in the South Gallery of Lacock Abbey and in a few minutes he had made the world’s first photographic negative.

Three of the original ‘Mousetrap Cameras’ have been loaned to the museum by the National Media Museum. It is their first visit to their original home of Lacock Abbey in more than 75 years.

There will also be examples of the most important negative processes on display and an explanation of how they were made and how each was a technological advance in the history of photography. Roger Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum says: "This is a really important and exciting celebration for us at Lacock. The negative is the primary image. It is the sensitive surface that faced the subject and first recorded the light. All positive prints are secondary images derived from the negative and are therefore one step removed from the original scene. The negative was the eye witness and the positive print the story related after the fact."

In August a recreation of the first photographic negative using Talbot’s original formula and methodology in a new mousetrap camera made by Mark Ellis, a carpenter who currently lives in Lacock will be re-enacted. Present at this re-enactment will be Talbot’s great-great granddaughter Janet Burnett Brown."

Participants at a (fully subscribed) workshop in August entitled ‘The Dawn of Photography’ will recreate all of Talbot’s earliest photographic experiments including working with modern replicas of the mousetrap camera. They will be working in and around Lacock Abbey and there will be staff members to answer questions about what they are doing.

Lacock Abbey

3 July-12 December 2010

The images and text in this book come from this double set of lantern slides which was produced in the late 1880's. Individually hand coloured onto the glass plates, these images capture the Western Isles and their way of life in evocative details. Published here for the first time as a complete set, many of the images, particularly of St Kilda and its inhabitants are iconic, well known among enthusiasts of Western Isles history. However, these contemporary hand coloured slides are rarely seen and present a new light on life in the Western Isles, produced fifty years before colour photography came to Scotland.

Photo: Queen Victoria on 'Fyvie' with John Brown at Balmoral, by George Washington Wilson, 1863; medium: carte de visite, size: 9.20 x 6.10 cm; from the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland

Noel Chanan’s latest hardcover, The Photographer of Penllergare- a life of John Dillwyn Llewelyn 1810 to 1882, is an in-depth, richly illustrated and forensically researched hardcover book. Llewelyn was married to a cousin of William Henry Fox Talbot, the British inventor of photography, and consequently became an inspired pioneer of photography from the 1850s. In addition to being an accomplished photographer, he was a highly productive polymath, benevolent landowner and a driving force in social and economic change around him in South Wales and London. Far from being a mere coffee table book, the scholarly endeavour employed to enrich the images and narrative, results in a rewardingly revealing history with oft times touching tales of sadness and joy.

Critically, the book engages with the photographic object, its processes and production, reflecting the sense of consideration, appreciation and commitment that Llewelyn appears to have applied to every facet of his life. It is a large format volume measuring 290 mm x 256 mm containing 276 pages which are steeped in the visual and literal history surrounding Llewelyn family. The 235 images, 160 of which are photographs, contain a range of facsimiles of watercolours, salted paper prints, daguerreotypes and albumen prints. The choice of images describes the life and times of a wealthy family in a bygone era as well as Llewelyn’s deliberate and consistent exploration and development in photographic genres. Excerpts from the family’s diaries stretching over three generations engage the reader in the real life experiences of his family in Swansea in the 1800s.

The photographs are clearly labelled and located appropriately to the text with additional detailed descriptions of the images relating to the titles, medium of reception, medium of print, and dimensions in the appendices giving appropriate significance to the processes he used. The photographs themselves are displayed in their present condition often showing evidence of damage but also how the photos were used: corners cut off and albums, paper scraps used in experiments and general wear and tear. The tonal shifts from one image to the next indicate the author’s determination to reflect each image in as close to its true state as possible. The comprehensive footnotes, detailed timeline and family trees complement the narrative historical content.

This volume weaves together a diverse range of elements that record the rich detail, dark shadows and joyous highlights of John Dillwyn Llewelyn, a revisualisation of the life of one who made a significant contribution to early photography. It is a smorgasbord of fascinating narratives that can be dipped into or consumed from cover to cover.

Janine Freeston

The Photographer of Penllergare- a life of John Dillwyn Llewelyn 1810 to 1882

by Noel Chanan

Details of the book's availability can be found here: http://www.the-photographer-of-penllergare.co.uk

The National Media Museum has released booking details of the Niépce in England conference which takes place at the museum on 14-15 October 2010. Details are given below...

NIÉPCE IN ENGLAND

Conference Update

An international conference on recent

advancements in scientific, art historical, and conservation research relating to the

photographs which Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

brought to England in 1827.

Co-organized by the National Media Museum

and the Getty Conservation Institute

13^th - 14^th October 2010

National Media Museum

Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK

Dear Colleague:

The National Media Museum (NMeM) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) are pleased to invite you to the Niépce in England conference, to be held at the National Media Museum, Bradford, United Kingdom on Wednesday and Thursday, October 13-14, 2010.

Conference Objective and Goals

Niépce in England

This two-day conference will present the results of new, unpublished research and scientific investigations, which have been undertaken during the NMeM and GCI Collaborative Research Project. In the Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum are three plates by Niépce. The conference will address the research and conservation of these photographic treasures, and will discuss future conservation measures that would provide for their long-term protection and preservation. The reason why Niépce brought these plates to England, and their subsequent history, will also be outlined more fully than previously published.

Conference Themes and Speakers

Philippa Wright, Curator of Photographs, National Media Museum

Larry Schaaf, Independent Photo historian

Pamela Roberts, Independent Photo Historian

Grant Romer, Independent Photo Historian

Art Kaplan, Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute

Dr, Dusan Stulik, Senior Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute

Colin Harding, Curator of Photographic Technology, National Media Museum

Philip Gilhooley, Independent Fingerprint Consultant and Lecturer in Forensic Science, Liverpool John Moores University

Peter Bower, Forensic Paper Historian

Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator of Photography, Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas

Barbara Brown, Head of Photograph Conservation, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas

Isabella Kocum, Frame Conservator, National Gallery

Susie Clark, Independent Photographic and Paper Conservator

• Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and his work

• The first six photographs brought to England by Niépce in context

• Scientific investigation into the three Niépce photographs in The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the NMeM

• Dating and conservation of the original frames

• Conservation and preservation issues related to the Niépce plates

The full schedule and speaker biographies can be viewed at the museum website at http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/Photography/niepceinengland.asp

Related Events

• Conference participants will have a very unique and unprecedented opportunity (that may not be repeated in our lifetime) to view all three Niépce plates ‘out of their frames’, enabling participants to closely examine the surfaces and reverse of these unique photographic treasures. The plates, and their conserved frames, will be on display throughout the conference in the Kraszna-Krausz Print Viewing Room, in the NMeM Research Centre.

• A Conference dinner will take place on Wednesday, October 13^th, 7pm – 10pm at the National Media

Museum. Tickets for the dinner need to be purchased with your conference ticket at a cost of £22.

Registration

Formal registration for the Niépce in England conference is now open. Please note that attendance to the conference is limited. All registrations will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have already registered initial interest in the conference you are not guaranteed a place and will still need to ring and book your place.

For further enquiries regarding the conference please email rsvp.nmem@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk and we will respond to your enquiry accordingly

To book your conference ticket please call the museum box office on +44 (0) 870 70 10 200. Please note that tickets can not be purchased online.

Ticket costs

• Full price conference ticket £90

• Concession price conference ticket £70

• Wednesday evening dinner £22

Hotel accommodation

Overnight accommodation is available locally at the Bradford Jurys Inn Hotel.

The hotel is a two minute walk from the museum and rooms can be booked either online at: http://bradfordhotels.jurysinns.com/ or by calling +44 (0) 870 4100 800.

Rates range from £55 to £80 for a double room. Early booking is advisable.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

National Media Museum in Bradford opened as The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in 1983 and has since become one of the most visited UK museums outside London. The Museum is devoted to photography, film, television, radio and the web and looks after the National Photography, Photographic Technology and Cinematography Collections. The Museum is home to two temporary exhibition spaces and, a Research Centre that hosts regular displays from its extensive Collections. The Museum’s vibrant programme reflects all aspects of historical and contemporary media practice and issues.

www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk

The Getty Conservation Institute works internationally to advance conservation practice in the visual arts—broadly interpreted to include objects, collections, architecture, and sites. The Institute serves the conservation community through scientific research, education and training, model field projects, and the dissemination of the results of both its own work and the work of others in the field. In all its endeavors, the GCI focuses on the creation and delivery of knowledge that will benefit the professionals and organizations responsible for the conservation of the world’s cultural heritage.

www.getty.edu/conservation/

This conference is kindly supported by a number of organisations & private individuals, including:

The Royal Photographic Society,

Wilson Centre for Photography,

The University of Bolton

The National Gallery, London

The V&A is holding a major exhibition to explore the contribution of Julia Margaret Cameron's contributions to the art of photography. Cameron (1815-1879) was one of the most important photographers of the nineteenth century. Criticised in her lifetime for her unconventional technical approach, she is now celebrated as a pioneering portraitist. 2015 will mark the bicentenary of Cameron’s birth and 150 years since her first museum exhibition – the only one in her lifetime – held at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) in 1865. Drawing on the V&A’s significant holdings, which include photographs acquired directly from Cameron and letters she wrote to Henry Cole, the museum’s founding director, this exhibition will explore Cameron’s innovative contributions to the art of photography.

The exhibition will tour internationally before and after its presentation at the V&A November 2015-February 2016 to the following venues:

• Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, 18 November 2014 – 1 February 2015
• Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, 14 March – 14 June 2015
• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 August – 25 October 2015
• Fundacion Mapfre, Madrid, 8 March – 8 May 2016
• Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, 29 June - 25 September 2016

The accompanying catalogue will be published by MACK in association with V&A Publishing.

Project Lead:

Marta Weiss, Curator

Project Assistant:

Erika Lederman, Factory Project Cataloguer

BPH has secured photographs of the new V&A Photography Gallery which opens to the public on Tuesday, 25 October 2011. A private view takes place on Monday evening. The Gallery has been installed in a former textile room and the building has been returned to its nineteenth century glory - with wall paintings uncovered and restored.

Installation images of the V&A’s Photographs Gallery © Peter Kelleher, V&A Images.

It seems that the camera my grandfather gave to me only a few month ago is about to mean more to me than a camera ever should. It is a second model Leica and it used to belong to my great grandfather, Alexander Wienerberger.  The photographs he took on this camera were not only published but are said to be the only verified images to come out of Ukraine during the man-made famine of 1932-33, named Holodomor and reported as killing up to 10 million people.

Now this is of great interest to me as I am about to go into my final year of my Fine Art Photography Degree.  Normally this is not my area, I lean more towards the experimental and scientific but I cannot let this amazing opportunity pass me by.  This means starting my research from scratch, so I will apologise in advance for my initial naivety on the sensitive yet personal subject I am about to embark on.

Something I already know:

1. There was talk on wiki about the copy right to my great grandfathers images, I believe if the author dies before 1955 then the copyright would no longer exist however in true style my great grandfather died 5th Jan 1955, meaning (I think as the law is so hard to decipher) that the copy right is still in place for all of his work.

2. Alexander spent some years as a political prisoner of war and in total spent 19 years in Ukraine, the reason he was not killed was due to his knowledge of explosives but to what extent he helped is unknown at the moment.

3. He published Hart auf Hart in Germany 1939 and had work published in other books around the same period (all work in German unless translated and released later)

This is interesting due to his connection to Germany at this time.

What next?

I am in the process of receiving some of his unpublished work that will need translating from German.  I am in the process of planning a trip to Austria (where he was born and his images are archived in the main library) Germany (where his books and images are archived in the main library.  I will look at getting the camera serviced at by the main Leica office but I imagine this is just a dream that could never happen) and Ukraine (to use his camera once again to document the change over the past 79 years.) This will not be done till the end of the year and has many financial hurdles to overcome.

The final aim is to publish a piece of work that not only highlights Holodomor but expresses who my great grandfather was and how important he was in proving Holodomor actually happened.

Having just joined the British Photographic History Group, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and the research that I am carrying out. My name is Peter Norman, I am a Technician working at the National Portrait Gallery in London and I am looking to develop a workable method to reproduce the Lumiere Autochrome colour process. Over the past year I have been learning the Silver Gelatin Bromide technique as well as producing the coloured starch mosaic that is integral to this process (see image). I have recently appeared in the BBC documentary, 'Olive Edis: Fisherman to Kings' explaining how the Autochrome works and the research that I am doing. Further to this I would like to make contact via this page with those who are interested in following my work and who have knowledge of the Autochrome process. Please feel free to post comments and here is a link to my instagram page. https://www.instagram.com/theautochromeproject/

BPH has learnt that Violet Hamilton, who worked closely with Michael G Wilson OBE in developing his collection of photography has died suddenly. Violet, an Australian by birth but a long term UK resident,  was a Senior Curator of the Wilson Centre for Photography, London, and a photographer in her own right, exhibiting her work. She lectured, was a researcher, historian and writer with a specialist knowledge on nineteenth century women photographers, in particular of the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. She wrote the text to Annals of My Glass House (1998) which used Cameron's photographs and contributed to many other publications or supported others in their research. 

Her funeral will take place on Thursday 17 July at 11am at Grantham Crematorium, Harrowby Road, Grantham. Lincolnshire, NG31 9DT with a gathering afterwards at Ellys Manor House, her and Clive's home.

No flowers, but donations may be made to: The Leaveners via the Funeral Director, Robert Holland, 14 St Catherine's Road, Grantham. Lincolnshire. NG31 6TS, tel: 01476 594422

LOS ANGELES—Queen Victoria’s devotion to photography will be on display in A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography, February 4–June 8, 2014 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. With important loans held in the Royal Collection, generously lent by Her Majesty The Queen, shown alongside masterpieces from the Getty Museum, the exhibition displays rare daguerreotypes, private portraits of the royal family, and a selection of prints by early masters such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Roger Fenton, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

At the age of 18, Queen Victoria (1819–1901) ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ireland and was about to turn 20 when the invention of photography was announced—first in Paris, then in London—at the beginning of 1839. The queen and her husband Prince Albert fully embraced the new medium early on, and by 1842 the royal family was collecting photographs. Through their patronage and support, they contributed to the dialogue on photography and were integral to its rise in popularity.

“As the first British monarch to have her life fully recorded by the camera, Victoria’s image became synonymous with an entire age,” explains Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Now, 175 years later, we take this opportunity to celebrate both the anniversary of photography and the queen’s relationship with it, through a rich collection of images that portray both the evolution of the medium and the monarchy.”

Birth of Photography and Royal Patronage

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took an interest in photography in the 1840s, which is remarkable given its limited application and dissemination at the time. The first royal photographic portrait—of Albert—was made by William Constable in 1842. While Victoria enjoyed seeing Albert photographed, she was initially apprehensive about being photographed herself. A pair of key images in the exhibition feature Victoria with her children in 1852, sitting for photographer William Edward Kilburn. In the first portrait, the long exposure time created an image in which Victoria’s eyes were closed. Writing in her diary entry for that day, she described her image as “horrid.”  She disliked the portrait so much that she scratched the daguerreotype to remove her face. However two days later the queen repeated the exercise and sat before Kilburn’s camera again, only this time she chose to sit in profile wearing a large brimmed bonnet to hide her face.

For many people, the first opportunity of viewing an actual photograph took place in 1851 at the Great Exhibition of the Industry of Works of All Nations, which opened in London at an event presided over by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  Among its 13,000 exhibits were 700 photographs housed in a massive iron and glass structure in Hyde Park. The Crystal Palace, as it was known, was documented in a series of daguerreotypes by John Jabez Edwin Mayall. The royal family would continue to support similar displays of photography that took place during the 1850s; in addition, they became patrons of the Photographic Society of London.  Queen Victoria’s interest in the medium was effectively a royal seal of approval and her interest facilitated its growing popularity.

During her reign, a number of conflicts were also captured on camera, including the Crimean War and Sepoy Rebellion. The camera, although unable to record live battle, was able to record the before and after effects of conflict, and its images revealed both the tedium and horrors of war in these far off lands. Roger Fenton’s Valley of the Shadow of Death (1855) shows a stretch of land that was frequently attacked by the Russian Army, strewn with cannonballs. Formal military portraits, such as William Edward Kilburn’s Portrait of Lt. Robert Horsely Cockerell (1854) took on a memorial quality for families who lost loved ones.

As the application of photography developed through the course of the 19^th century, so too did the medium itself. Many photographic innovations and experimentations occurred, particularly in the first thirty years. From early daguerreotypes and paper negatives, to the popular carte de visite and stereoscopic photography, the latter a technique that gave photographs the illusion of depth through binocular vision, the exhibition surveys these many innovations and accomplishments. Visitors will be able to look through reproductions of stereoscopic devices in the exhibition.

Private Photographs of the Royal Family

Victoria and Albert shared their passion for photography, not only in exchanging gifts at birthdays and Christmas, but in collecting, organizing, and mounting the family portraits in albums, and would frequently spend evenings working together on assembling these volumes. Victoria would often bring albums and small framed portraits of her family along on her travels. The Getty will display a custom-made bracelet she wore that features photographs of her grandchildren.

“As the medium of photography evolved over the years, so did Victoria’s photographic image: she was the camera-shy young mother before she became an internationally recognizable sovereign,” explains Anne Lyden, curator of the exhibition.

In a rare glimpse of these private photographs, the exhibition includes scenes of young royals at play and images in which the royal family appears informal and almost middle-class in their appearance. In an 1854 portrait by Roger Fenton, the casual attire of the queen is disarming. She is wrapped in a tartan shawl and surrounded by four of her children (she would bear nine children in the span of seventeen years). This is not the image of a bejewelled monarch reigning over her empire, but an intimate view of family life. A pair of scissors and a key visible on the chain on her chatelaine suggests practicality and hints at routine household rituals.  

Public Photographs, Public Mourning, and State Portraits

Public photographs of the royal family were incredibly popular—the majority of the population would never see a royal in person, and photographs offered a connection to nobility.  However, it was not until 1860 that such photographs were available to the public, when John Jabez Edwin Mayall made the first photograph of the queen available for purchase. The event coincided with the rise in popularity of cartes de visite, thin paper photographs mounted on a thick paper card, which, given their small size, were popular for trading and were easily transported. Within days of Mayall’s portrait being issued, over 60,000 orders had been placed, as people were eager to have a glimpse into the private life of the sovereign. Interest in the royal family extended to views of their various royal residences, such as Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral Castle, and Osborne House, which will also be included in the exhibition.

When Albert died suddenly on December 14, 1861, Victoria became a widow at the age of 42 and was in deep mourning for the rest of her life. While she retreated from public life, photographs of her as the bereaved wife were widely available, becoming in effect the queen’s public presence. While the tableau of a grieving widow remained prevalent for the remainder of Victoria’s reign, in the 1870s and 1880s she sat for a number of extremely popular state portraits that preserved her powerful position as monarch. The exhibition includes portraits taken by W. & D. Downey and Gunn & Stewart on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, as well as other portraits in which she is seen in full regal attire, complete with royal jewels and crown.

A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography, is on view February 4–June 8, 2014 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center. The exhibition was curated by Anne Lyden, international photography curator at the National Galleries of Scotland and former associate curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty Publications will issue the accompanying book A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography by Anne Lyden. Concurrently on view in the Center for Photographs is Hiroshi Sugimoto: Past Tense, which includes Sugimoto’s wax figure portrait of Queen Victoria. A full list of related events is to be announced. 

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

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

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

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

Details are of his funeral are not yet available. 

New research based on a view of 'Roslyn Chapel --- The Apprentice's Pillar' confirms Mr Wilson introduced CDV views before late 1868. The printed caption appears on the recto and the seller's label, 'William Smith, 43 Lord Street, Liverpool' on the verso.

In 1862, the British Journal of Photography suggested to readers, they buy from Mr. Smith at 43 Lord street cartes of American personalities, published by Anthony of NYC, to support a Lancashire charity. Gore's Liverpool Directory of 1867 no longer listed Mr.Smith at that address.

From a selection of 12 hand-captioned CDVs, one of "Peterborough Cathedral" is printed on watermarked paper dated '1862'. Dr. Blair in his 2020 update of a listing of GWW's stereoscopic views notes this script is in Mr. Wilson's own hand.

Mr. Wilson's ambition has led to confusion. Coincidental to his 1863 list 'Stereoscopic and Album Views' he created a print from half of a stereo neg, he called an 'Album'. [later called 'scraps'] Mounted cards are very uncommon today on the dealers and collector's market. I believe his '... Album Views' are CDVs and follow an evolution easily traced.

The exhibition 'Mr. Wilson's Album Views' is a follow-up to 2017's 'The Artist Mr. Wilson' hosted at the same venue, The Atwater Library, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Westmount, Quebec, Canada from September 17 to December 10, 2020. See: https://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/exhibitions/current-short-term/

HMS Erebus took part in the Ross expedition of 1839–1843, and was abandoned in 1848 during the third Franklin expedition. The sunken wreck was discovered by the Canadian Victoria Strait expedition in September 2014. In a fascinating series of blog posts Professor Russell Potter reports on several visits to see the process of conservation on recovered artefacts. 

One, particularly, is relevant to daguerriean photography. A metal device sparked Potter's interest. He notes: "I was struck at once by the fact that the square seemed similar in proportion to the Franklin daguerreotypes made by the operator from Richard Beard's firm" and thought it might be to do with plate polishing. The hunch was confirmed by Mike Robinson who confirmed it was part of a device patented by John Johnson in 1841 and known to have been used in Richard Beard's studios. 

Potter concludes: "So now we have something we didn't have before: clear evidence that indeed such an apparatus was aboard HMS "Erebus," and that, assuming it was used as intended, Daguerreotypes were almost certainly made during the expedition. It's only one small step to add to the hope that someday such plates may be recovered; if they are, they'll be the earliest photographs ever taken in the Arctic!"

Read the full, illustrated, blog here: https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/

With thanks to Anne Strathie for the link.

I first joined the forum not long after it began, wanting to know more about the wet collodion process for the novel I was researching. Members of the forum were very helpful - thanks to everyone who responded.  Soon afterwards I did a one-day course in London, taught by Mark and France Scully Osterman, and held at the studio of artist Minnie Weisz.

I'm happy to say that the novel, two years in the making, will be published this week. The Painted Bridge is set in London in 1859 and features an idealistic young photographer inspired by the work of the real-life Dr Hugh Diamond, who made the arresting portraits of patients at the Surrey Asylum in the mid-19th century.

I had more help more recently from forum member Sean McKenna - who very kindly allowed us to use his camera during the filming of a short trailer for the book. We were delighted when Sean said he'd like to make a collodion portrait of the actress, at the end of the shoot. 

This beautiful image was the result.

If anyone's interested, there is more about The Painted Bridge on my website.

Photographs by legendary photographer Harry Hammond celebrating the birth of British rock are part of a new exhibition now on show.  Hammond, who died aged 88, in 2009, was the first great photographer of British rock’n’roll, chronicling the first decade of that music, up to and including the emergence of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

For nearly two decades starting in the late 1940s, Hammond captured the definitive images of virtually every leading British musician, as well as many of the visiting American artists. From Tommy Steele to the Beatles, Shirley Bassey to Dusty Springfield, he captured the emergence of British rock 'n' rollers. First circulated through the New Musical Express, his work set the standard for pop photography for following generations.

Entitled "Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock Photography" , the exhibition comprises over 100 of Hammond's photographs which takes visitors back to the birth of British rock. It includes a great soundtrack and interactives which explore the music, musicians and fashions of the time.  It has been drawn from the from the V&A Theatre and Performance collections.

If you want to get rockin', details of the exhibition can be found here. And an obituary of Hammond can also be read here and here.

Facing Britain brings together for the first time outside of the UK a particular view of British documentary photography. Long forgotten and only recently rediscovered photographers such as John Myers, Tish Murtha or Peter Mitchell who are shown alongside works by internationally photographers such as Martin Parr. The show offers an insight into the development of documentary photography in the UK, which is interwoven with that in continental Europe and North America, but also independent of them.

The documentary aspect is one of the great strengths of British photography, which is capable of depicting a part of geographical Europe in transition in a multifaceted, surprising and artistically original way. Facing Britain focuses on the period of Britain's membership of the European Union and its forerunner between 1963 until 2020. In view of the current Corona pandemic, the exhibition proves to be a break in the artistic development of an entire nation.

The photographers being exhibited include five women photographers, but missing are a number of significant photographers of colour who brought - and bring - a distinctive perspective to British documentary photography and the way in which they approached their subject matter.

Included are: John Bulmer, Rob Bremner, Thom Corbishley, Robert Darch, Anna Fox, Ken Grant, Judy Greenway, Paul Hill, David Hurn, Markéta Luskačová, Kirsty Mackay, Niall McDiarmid, Daniel Meadows, Peter Mitchel, David Moore, Tish Murtha, John Myers, Jon Nicholson, Martin Parr, Paul Reas, Simon Roberts, Dave Sinclair, Homer Sykes, Jon Tonks and others.

The exhibition describes the decline of the coal industry, the Thatcher era with the Falkland conflict, and the Brexit that divided the country. A special focus is on the 1970s and 1980s, which were influenced by David Hurn, Tish Murtha, Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr, when artistic documentary photography gained an importance worldwide. Martin Parr describes these decades as 'a formative period for British photography, in which the strength of the documentary movement really came alive'.

In Great Britain, photography was not considered an autonomous art form until the 1980s. The first major survey exhibition on British documentary photography in Great Britain did not take place until 2007 under the title How We Are: Photographing Britain at the Tate Britain, London. Subsequently, the British Council's exhibition No Such Thing As Society: Photography in Britain 1967-1987 toured the UK, Poland and Sweden from 2008 to 2010.

This late tribute to the pioneers of British documentary photography also demonstrated the difficulties of photography in Britain. British photography, with a few exceptions, had difficulty in asserting itself on the international market, not least because of its socially critical or political content and socially critical approaches, which are unmistakable in the work of Ken Grant, Tish Murtha, Homer Sykes, Paul Reas or Anna Fox.

Facing Britain presents a portrait of  Britain that is divided, unequal and interspersed with classes, but marked by deep affection, humanity and humour. The photographs speak for themselves, bear witness to artistic concepts and attitudes and convey historical contexts. They call for a view of today's United Kingdom beyond the clichés. Inequality and identity are still the key concepts that dominate the nation and define what makes the exhibition more relevant than ever. Previously virulent themes such as youth unemployment, the decline of the mining industry or protest and demonstration against the policies of Margaret Thatcher are historically illuminated in the exhibition and critically questioned by the participating photographers. Recent works by Kirsty Mackay, Paul Reas, Robert Darch or Niall McDiramid also reflect current issues on topics such as gender justice, consumer society, Brexit or migration.

Museum Goch 
Kastellstraße 9
D-47574 Goch
27 September-to 7 November, 2020
https://museum-goch.de/

Catalogue in preparation

The exhibition Facing Britain at Museum Goch is a cooperation with IKS Photo, Düsseldorf.
Curator:  Ralph Goertz