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Early scientific ‘photographs of the invisible’ — from x-ray to photomicrography, motion studies to pictures of electrical charges — have had a profound effect on the development of modern and contemporary art.  Bringing together world-renowned artists, curators and academics, and coinciding with the final days of Revelations: Experiments in Photography, this one-day symposium examines the importance of early scientific photography for the creative arts and the ways in which its meanings have shifted across time and space.

Speakers include:

• John Blakinger, Stanford University / National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
• Marta Braun, Ryerson University
• Ben Burbridge, University of Sussex / co-curator Revelations
• Ori Gersht, artist
• Marek Kukula, Royal Observatory Greenwich
• Corey Keller, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Sarah Pickering, artist
• Kelley Wilder, De Montfort University  

Panels will be chaired by: Greg Hobson (National Media Museum / co-curator Revelations); David Alan Mellor (University of Sussex); and Sean O’Hagan (The Guardian).

Organised in collaboration with the Centre for the Visual, University of Sussex.

Beyond Vision: Art, Photography and Science
12 September 2015
10:30 – 17:30

£15 adult/ £12.50 senior/ £10 concessions

For more information and to book tickets visit the Science Museum website here.

Saturday June 27th saw the opening of a retrospective exhibition in the Gregynog Gallery, National Library of Wales featuring photographs and material from the archive of Philip Jones Griffiths. Best known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and its aftermath he also served as President of Magnum from 1980 to 1985. His archive is now lodged at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. On display are in excess of 100 photographs including unseen prints from his visits to Vietnam which culminated in the publication of Vietnam Inc in 1971.

The exhibition contains biographical information, archive documents, cameras, personal effects and material from his personal library. In many instances photographs are displayed alongside the relevant contact sheet.There is also a bunker containing a digital 'slide show' of further images from Vietnam Inc as well as a darkroom featuring a short audio commentary on six of his best known images from Vietnam.  Much of Griffiths' work in Vietnam was shot on colour slide film and there is an opportunity to see some of his best known images in both colour and black and white.

His work subsequent to Vietnam is explored through a selection of sixty colour prints exploring the depth and breadth of his photography.

The exhibition is a joint exhibition between the National Library of Wales and the Philip Jones Griffiths Foundation for the Study of War. It runs until December 12th 2015.

Poster%20PJG.pdf

Biblioteca Nacional de España has organised an exhibition curated by Helena Pérez Gallardo, Delfín Rodríguez Ruiz titled Looking at Architecture. Monumental Photography in the XIX Century. It runs from 3 July-4 October 2015 in Madrid at the Biblioteca Nacional de España.  

Since the birth of the daguerreotype, buildings and monuments have been one of the main objects photographed. This exhibition intends to reveal the different links that connected photography, architecture and engineering in the nineteenth century through a broad investigation into the holdings of the National Library of Spain and accompanied by works of great importance belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Prado National Museum, among other institutions.

The exhibition, which is divided into six sessions that include over two hundred works, will use treatises, engravings and albums to explain what the representation of architecture was like up to that moment and why there emerged a need to reproduce architecture in Europe, to then respond to the reasons that motivated the choice of the works and monuments to be photographed, concluding with what was the main destination for all of these photographs. In short, Looking at Architecture intends to show the how, why, when, who, what for and for what reason photography of architecture was produced, and particularly what where the characteristics of its practice in Spain.

It is accompanied by a book of the same title. 

Biblioteca Nacional de España
Paseo de Recoletos, 20-22
28071 Madrid

Mar-Sab / Tue-Sat: 10.00 – 20.00 h
Dom, Fest / Sun, Hol: 10.00 – 14.00 h

Entrada / Admission: Gratuita / Free

Metro: Metro: Serrano / Colón

More info: www.bne.es

Edinburgh International Book Festival is presenting Alison Morrison-Low and Sara Stevenson, curators of the National Museums of Scotland major exhibition (and associated publication) Photography: A Victorian Sensiation at a special event on 18 August. In an age where we are all happy snappers, we forget the photographic revolution that took place in 19th century Britain. Join the National Museum of Scotland’s curator A D Morrison-Low (pictured, right) and Sara Stevenson, formerly chief curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, to discover how the Victorian craze for the photograph transformed the way we capture images today and mirrors our own modern-day fascination for recording the world around us. Chaired by Ruth Wishart. Book here. 

In addition, the Museum is also hosting a series of events around the exhibition including a history of photography short course, a lecture on stereoscopy by Denis Pellerin and a symposium on Scottish photography. See all the events here.

Details of the symposiuum programme which includes presentations from John Falconer, Roger Taylor, Anne Lyden, Helen James, Mary Panzer, Sara Stevenson and Ray McKenzie can be seen here.

A treasure trove of materials relating to John Logie Baird’s first-ever transmission of trans-Atlantic television pictures is at risk of being exported unless a UK buyer can be found to match the £78,750 asking price. In order to provide a last chance to keep the archive in the UK, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on the items in the hope a UK buyer can be found in the time permitted. BPH understands that a UK museum is looking in to the possibility of finding the funds to acquire the material. 

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said:

Britain led the world in the development of television technology in the 1920’s, all due to the pioneering work of John Logie Baird and his colleagues. It belongs in Britain where it would be of huge importance for the study of the history of television, and I hope a UK buyer will come forward to save it for the nation.

Between November 1926 and April 1927 – John Logie Baird and his assistant, Benjamin Clapp developed the idea of rigging up a receiving station and television receiver in America and transmitting pictures over telephone lines from Baird’s laboratories in London, to Clapp’s house in Surrey and from there (where there was a powerful transmitter station), by wireless to the East Coast of the United States of America.

The archive is comprised of: Benjamin Clapp’s radio log books for the USA receiving station and his amateur radio station (GK2Z) used in the transmission, related paper ephemera, and a gramophone “Phonovision” disc (SWT515-4), containing an early video recording made on 20th September 1927. It is the only known Phonovision disc which depicts images of ‘Stookie Bill’, one of Baird’s famous ventriloquist dummies which is in the collection of the National Media Museum. It is the earliest Phonovision disc in existence, and thus the world’s earliest surviving video recording.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey took the decision to defer granting an export licence for the items following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), administered by Arts Council England. The RCEWA made their recommendation on the grounds that the items are closely connected with our history and national life and that they are of outstanding significance for the study of the history of national and international television and for our wider understanding of twentieth century communications.

RCEWA Member Christopher Rowell said:

The Columbia disc and the notes connected with this world first of a transantlantic video recording represents British ingenuity and invention at the highest level. The notes contain the first ever use of the acronym ‘TV’ for television. The excitement of the achievement rests in these objects, which we hope will remain in this country as a permanent testament to Logie Baird and his team. Their departure abroad would also be a serious loss to scholarship.

The decision on the export licence application for the phonovision disc and ephemera will be deferred for a period ending on 28 September 2015 inclusive. This period may be extended until 28 December 2015 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase the items is made at the recommended price of £78,750.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, is currently seeking a freelance consultant lecturer for the MA in Photography (Historical and Contemporary). The Programme Director is Dr Juliet Hacking. The consultant lecturer will take on the role of Programme Unit Leader and lead tutor for ‘Contemporary Photography, 1968 until now’, a 30 credit unit, for the academic year 2015-16. The teaching will take place one day per week in Semesters One and Two (with occasion commitments on other days). The successful candidate will be paid according to a day rate, with a contract specifying the total number of days to be worked. Applicants must have a PhD in a relevant field and the ability to work in the UK.

For further information/to apply for the role, please send a CV and covering letter by midday on 10th July 2015 to vacancies@sothebysinstitute.com

While at Schwartzenberg, Austria earlier this week for the annual Schubertiade, I was struck by the exhibition of ‘Art Photography’ by Peter Mathis, held in a room adjacent to the concert hall.  Mathis is an Austrian born in 1961.  His work is striking and very beautiful, seeming to be lithographs or paintings but photograph they are.  To quote from his website www.mathis-photographs.com ‘Since 2009 he has become more immersed in landscape photography and producing large format works. Regardless of the type of picture, the authenticity of his work plays a prominent role for Peter Mathis. His essential design elements are light and structure. Light reflected by the object should be optimized so that it serves the overall structure and composition of the image. A picture therefore is not a simple reproduction of a predetermined motif, but instead is developed with the camera while on site. He refuses any simulation of artificial light moods or movements on the computer that are not reproducible in a physical sense. He is only interested in “true” nature, that which we can actually experience, instead of computer generated artifices.  Many of his works aim to recognize and capture the fleeting nature of the moment, such as the photo of the Alps, above.’

This exhibition showcases Historic England's photographic collections, which date from the 1850s to the present day. Photographers have taken pictures of England's buildings and landscapes since photography was first invented. These photographs were taken for many reasons – to capture the picturesque, to make a living, to promote or condemn, or to record what is disappearing or is normally hidden. Collectively these images have changed the way we see and understand our environment.

A book of the same title has also been published. It features over 300 striking photographs from the Historic England Archive, an unparalleled collection of 9 million images on England's buildings and landscapes from the 1850s to the present. Viewed collectively, its photographic collections record the changing face of England from the beginning of photography to the present day. They form a remarkable national asset, a huge memory bank that helps us understand and interpret the past, informs the present and assists with future management and appreciation of the historic environment.

With informative essays and captions by the authors, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in photography, architecture, archaeology or social history.

Picturing England: The photographic collections of Historic England by Mike Evans, Gary Winter & Ann Woodward. £45.00, 344pp. ISBN 978-1-84802-099-3. Read more or order here.

Picturing England: The photographic collections of Historic England on show at:
Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square: 2 July 2015 – 21 September 2015

In a sign of growing confidence for the future of Bradford's National Media Museum and the start of the realisation of the Museum's exciting development plan the Science Museum Group is seeking an architec/lead designer for a new interactive gallery which will look at light, sound and perception, the basis of all the Museum's technology collections.

The winning team will oversee the design and construction of a new exhibition space. According to the contract notice: ‘This commission is intended to appoint a design practice that is able to provide architectural/gallery design services, but also help procure, manage and lead a team of specialist designers under the guidance of the external project manager...The lead designer will be expected to coordinate their own design, along with the design input of their team of specialist designers, with the 30 interactive exhibits designed and procured separately by the client team.’

The opening of the gallery is expected to be December 2016 and the value of construction work is anticipated to be £520,000, which does not include the cost of purchasing exhibits which will come from the Museum's collection.

The announcement comes after Bradford Council and the Science Museum Group pledged £1 million each towards improvements at the high-profile museum. The Museum has developed an exciting plan for its future although it depends on securing funding. 

The deadline for for submission of tenders is 17 July. See: http://sciencemuseum.mytenders.org/Search/Show/Search_View.aspx?ID=JUN110530

The V&A last night opened Captain Linnaeus Tripe Photographer of India and Burma 1852-1860. William Dalrymple and Museum Director Martin Roth introduced the exhibition which features some of the earliest and most striking views of the landscape and architecture of India and Burma, by a pioneering British photographer. It forms part of the V&A India Festival.

The exhibition was co-curated by Emeritus Professor Roger Taylor (shown below with Martin Roth) and is accompanied by a superb publication.   

See more here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/captain-linneaus-tripe-photographer-of-india-and-burma-1852-1860/

Every so often BPH comes across something that looks interesting or harks back to photographic history in some way. The Lumigraphe is a camera obscura which combines the functionality of your smartphone's camera to take photographs... no need for sensitised photogenic drawing paper. Just think what Talbot could have done with it... Plus you can use it with sensitised paper too.

In the words of the designer: 'The Lumigraphe is a camera obscura for your smartphone that authentically captures the beautiful effects of this historic optical device. Photos and videos shot with the Lumigraphe have a distinct look defined by beautiful color saturation and a soft, dream-like focus. The natural grain and delicate vignette create a quality that feels like film - with a depth and texture beyond anything you can make with a digital filter.' As they so no need for Instagram filters, this is all real life and real world...

It may look a but cumbersome but maybe smaller models or even a reflex model can be designed. 

You can read more about it here - and there's only until 6 July to make sure the project is funded: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lumigraphe/lumigraphe-a-camera-obscura-for-your-smartphone?ref=nav_search

and if you want a conventional pinhole camera then check out the ONDU here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ondu-/ondu-pinhole-cameras-mk-ii?ref=nav_search

The Guardian newspaper (18 June 2015) ran a story from the National Museums of Scotland which has put a call out to identify the family shown in a series of tintypes.

The photographs of the ‘Margate family’ come from the collection of Bernard Howarth-Loomes, and it is thought they were bought as a set. Lettering on the small boy’s bucket in one of the images determined that the resort was Margate, in Kent. Can you help? See the images here.

They are included in 
Photography: A Victorian Sensation is at the National Museums of Scotland 19 June-22 November

All photographs: Kodak Collection/National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library.

In preparation for the National Museum of Scotland's photography exhibition Photography. A Victorian Sensation a number of items from Talbot in the museum's collection had to be conserved. You can read a museum blog posting relating to this here. 

Details of the exhibition where you can see the Talbots are here.

Professor Larry Schaaf opened the University of Lincoln’s conference titled ‘Rethinking Early Photography last night and told the story of The Quillan Leaf (see BPH, passim) and presented his own views of the story without, perhaps, responding directly to the more outlandish claims of Sotheby's and the press about the financial value of the image (multi millions) and its alleged rewriting of the history of photography (links to Wedgwood and 1800). Schaaf does present his research which shows a link to Ham Green and a new name to early photography Sarah Anne Bright.

You can read a summary on the William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisoneé blog. Hopefully there will be further presentations of the talk and Lincoln will be making a video of the full talk online shortly. 

See: http://foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/blog/

Two new exhibitions devoted to the Julia Margaret Cameron open later this year – the bicentenary of her birth - in London’s Media Space at the Science Museum and at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Science Museum exhibition, which will include the only existing print of her iconic portrait Iago, is drawn entirely from the world’s largest collection of Cameron’s photographs, held in the National Photography Collection - including The Royal Photographic Society Collection.

Exploring the vibrant life and genius of the trailblazing British artist, the exhibition will feature unique objects including a daguerreotype portrait (the first known image of Cameron) and her camera lens (the only piece of her photographic equipment known to survive) from the RPS Collection. Also on display will be handwritten notes from the original manuscript of her autobiography Annals of My Glass House, personal letters by Cameron and others and a selection of extremely rare photographs taken in Sri Lanka during her final years.

 A key element of the exhibition will be one of the National Photography Collection’s greatest assets: The Herschel Album, compiled by Cameron in 1864 as her finest work to date and a gift to her friend and mentor, the scientist and photographer Sir John Herschel. Representing for many the finest album of Victorian photography, it was the first photographic item to be placed under an export ban and saved for the nation in 1975. This marked a major milestone in the classification of photography as art and vindicated Cameron’s artistic aspirations for her medium.

The V&A will showcase more than 100 of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs from the Museum’s collection. The exhibition will offer a retrospective of Cameron’s work and examine her relationship with the V&A’s founding director, Sir Henry Cole, who in 1865 presented her first museum exhibition and the only one during her lifetime. Cameron sold and gave many photographs to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and 150 years after first exhibiting her work, the Museum will display highlights of Cameron’s output, including original prints acquired directly from the artist and a selection of her letters to Henry Cole. Cole’s 1865 diary will be on view, along with the only surviving Cameron portrait of Cole. The exhibition will also include the first photograph to be identified of Cameron’s studio, which has never before been exhibited.

Cameron’s bold portraits of influential artistic and literary friends, acquaintances and family members including Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, William Holman Hunt and several striking photographs of her niece Julia Jackson, mother of Virginia Woolf, both revolutionised photography and immortalised the Victorian age. Her purposefully unconventional approach, using a lack of sharp focus and technical faults to harness photography’s expressive power, instilled feeling and energy into her images and became a hallmark of her style despite fierce criticism from the photographic press.

Kate Bush, Head of Photography, Science Museum Group said: ‘Julia Margaret Cameron is deservedly regarded as one of the founding figures of modern photographic portraiture. The range of her work, from tender, naturalistic observation, to dramatic staged tableaux, anticipates every subsequent approach to the genre. Her closely framed faces, bold, expressive and minimal, are as radical and visionary as the woman who created them.’

Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy will run from 24 September 2015 to 28 March 2016 in the Virgin Media Studio, Media Space, Science Museum, London. Full details of the exhibition and its events programme can be found at www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/mediaspace

Julia Margaret Cameron will show at the V&A from 28 November 2015–21 February 2016 in Gallery 100. It is accompanied by a book by curator Marta Weiss. See more here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/julia-margaret-cameron/about-the-exhibition/

Images: 
Top: Julia Margaret Cameron, William Michael Rossetti, 1865.  © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Above: Henry Herschel Hay Cameron, Julia Margaret Cameron, c. 1870. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

African photography has emerged as a significant focus of research and scholarship over the last twenty years, the result of a growing interest in postcolonial societies and cultures and a turn towards visual evidence across the humanities and social sciences. At the same time, many rich and fascinating photographic collections have come to light. 

This volume (Bloomsbury, 2015), edited by Christopher Morton and Darren Newbury, explores the complex theoretical and practical issues involved in the study of African photographic archives, based on case studies drawn from across the continent dating from the 19th century to the present day. Chapters consider what constitutes an archive, from the familiar mission and state archives to more local, vernacular and personal accumulations of photographs; the importance of a critical and reflexive engagement with photographic collections; and the question of where and what is 'Africa', as constructed in the photographic archive. 

Essential reading for all researchers working with photographic archives, this book consolidates current thinking on the topic and sets the agenda for future research in this field. 

See more and order here.

The mystery surrounding the identity of a girl, known only as ‘Christina’, has been solved after her striking 102-year-old colour portraits were seen around the world, including on BPH. The images are part of The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, and three are currently on show in the exhibition Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection (National Media Museum, Bradford, until June 21).

Initially, Christina was thought to be the daughter of Mervyn O’Gorman, the amateur photographer who took the shots. But research showed O’Gorman had no children, meaning her true identity remained a mystery, until now.

As a result of seeing the images, Mr Stephen Riddle contacted National Media Museum curator Colin Harding to say he had a set of stereoscopic slides by Mervyn O’Gorman, which had been passed to him by his father-in-law. The slides feature colour autochrome pictures not previously seen by anyone at the Museum.

Captions on the slides refer to Edwyn and Daisy Bevan, along with ‘the children’, Anne and Christina, picturing them in various locations including the beach at West Lulworth and outside an address in Chelsea Embankment.

Colin Harding, Curator of Photographs and Photographic Technology at the National Media Museum, said: “We are very grateful to Mr Riddle for contacting us and it was a genuine thrill to see these images. After all the recent attention Christina had been getting I hoped they would give us sufficient clues to finally confirm her identity. It turns out Christina wasn’t O’Gorman’s daughter. Indeed, she wasn’t a relative – either close or distant.

“Christina’s full name was Christina Elizabeth Frances Bevan. She was born in Harrow on 8 March, 1897 and died in 1981. Christina was the daughter of Edwyn Robert Bevan (1870-1943), a prominent philosopher, writer on comparative religions and lecturer in Hellenistic Studies at King’s College, London.

“On 25 April 1896, Edwyn married Hon. Mary Waldegrave (born 1870), the daughter of Granville Waldegrave, 3rd Baron Radstock. Edwyn and Mary, who was known to family and friends as Daisy, had two daughters – Christina and Anne Cornelia Favell Bevan (1898 – 1983).

“The Bevan family lived at no. 6 Chelsea Embankment – just a two minute walk from the O’Gorman’s home at 21 Embankment Gardens. The precise relationship between the two families still needs to be explored – perhaps Edwyn and Mervyn were members of the same club, or perhaps they shared a mutual interest in automobiles. Perhaps Mervyn O’Gorman’s wife, Florence, and Daisy were friends.

Whatever the link, both families were clearly on friendly, first name terms. Certainly, the friendship was sufficient for Mervyn to accompany Daisy and her two daughters on a trip to Lulworth Cove in August 1913, where he took portraits of Christina.”

The exhibition Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection was previously displayed at Media Space in the Science Museum, and runs until Sunday 21 June at the National Media Museum.

Images:

Above: Christina, Daisy & Anne, walking to the beach in West Lulworth - the location of Christina’s portrait shots, August 1913. Stereo-autochrome. By Mervyn O’Gorman, courtesy of Stephen Riddle.

Below: Windsor Park, Daisy Bevan and the children watching for birds, June 1913. Stereo-autochrome. By Mervyn O’Gorman, courtesy of Stephen Riddle.

The publication date of 1862 has now been called into question. One of the photographs must have been taken after 1863. At that date the Curfew Tower of Windsor Castle was altered. Victor's photograph shows the new tower.When was the Album published? It must have been between late 1863 and early 1865.

I would be very grateful indeed for any help on this. 

A few weeks ago BPH and several national newspapers and publications asked the question 'Who was Christina?'. Several BPH members undertook geneaological research and others have provided information. BPH now understands that the mystery of Christina has been solved. The National Media Museum and curator Colin Harding will be revealing the answer shortly...so watch this space. 

In the meantime images of Christina can be seen in Drawn by Light, Treasures of The Royal Photographic Society Collection on view at the National Media Museum, Bradford, until 21 June. The catalogue featuring Christina on the cover and can be purchased here.

See: http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/planavisit/exhibitions/drawn-by-light/about

I am researching a number of different aspects of mid 19th century Bermondsey (Southwark, South London), but when I search for early photographs of the parish, usually the images that I find in most local history or photographic collections are circa 1890-1930. I realise that Bermondsey was a pretty unappetising place for photographs in the 1840's, 1850's and 1860's and that any photographs may have been taken to highlight the plight of the poor or the workers in the predominant industry of leather manufacture. The earliest images I have seen relate to Bevington's Leather Factory in Neckinger in 1862.

Would any members be able to give me any advice on whether such images exist anywhere ?

Many thanks

Peter