Blogs

Yep - just as you thought it was safe, here comes another one .....

The Belfast Telegraph has been reporting the news of Northern Ireland and recording the lives of the people who have lived there for more than a century, amassing a picture archive that is unmatched in its beauty and its breadth.  You can view/buy them at this site here, or if you're on the cheap, like me, you can buy their print edition from Monday 11 to Friday 15 June, whereby free photo supplements showing pictures of the decades that shaped Northern Ireland will be given away!

Media Space, delivered collaboratively by the Science Museum, London and the National Media Museum, Bradford, is the Science Museum’s new space for adults, opening in Spring 2013. It will present an engaging series of exhibitions, accompanied by a creative learning programme.

Media Space will allow audiences to explore old and new media across all technologies, their artistic and scientific outputs and implications, within a specially developed experimental gallery.

To support the development of this project, the museum is seeking a skilled and imaginative Audience and Programme Developer. 

9 month full-time fixed term contract. Freelance arrangements may also be considered.

Closing date Midnight Sunday 24 June  2012.  Interviews will be held at the Science Museum during week of 2nd July 2012.

Salary: £21,000 - £23,000 per annum pro rata

Purpose of the job

By conducting research into the needs, wants and expectations of the target audience, and building relationships with key organisations, institutions and individuals that reflect and engage them, you will develop and implement the creative learning programme for the first three seasons in Media Space.

The creative learning programme will focus particularly on engaging FE/HE students and their course leaders.

Key Deliverables/Accountabilities

1. An audience development strategy, based on evidence-based research, with which to build the FE/HE & culturally active independent adult audience, detailing the needs, wants and expectations of the target audience and the purposeful partnerships that form a route to this audience. This plan will be derived from face-to-face research, sectoral intelligence and desk-based findings
2. A fully-costed creative learning programme in support of the vision for Media Space, for the first three seasons, which would include main gallery exhibitions and studio/workshop displays, that has been shaped by the audience research conducted and delivers to the audience development strategy
3. Input into the decisions about the physical space and logistics in order to ensure that the spaces work for the audiences.
4. A costed plan for the resources necessary for the successful delivery of the creative learning programme over next 5 years, including existing Museum staff time and volunteers.
5. Develop a strong network, internally and externally, that increases the Museum’s knowledge of other sector-leading practice in the field of creative learning & programming for adults and initiates partnerships through which the future programme can be delivered.
6. To take care of personal health and safety and that of others and report any health and safety concerns.  Ensure proactive compliance with SMG H&S Policies, including risk assessments and implementing safe systems of work

Behaviours

• Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
• Anticipate/recognise changes in circumstances and able to respond quickly and effectively.
• Outcome-focussed
• Professional, with proven ability to work on own and with a broad range of people especially external partners. 
• Able to effectively create buy-in for work being conducted, good communication with different team members.
• Able to work on own and as part of a multi-disciplinary team

Skills, Knowledge and Relevant Qualifications

• Experience of devising engaging creative learning programmes for adult audiences
• Knowledge of creative learning programming by major cultural organisations
• A practical understanding of the principles of audience development, gained through professional work i.e. formulating plans, identifying objectives, engaging with target audiences.
• Excellent communication skills, verbal and written
• Proven ability to devise and implement evaluation and research strategies
• Knowledge of policy and research in the fields of audience engagement; participation; museums & galleries; FE & HE; creative industries
• Understanding of how visitors learn in Museums and other free choice environments
• Understanding of audiences: their wants, needs, expectations

Working Relationships and Contacts

Internal

• With the Science Museum Head of Arts Projects and National Media Museum Curator of Photographs to ensure that that the creative learning programme fits with the overarching creative ethos of Media Space
• With the Project Leader and Head of Learning Resources & Outreach (line manager) to ensure planned programme can be resourced
• With the Head of Audience Research & Advocacy to ensure that the research strategy is robust and the resultant programme is suitable for target audience; and to ensure that learning is embedded in all aspects of the project
• With Head of Learning Resources & Outreach and Head of Audience Research & Advocacy to ensure learning input matches learning business plan and philosophy
• With the Project Leader to ensure high quality delivery on brief, on time and on budget
• With Project Leader to secure staff resource for activities
• With the project team and wider museum to share intelligence about targeted audience groups
• With web team and new media team to develop any digital activities
• With Marketing to develop a marketing strategy for the space
• With Finance/Management Accounts – to ensure effective use of resources
• With Learning Support Team Leader to agree logistics for group bookings

External

• To contribute to regular updates and reports to the gallery funders and other stakeholders
• With target audience and organisations/institutions that represent and engage them (e.g. independent adults; FE & HE sector; )
• To work with other major institutions that attract independent adult visitors, to explore potential collaboration
• With external contractors to deliver specified materials/workshops/learning products

Line Management and Budget Responsibility

Directly line manages: 0

Indirectly line manages: 0

Contractors/freelancers: 1-3 varying over the course of the project.

Scope for impact

• Media Space will be central to the strategy to grow the adult audience at the Science Museum and shape the perception of the Museum for these audiences
• Extending Science Museum reach and profile in engaging adults in a creative learning programme

Please note:

• This job description is not exhaustive and amendments and additions may be required in line with future changes in policy, regulation or organisational requirements, it will be reviewed on a regular basis.

A new photo archive, run by both the National Museum and the National Library of Wales, is now available online. This bilingual site, which has a collection of over 38,000 items, shows how the high streets in Wales looked before they came to be dominated by national chain stores.

Organisers of the collection are hoping people in villages, towns and cities across Wales will upload content to help reflect the social changes on the nation’s high streets. You can view the archive here.

Do any of you recognize this unknown British stereophotographer who did a 200-card series up the Nile c.1868-1870?  I call him the "Canary" photographer because of the yellow mounts, but they have no publisher or backlabel.  High quality with interesting legends, so might be someone significant.  It has been suggested that it is Francis Wentham, who accompanied Frith on his first Nile trip, but these are a tad too late.  Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Here is a full card and blowup of some Europeans seen in other images. 

Several years ago I came into possession of two tin trunks that were found in the attic of an old house in my hometown of Sarnia, ON.  One trunk was full of correspondence and the other was full of glass and film negatives.  After much reading and additional research, I was able to identify the photographer as being Royal Naval Commander Arthur FitzGerald Cochrane (1888-1967), the son of William Edward Cochrane (1858-1929) and Evelyn (1858-1908). 

William Cochrane was a part-owner of a cattle ranch near Calgary, Alberta, Canada and the Cochranes spent their time between Britain and Canada, where Arthur was born.  Arthur received his early education at Ashdown House, then continued at The Limes, where he trained as a cadet.  The majority of the negatives I have cover his time as a cadet.  He was quite a prolific photographer and in most cases, my scans could be better.

Here are a few examples:

Chiswick Auctions has a copy of Coburn's New York with a forward by H G Wells coming up on 12 June.  The detailed description is here: COBURN, Alvin Langdon (1882-1966, photographer). New York ... With a Foreword by H. G. Wells. London: Duckworth & Co., and New York: Brentano's, [1909]. Folio (408 x 308mm). Half title, 20 photogravure plates by Alvin Langdon Coburn, mounted on thick grey paper (some light spotting to text leaves, but photogravures unaffected). Original calf-backed grey paper boards, the upper cover lettered in gilt (some fading to gilt lettering, dampstain at corner, joints splitting, extremities rubbed), grey dust-jacket lettered in black (torn with some loss to backstrip). "The photogravures in this volume are from plates prepared by the artist, and printed under his personal supervision" (printed note beneath the List of Plates). "Posterity will owe much to Mr. Coburn, so that I hesitate to call the series of studies he has made of the beauty of contemporary cities the chief thing for which his memory will be honoured; but certainly his record of urban effects will be a greatly valued legacy" (from H. G. Wells' Foreword). The subjects of the photogravures are as folows: 1. The Metropolitan Tower. 2. Brooklyn Bridge, from a Roof-Top. 3. The Battery. 4. Williamsburg Bridge. 5. The Holland House. 6. Broadway at Night. 7. Brooklyn Bridge, from the River. 8. The Flat-Iron. 9. The Water Front. 10. The Singer Building, Noon. 11. The Ferry. 12. The Tunnel-Builders. 13. The Knickerbocker Trust Company. 14. The Chinese Quarter. 15. The Unfinished Bridge. 16. The Singer Building, Twilight. 17. The Stock Exchange. 18. Fifth Avenue, from The Regis. 19. The Sky-Line. 20. The Park Row Building. Truthful Lens 36.  Estimate: 5000-8000

For more information contact: http://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/catalogues/as120612/page7.html

The imminent move of the city’s photographic archive to a new purpose-built facility provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the complex interrelationship between photography, the archive and the city. It is with this in mind, and informed by debates about the changing nature of photography in the digital age, that Birmingham City University and Birmingham Central Library are collaborating to present a series of free, public conversations with some of the world’s leading photographers, curators, historians and theorists of photography to share their ideas and experiences of working with photography and the archive in order to situate local debates in a global context.

Monday 25th June 2012, 6.00pm 
Library Theatre, off Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ 
The Shadow of a Dark Horse in Low Light – Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin 

This talk will focus on the artists’ practice of working with and responding to historical photographs and collections. Broomberg and Chanarin explore the task of the artist to disturb the ordered categories of the archive, uncovering hidden gestures and narratives and reactivating cultural memory.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin are artists living and working in London. Their latest book War Primer 2 is published by MACK (2011). They teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York, are Visiting Fellows at the University of the Arts London and will be running a semester at ZHdK in Zurich this autumn.

Thursday 28th June 2012, 6.00pm 
Library Theatre, off Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ 
On Becoming the Magnum Archive – Alison Nordström

The talk will examine the transition of the Magnum ‘picture library’ from its original status as a collec.on of images and a tool for doing business to a photographic ‘archive’ housed at the University of Texas. In doing so it tracks the parallel shift in thinking about photography that has taken place over recent decades, accompanied by the digital turn.

Alison Nordstrom is Curator of Photographs, George Eastman House, Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York. She has curated over 100 exhibitions of photography including major surveys of landscape, portraiture, travel photographs and journalism.

Joining Alison to discuss the issues raised in her talk will be Nick Galvin, former Archive Director, Magnum Photos, London

This series is organised by the Birmingham Photography and Archive Research Group, BIAD, Birmingham City University in conjunction with the photography archives at Birmingham Central Library. Further talks in the series are planned for Autumn 2012.

A Victorian album  showing local people, ranging from the local barber to policeman, dressed in their Sunday best, and local scenes in Bala and Llanuwchllyn around the 1860s will be up for auction. Found in a lady's attic in Shropshire, the images are marked as taken by a local photographer - Edward Williams - although some of the prints note he was based in Bala, whilst others state his studio was in Llanrwst.

The album will be auctioned off at Mullock's Ltd in Church Stretton, Shropshire, on 28 June, with an estimate of around £500. Details can be found here.

I have just produced a small monograph on the life of John Edward Saché; one of the more important photographers working in 19th century India.  From the mid-1860s through until his death in 1882, he operated a variety of studios, in towns across northern India, and in that time, produced well over 1000 fine topographical views, architectural and portrait studies. 

This booklet documents his life and work; illustrated with a range of newly discovered portraits of him, pictures of his studios, and personal photographs of his wife and family; as well as an extensive catalogue of over 500 of  his published topographical photographs. Full details are available on my web site:

http://web.me.com/hughashleyrayner/pagodatreepress.com/John_Saché.html