As reported in the blog earlier this year, the world's first commercially produced camera, a daguerreotype, dating from 1839 and bearing the rare signature of its French inventor, sold at auction in Vienna today for a record 732,000 euros (898,000 dollars). It broke the previous record of 576,000 euros, fetched during a Westlicht auction in 2007 for a similar daguerreotype camera made by the Paris company Susse Freres.

The wooden sliding box camera was privately owned by a family of opticians from Braunschweig in northern Germany for generations who had kept the camera in their living room as a decorative object. The 170-year-old apparatus was built in Paris in limited numbers from Jacques Daguerre's original plans by his brother-in-law, Alphonse Giroux.

The daguerreotype, one of only a dozen in the world, all in museums, was put up for sale by the WestLicht auction house in Vienna today (29/5/10), and said that was the highest bid ever for a camera. The winning bid for the historic camera was 610,000 euros, to which was added a 20-percent tax levy, bringing the total price to 732,000 euros. The starting price for the apparatus was 200,000 euros.

The new owner, who requested anonymity, is a collector from the Asian mainland who bid by telephone, said Ema Kaiser, a spokeswoman for the auction house that specializes in vintage photographic equipment.

'Wow, that was cheap,' she quoted him as saying after he had trumped another collector and a museum that were also trying to obtain the Paris-made wooden box camera.

"It is the first time in the world that a daguerreotype bearing Daguerre's signature and made in the Giroux workshop has been offered for sale," WestLicht gallery director Peter Coeln told AFP. The owner who gave the daguerreotype up for auction "had received it as a gift in the 1970s
from his father after receiving his diploma as an optician," Coeln said. Every detail of the daguerreotype including the lens, the plaque signed by Daguerre himself, the black velvet interior and the ground-glass screen are in their original state, WestLicht said.

The Giroux-made daguerreotype is known for having a golden plaque on it
stating that "no apparatus is guaranteed unless it has the signature of
M. Daguerre and the stamp of M. Giroux." The pioneering camera also came
with a user's manual, written in German and edited in 1839 by the
publishing house Georg Gropius in Berlin.

This effect was liberalising. The invention and proliferation of photography during the second half of the nineteenth century created a revolution in representation, particularly in the way that people chose to represent themselves. While painted portraits were the preserve of the well-to-do, photography democratised the art of portraiture, opening it up to anyone wishing to celebrate, document and preserve the likenesses of loved-ones and intimates. Surviving photographic portraits from this era – from the hauntingly intense faces captured in daguerreotypes of the 1840s, and ambrotypes of individuals, couples and family groups - including the coloured ambrotype of Thomas Glaister, ca 1858 - to those popularised by the cartes de visite of later decades including the coloured ambrotypes by Thomas Glaister, ca 1858, to those popularised by the cartes de visite of later decades.They all reveal both of the technical developments in the medium of photography and of the sensibilities and attitudes of the people they depict.

A gem-like exhibition of examples of early portrait photography, the exhibition also includes drawings, paintings, miniatures and silhouettes in an exhibition charting an easily obscured but nevertheless intriguing aspect of Australian history.

Husbands & Wives will be held until 11th July 2010 at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. (Yes, the one in Australia, and not in London!). However, with the marvels of the internet, you can watch an ABC news review of this exhibition here. And if that video clip entices you to make that trip half-way round the world, details of the exhibition can be found in the 'Events' section.

Photo: Ambrotype by Thomas Glaister ca 1858

Mark Haworth-Booth describes on his blog..."An early copy of my book on Camille Silvy arrived from the National Portrait Gallery. We sat on the sofa and looked through every page. It is wonderful! I won't get my other copies until June. This is my finale as a photo-historian and I'm thrilled with it."

The Silvy exhibition will take place at the National Portrait Gallery later this year - it promises to be the exhibition of the year for me and many others...

Mark's blog here: http://markhaworthboothblog.blogspot.com/ is a joy to read...

Elizabeth Edwards is directing a HERA Funded Project 'Photographs, Colonial Legacy And Museums In Contemporary European Culture' PhotoCLEC, University Of The Arts London

A leading collaborative research project with University of Bergen and VU University Amsterdam, HERA's "Cultural Dynamics: Inheritance and Identity" strand will examine the ways in which museums reflect and respond to varieties of colonial experiences and their specific visual legacies. It will focus especially on their attempts to interpret colonial photograph collections in ways relevant to contemporary post-colonial European societies. You will contribute to the collaborative comparative analysis and to the project's overall analysis and outputs by undertaking research in the 'case study' institutions and be involved with the on-going planning and development of the project and with the organisation of project meetings and events.

All prospective candidates will have a PhD in Anthropology, Modern/Contemporary History, Museology, or related discipline, with demonstrable interest in at least two of the following: visual material, preferably photographs, museums, colonial and/or post-colonial histories, cultural identities. The post holder must be self-motivating and able to work independently within the projects' overall themes and collaborative framework. In addition, the post requires excellent 'people skills', data management experience and an ability to work across disciplines. Fieldwork and/or archival experience would be an advantage.

You will be based at the London College of Communication (SE1) in a unique opportunity to work actively with major collaborative project and with an experienced team from three European universities. The post requires travel and 'away from home work' within UK and to group meetings in Europe.

In return, we offer a competitive employment package including a salary that reflects working in London; annual leave; a final salary pension scheme; and a commitment to your continuing personal and career development in an environment that encourages creativity, diversity and excellence.

Salary: £30,871 pro rata / 0.8 Research Officer / (18 month fixed term appointment)

University of the Arts London is a vibrant world centre for innovation, drawing together six Colleges with international reputations in art, design, fashion, communication and performing arts.

Closing date: 1st June 2010

Interview date: 14th June 2010

If you have any queries about this role that are not covered in the documentation available please contact Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Senior Research Fellow at LCC and Principal Investigator on the project, email: e.edwards@lcc.arts.ac.uk.

Please visit http://jobs.arts.ac.uk to download an application pack or alternatively please contact Eve Waring, Research Office, telephone: 020 7514 8437 E-mail: e.waring@lcc.arts.ac.uk

www.arts.ac.uk/jobs

University of the Arts London aims to be an equal opportunities employer embracing diversity in all areas of activity.

On 28 May 2010 the Museum of London unveils its spectacular £20 million Galleries of Modern London.

Amateur Photographer magazine reports that the National Media Museum has received government approval to open a London base. A spokesperson for the Bradford-based museum said this afternoon: 'We have received approval from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for this project.'

Last night, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC's Newsnight that 'none' of the DCMS's budgets are protected in light of the cutbacks expected to be outlined by the new Government.

Asked whether the museum is concerned that any cutbacks may scupper the London plan, the spokesperson told us: 'We are continuing to follow our fundraising strategy which is not reliant on Government funding, so be assured we will be in touch as and when it's appropriate.'

Read the report here: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/Government_approves_photography_museums_London_plan_news_297963.html

A wealth of vital information about the early days of photography could be unearthed by a computer program which mimics human decision-making. De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has amassed a collection of hundreds of exhibition catalogues containing invaluable information about individual photographs but the images themselves are missing as the catalogues were printed before the technology existed to reproduce pictures alongside the descriptions.

DMU’s Professor Stephen Brown and Professor Robert John are investigating a form of computational intelligence known as fuzzy logic to see if it is possible to match these catalogue entries with photographs in online collections owned by museums.

Professor Brown, of the Faculty of Art and Design, said: “Many of the photographs in question appear to have survived and are increasingly accessible online through museum and gallery web sites, however precise associations between particular exhibits and images are not always clear.”

Software using fuzzy logic is able to suggest possible connections based on vague information. It mimics the human approach to problem solving but arrives at a decision much more quickly than people do.

Uniting the catalogue records with their original photographs would provide researchers with an important primary resource.

Professor Stephen Brown said: “Photographic history research is important in a range of areas of study, including social, political, economical, scientific and architectural studies. “For example, Sir Benjamin Stone, who was MP for Birmingham, was a keen photographer and collector. He was able to photograph many leading scientists, politicians and dignitaries and significant historical and royal occasions – such as the funeral of Queen Victoria. He was one of the first people allowed to take photos in the Houses of Parliament and if not for him, we wouldn’t have pictures of many important visitors to Parliament during that time. The information we can gain from this project could be useful in so many ways. It could tell us about the types of people who were taking photos at that time, the subjects that were popular, the techniques that people used to develop their images, and how ideas were diffused through society.”

Professor Robert John, Head of the Centre for Computational Intelligence and a world-leading expert in fuzzy logic, said: “Using fuzzy logic will allow photographs to be analysed and compared with the catalogue information very quickly. “The benefits of this type of technology are that it can make decisions much more quickly than humans and it is not restricted to a simple ‘match’/’no match’ answer.”

In straightforward cases, photographs and catalogue information could be matched by name, title and other details, however, the majority of cases are more complicated. Professor Brown added: “Some of the records in the catalogues are rather vague. For instance, you might have the name, but the only address given is ‘London’. If a photograph is then found with the same name but the photographer’s address is given as ‘Blackheath’ then is that the same person? It could well be but further examination is needed. Some photos were exhibited more than once over different years, and that’s fine as long as the same details are recorded for both, but very often this isn’t the case. That’s why it’s not a simple matter of matching the details of photographer X and photograph Y.”

He added: “It wasn’t uncommon for a photographer to sell or loan prints to other people who then exhibit that work under their own name, not claiming to be the photographer, just the exhibitor. There might be a photo floating around online that is listed under the photographer’s name, while we only have the exhibitor’s details.

“We could get a group of photographic experts to examine the images and the catalogue entries in order to match them up, but it would take years and would be prohibitively expensive.”

Researchers will first carry out an exploratory study to investigate the potential of using fuzzy logic to match images with the descriptions in the catalogues. If it proves to be a success, researchers hope it will be extended to a full project which will see online photo collections from museums and galleries around the world scanned for possible matches.

DMU has two online collections of catalogue records from photographic exhibitions:

Photographic Exhibitions in Britain 1839 – 1865 – see http://peib.dmu.ac.uk
Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870 – 1915 – see http://erps.dmu.ac.uk

Further information can be found here and here.