Blogs

Icon Photographic Materials Group will be holding its AGM on the morning of the 15^th September 2015 at the National Museum of Scotland. If you would like to attend, then please email us at iconphmg@gmail.com and reserve your place as spaces are limited.

Please note, the venue for the event, the Dunfermline Room, is set out in a lecture room layout. While there is lift access to the floor where the room is located, the banked seating may cause access difficulties for those with mobility problems, particularly anyone using a wheelchair. Please get in touch if you would like more information.

Date: 15th September 2015

Time: 10.30 – 11.30 (assemble at the Tower Entrance at 10.15)

Location: National Museums of Scotland, Dunfermline Room

Ticket prices: free

We’d like to thank the National Museums Scotland for their generosity in hosting this event.

Attendance at the AGM is free, but if you are attending you may also be interested in a separate event being held on the same day by Icon PhMG, Icon Scotland and National Museums Scotland. Photography: A Victorian Sensation is an afternoon of talks, and an accompanied tour of the exhibition. Talks will explore the challenges addressed in the curation, conservation and design of a major exhibition of photographic material.

More details, ticket prices and a full programme for the afternoon event can be found here: http://photography-victorian-sensation-in-focus.eventbrite.co.uk

The Public Domain Review carries an interesting article on photographs from the collection of Tempest Anderson, the pioneering Victorian volcanologist. It is written by Pat Hadley, Sarah King and Stuart Ogilvy from The Yorkshire Museum (York Museums Trust) which holds a collection of 5000 lantern slides which have been digitised. 

You can read the full article here: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/tempest-anderson-pioneer-of-volcano-photography/ which also carries links to further references. The digitised slides are here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_Tempest_Anderson_Collection_(vulcanology)

Rare folios of cyanotypes by 19th century British naturalist and early photographer Anna Atkins, held in the Horniman Museum and Gardens’ collection, have inspired a new display by artist and academic Edward Chell.

Chell’s fascination with collecting and classification led him to these folios and in Bloom he responds to them with a series of detailed painted plant silhouettes inspired by plants, and images of plants, in the Horniman’s Gardens and historic collection.  Painted onto individual gesso panels, and accompanied by other related objects he has made, Edward’s images are shown alongside some of the artefacts that inspired them including one of Atkins’ books documenting British algae, widely recognised as the first to be published with photographic illustrations.

Bloom can be seen in the Horniman’s Natural History Gallery until 6 December 2015.  Entrance to the display is free. See: http://www.horniman.ac.uk/

Image: © Edward Chell, Photographer Peter Abrahams