Blogs

The Blue Plaques Group is unveiling a blue plaque to photographer Henry Peach Robinson on Wednesday, 23 September, 2015 at 2.30pm. The unveiling will take place at 60-64 Parade, Royal Leamington Spa, CV32 4DB and the plaque has been supported by The Royal Photographic Society and Leamington History Group. Following the unveiling there will be tea and a short talk at Leamington Town Hall. Anyone wishing to attend should RSVP to the Clerk to the Town Council, Town Hall, Royal Leamington Spa, CV32 4A, tel: 01926 450906, or email: clerk@leamingtonspatowncouncil.gov.uk no later than 16 September, 2015. 

Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901) opened his first photography studio in Leamington Spa in 1855. He joined the Photographic Society, later the Royal Photographic Society, in 1857 and was a member at his death sitting. he was Vice President and sat on its Council for many years. He broke from the Society when he joined the Linked RIng in 1891.

Robinson was a founder member of Birmingham Photographic Society (1855), published a number of books on photographic practice and wrote extensively in the periodical press of the time. He is perhaps best known for his combination printing and exhibited works such as Fading Away. The RPS Collection holds a large number of his work.

The only substantive study of Robinson is Margaret Harker's Henry Peach Robinson. Master of Photographic Art 1830-1901 (1988). 

Not so long ago the idea of a radio programme devoted to discussing photographs might have seemed a bit odd. How effective could a presenter be in describing the images? In fact, the idea has worked well in the past. Earlier this year Radio 3 did a series of five programmes which discussed The Five Photographs That (You Didn’t Know) Changed Everything.  With the right presenter radio is often a more effective medium than television in discussing with visual media. These days, of course, for much of the audience radio is supported by online resources and the images can be viewed before or during the programme. For many, of course, the images will already be familiar, part of our personal visual memory.

This programme uses the photographer and former Picture Editor at The Guardian, Eamonn McCabe, to curate his personal photography exhibition on the radio. He has selected ten images that have inspired or moved him during his fifty years in the business.

The selection includes Don McCullin’s The Guvnors, Finsbury Park, London  (1959). This was the image that launched McCullin’s career with a half-page in The Observer and inspired McCabe who came from a similar background just a few streets from McCullin. David Bailey’s The Kray Twins (1965) and Chris Smith’s Mohammed Ali in Miami are each powerful portraits. By contrast Willi Ronis’s Le Nu Provençal, Gordes, 1949 is an intimate portrait of his wife. Nickolas Muray’s Soldiers of the Sky which McCabe first discovered in The Royal Photographic Society Collection applies a fashion aesthetic to war propaganda;  and McCabe’s former Observer colleague Jane Bown’s portrait of Anthony Blunt, 1979, is perceptive, revealing more than her subject would have wished.

There are four photographs that are not portraits: J H Lartigue’s Automobile Delage, Circuit de Dieppe, 26 June 1912 marks a start in photo-journalism and clearly resonates with McCabe. Joel Meyerowitz’s  Assembled panorama of the World Trade Center site, Fall 2001 captures a high-definition view of Ground Zero showing a detail and stillness that remains gut-wrenching and painful to observe nearly fifteen years on.  The final two: Michael Kenna’s Curraghs, Dingle, 1982, and Raymond Moore’s Pembrokeshire, 1967, both provide a sense of peace and calmness and a view into other worlds.

So what does McCabe’s selection tells us as viewers of photography? The interviews with some of the photographers and the use of the own words adds a background to the images. The photographs reflect McCabe’s own interests as a photographer and photo-journalist. As someone who has looked at millions of images he concludes that, ultimately, photography is not about freezing a moment in time, nor about the equipment used. The best photographs are about capturing an emotion and connecting us with the past. Bailey says as much ‘it’s the emotion that counts’ and McKenna’s black and white image of upturned curraghs reducing the scene to its monochrome core and bring out emotions in McCabe from childhood. Ronis’s work, to McCabe, is ‘pure poetry’.

And that is why a radio works so well with photography.  Look at the photographs, listen to the programme, feel emotions inside you stir and hear the images speak.

Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS

The Spoken Image

BBC Radio 4
To be transmitted Monday, 7 Sept 2015 at 4pm and then available on the BBC iPlayer
Producer:  Olivia Landsberg
The images can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b068tsvg

Hear more photography on BBC Radio 4 here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01w0hly

Image: © Jack Stephenson / BBC. Eamonn McCabe.

In research I am conducting about the first exhibitions of photography, I have been made aware of entries in the 1841 Royal Scottish Academy annual exhibition catalogue. 

Roddy Simpson, in his book The Photography of Victorian Scotland, states that four Daguerreotypes were exhibited, but information I received directly from the RSA indicates only three were displayed.The catalogue provides entries for three Daguerreotypes, all by a photographer identified only as "Montreal, D. 18 Drummond Street, Paris."

I am unable to find anything online about this individual, and I am posting this to see if anyone has any further information. Here is the entry page from the catalogue:

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) was one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century. Criticised in her lifetime for her unconventional techniques, she is now celebrated as a pioneering portraitist. 2015 marks the bicentenary of Cameron’s birth and the 150th anniversary of her first museum exhibition – the only one in her lifetime – held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1865.

Drawing on the V&A’s significant collection, which includes photographs acquired directly from Cameron and letters she wrote to the museum’s founding director, Curator Marta Weiss tells the story of Cameron’s artistic development. She also presents, for the first time, a group of photographs recently revealed to have belonged to Cameron’s friend and mentor the artist G.F. Watts. This discovery sheds light on previously unacknowledged aspects of Cameron’s experimental approach.

The book also reveals - for the first time - a view of Cameron's glass house in a photograph by Oscar Rejlander, probably in collaboration with Cameron. You can see the picture in a review of the book here: http://fannycornforth.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/review-julia-margaret-cameron-by-marta.html

The exhibition opens in London on 28 November 2015.

Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs to electrify you with delight and startle the world
Marta Weiss
MACK, in partnership with Victoria & Albert Museum, London
188 pages, 22 cm x 26 cm, paperback
Publication date: November 2015, shipped from August 2015
£25.00

Read more here: http://www.mackbooks.co.uk/books/1068-Julia-Margaret-Cameron.html

The book accompanies a touring exhibition:
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (18 Nov 2014 – 1 Feb 2015)
Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent (14 March 2015 – 14 June 2015)
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (13 August 2015 – 25 October 2015)
Victoria and Albert Museum, London (28 Nov 2015 – 21 Feb 2016)
Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid (15 March 2016 – 15 May 2016)
Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo (2 July 2016 – 19 September 2016)

This exhibition of the work of the British photographer Thomas Child (1841-1898) is curated by Stacey Lambrow and selected from the collection of Stephan Loewentheil. It runs from 10-15 November at China Exchange, Gerrard Street, London. A collector's talk will be held on 10 November at 5pm. Admission to both is free.

Qing Dynasty Peking. Thomas Child's Photography
10-15 November 2015
China Exchange, 32A Gerrard Street, London, W1D 6JA. Admission free.
www.chinaexchange.uk

Our friends at the (new) London Stereoscopic Company have launched Victorian Gems a selection of high quality Victorian stereographs and viewer. It was shown at the National Stereoscopic Association convention last week so we've yet to see the set but based on the LSC's past products we're not going to be disappointed. The set includes: OWL’s nest containing an OWL, three new sets of cards (Scenes in Our Village 1-12, Diableries 1-12, The Poor Man’s Picture Gallery), and an explanatory booklet. 

See more and pre-order here.

Watch the video and description here:

London's National gallery has a series of six interactive lunchtime lectures around the subject of photography designed to investigate how photography has shaped both the Gallery and the history of Western European painting.

Find out more here: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/photography-talks

Edward Reeves took up photography c.1855. Today his great-grandson Tom is still running the business in the High Street in Lewes. The Edward Reeves Studio, situated at 159 High Street is believed to be the oldest continuously operated photographic studio in the world.

Today it houses an archive of over 100,000 photographic glass plates, the work of the first three owners. The archive also includes approximately 150,000 images on film and as digital files, the work of the present owner Tom Reeves. Unusually the family has kept business ledgers and the related paperwork. This archive is both a unique record of the daily life of Lewes and the history of commercial photographic practice.

Stories Seen Thorough A Glass Plate exhibits work by the first three generations, displayed as light boxes in 56 windows on the specific locations where they were originally taken, celebrating the continuing vibrancy of this old market town. This exhibition was first shown last November as part of the Brighton Photo Biennial.

Brigitte Lardinois, Senior Research Fellow at London College of Communication is researching this archive. She has curated this exhibition with Matt Haycocks of the University of Ulster. They were assisted by Yaz Norris, photographer.

For more information on the research project and exhibition see http://www.reevesarchive.co.uk

Related exhibitions at Edward Reeves Photography Studio & Gallery 159 High Street, Lewes, BN7 1XU

Renowned for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was also one of the most important amateur photographers of the Victorian era and the period's finest photographer of children. This new book by Edward Wakeling, perhaps the world's leading Carroll scholar, presents almost 1000 of his photographs along with a supporting text. BPH readers receiving the weekly update will have received a discount code giving a 20 per cent discount on the book's published price of £87. 

From 1856 to 1880, Carroll took around three thousand pictures, the majority of which were portraits of family, friends, and colleagues. He also sought out and photographed celebrities of the day, including Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Wilberforce, Michael Faraday, William Holman Hunt, Henry Taylor, George MacDonald, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Ellen Terry, John Everett Millais, Charlotte Yonge, and Prince Leopold. Carroll's remaining output includes images of landscapes and architecture, works of art, and skeletons; assisted self-portraits; and other miscellaneous pictures. 

This catalogue raisonné presents images of the nearly one thousand surviving photographs of Lewis Carroll—including many from private collections that have never been published—and provides information on their subjects/sitters, their locations, and the dates when they were taken, as well as extracts from Carroll's private diaries that mention his relevant photographic activity and background information concerning known prints. Edward Wakeling, an internationally recognized Carrollian scholar, has also reconstructed Carroll's lost register of his complete photographic opus. In addition to the catalogue, Wakeling discusses Carroll's activity as a photographer, his contacts with other Victorian art photographers, and his nude studies, and he provides a full listing of the contents of Carroll's various photographic albums. This is the most comprehensive study of Carroll's photography ever produced, and it will be a standard work for anyone studying Victorian photography and for Lewis Carroll's photographs in particular.

See more and order the book here: http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/the-photographs-of-lewis-carroll?dm_i=1GOG,3LNWR,7J6D0K,CXTQZ,1

Hi. I am a mature student studying Photographic Media at Blackburn University. I am starting my third and final year for my BA honours degree. I am writing my dissertation on the trio David Bailey, Brain Duffy and Terence Donovan, so any help and pointers would be much appreciated :-)

The Royal Photographic Society's Archaeology and Heritage Group is holding a workshop on making negatives for printing by alternative processes or traditional methods from digital files. It is led by Peter Moseley. 

This introductory workshop  covers the essential steps in creating contact negatives to print your digital images using the cyanotype method (maximum five people). Photographic artist, Peter Moseley uses digital origination to capture his images, which are then realised individually on hand-coated art paper using authentic techniques discovered over 150 years ago. Peter will teach the method to convert digital files to create beautiful cyanotype prints.

The workshop covers: how to create the contact negative from a digital file, mix solutions, coat the paper, exposure, and develop prints. This workshop is suitable for beginners and advanced photographers. The only requirement is that the images you provide have a ‘heritage’ connection, if possible. A second part to this workshop will explore other methods, upon request: platinum, gravure, kallitype or carbon transfer printing.

See more at: http://rps.org/events/2015/september/12/peter-moseleys-digital-negative-one-day-workshop

Rachel Nordstrom has been appointed Photographic Collections Manager at the University of St Andrews Library’s Special Collections Division. She replaces Marc Boulay who returned to Canada earlier this year. She has taken on the leadership of the Photographic Collections team and will soon be recruiting for a new Photographic Cataloguer.

Rachel will continue to have oversight of the preservation needs of the University’s rich and varied collection of photographs in all formats, whilst also taking on strategic oversight of the team and the development of the collection. She aims to provide a community resource for research and discovery, and to contribute actively to the sharing and interpretation of the collection's content for the benefit of the public. She also strives to position photography so as to complement, inform, or be the result of some form of intellectual discourse and to build upon the collection's strengths.

A graduate of the International Museum Studies program at the University of Gothenburg, and the Collections Conservation and Management program at Fleming College, Ontario, Rachel came to St Andrews from the Fox Talbot Museum in 2013. She is currently Secretary of ICON-Scotland, and is a committee member of both the Scottish Society for the History of Photography, and the Institute for Photography in Scotland.

BPH wishes Rachel well in her new role and the continuation of making the rich photography collections at St Andrews better known and appreciated. 

Bromley House, a private members library in Nottingham City centre has an interesting photographic history. It was the home of one of the first commercial photographic studios in the country when Alfred Barber opened a daguerreotype studio in 1841 under licence from Richard Beard.

The late Pauline Heathcote carried out research into the photographers who were at Bromley House as well as Richard Beard. She also carried out research on a great many studios and photographers throughout the British Isles.

Samuel Bourne and Arthur Marshall were members of Bromley House Library. Although they did not use the studio they were important photographers in the history of photography and were thoroughly researched by Pauline.

Bernard Heathcote has donated his late wife's archive of research notes and photographs to Bromley House Library. The archive contents are listed at www.bromleyhouse.org > About us > Our history > The Pauline Heathcote Archive.

Further information about the studio can be found at www.bromleyhouse.org >About us > our history > The Photographic Studio.

The studio and dark room are open to the public on Wednesday afternoons, by appointment only. Please contact Eric Butler at photo@bromleyhouse.org

To access any part of the Pauline Heathcote archive email photo@bromleyhouse.org to make an appointment and complete a research booking form. I.D. will be required.

The Daguerreian Society is seeking authors and articles for the next Daguerreian Society Annual. The mission of the Society includes all early photographic processes up to ca 1870, as well as contemporary Daguerreians. We are particularly interested in including more international content, and articles about photographic processes, personalities and events in addition to our traditional foundation of daguerreotypes to reflect our broader mission. Please contact Mark Johnson MSJandA@comcast.net or Jeremy Rowe Jeremy.rowe@asu.edu. 

The 2015 Daguerreian Society Symposium will be held November 5 – 9 in Los Angeles, California at the Pasadena  Hilton is on the horizon. Thursday is a tour of the Getty and the “In Focus: Daguerreotypes” exhibition. The Getty will be hosting us for a lecture and public reception Thursday evening.

Friday is our presentation day with sessions by Sarah Allen, Cybele Gontar, Michael Lehr, Grant Romer, John Stauffer, and Jack and Beverly Wilgus. See the program for abstracts and more information. Friday evening we will have a second reception for attendees at the hotel.

Saturday, the day before the November Rose Bowl Flea Market, is our Trade Fair. Please contact Erin Waters erin@finedags.com, Cindy Motzenbecker motz48073@yahoo.com or Diane Filippi diane_dagsoc@comcast.net for table reservations and details.

Saturday evening we will have our banquet and auction.  Sunday is the Rose Bowl and “on your own” time to visit the Green & Green house, Huntington Library, Norton Simon Museum and other local attractions. Monday we will have a behind the scenes tour at the Huntington.

Please consider attending the Symposium. Registration is open and tables for the Trade Fair are still available http://daguerre.org/symposia/symposium2015.php. We look forward to seeing you at the Symposium.

With the summer holidays upon us it's time to catch up on some reading. This new publication which BPH came across by chance a few weeks ago and purchased is a much needed study of an overlooked subject, from a country which has done so much to influence photography.Highly recommended!

The Japanese passion for photography is almost a cliché, but how did it begin? Although Japanese art photography has been widely studied this book is the first to demonstrate how photography became an everyday activity. Japan's enthusiasm for photography emerged alongside a retail and consumer revolution that marketed products and activities that fit into a modern, tasteful, middle-class lifestyle.

Kerry Ross examines the magazines and merchandise promoted to ordinary Japanese people in the early twentieth century that allowed Japanese consumers to participate in that lifestyle, and gave them a powerful tool to define its contours. Each chapter discusses a different facet of this phenomenon, from the revolution in retail camera shops, to the blizzard of socially constructive how-to manuals, and to the vocabulary of popular aesthetics that developed from enthusiasts sharing photos.

Ross looks at the quotidian activities that went into the entire picture-making process, activities not typically understood as photographic in nature, such as shopping for a camera, reading photography magazines, and even preserving one's pictures in albums. These very activities, promoted and sponsored by the industry, embedded the camera in everyday life as both a consumer object and a technology for understanding modernity, making it the irresistible enterprise that Eastman encountered in his first visit to Japan in 1920 when he remarked that the Japanese people were "almost as addicted to the Kodak habit as ourselves."

Kerry Ross is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at DePaul University.

Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Cameras and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Kerry Ross

Stanford University Press

288pp  9780804795647 PB £16.99 now only £13.59* when you quote CSL815PHFE when you order from: 

http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/photography-for-everyone  

Is it possible for organisers or planners of conferences and lectures to have the speakers recorded on video? For the many readers who cannot attend these events it would be a way to keep updated. The lecture by Prof. Scharf recently was absolutely superb and I am sure there are ways to do this. Thanks, Vivienne Silver-Brody

Icon Photographic Materials Group, Icon Scotland Group and National Museums Scotland are proud to present:

Photography: A Victorian Sensation in Focus

An afternoon of talks exploring the challenges addressed in the curation, conservation and design of a major exhibition of photographic material.

Date: 15th September 2015

Time: 12.45 – 17.00 (+ optional Icon PhMG AGM: 10.30; exhibition ticket pick-up from 10.00 onwards)

Location: National Museums of Scotland

Ticket prices:

Icon Member Standard Rate: £20

Icon Member Reduced Rate: £7.50 (students, interns and unwaged)

Non-member Rate: £30

Ticket prices include entry into the exhibition, usually £10.

Booking and full programme: http://photography-victorian-sensation-in-focus.eventbrite.co.uk

Photography: A Victorian Sensation is a major exhibition currently on display at the National Museum of Scotland which explores the evolution of photography during the Victorian period. Innovations in photography are explored through more than 1500 photographs and related objects from the museum’s collections.

Principal Curator of the exhibition, Dr Alison Morrison-Low, will provide the curatorial perspective, and exhibition designer, Esther Titley describes how a common ground was found between exhibition design and conservation concerns. In addition, Kirsten Dunne from the National Galleries of Scotland will provide an introduction to Microfading, data from which was used to aid decision-making in the planning stages of the exhibition. The conservation team - Vicki Hanley, Lisa Cumming, Rosalind Bos and Emmanuelle Largeteau  - will be presenting on a range of areas including: bespoke mounting and suitable display; conservation of Ambrotypes and Daguerreotypes, and the planning and prioritising that took this vast collection from storage to display.

Ticket prices include entry to the exhibition itself so that attendees have the opportunity to view the exhibition at their leisure in the morning before the event.

Please note, the Icon Photographic Material Group AGM will also be held at the National Museum of Scotland in the morning at 10.30. While primarily for Icon Photographic Materials Group members, all are welcome. The AGM is also open to those not attending the afternoon event. Please email us directly if you would like to attend the AGM, but will not be attending Photography: A Victorian Sensation in Focus iconphmg@gmail.com

The full programme and booking is available through the Icon Photographic Materials Group Eventbrite page: http://photography-victorian-sensation-in-focus.eventbrite.co.uk

 We would like to thank National Museums Scotland for their generous support in hosting this event