Blogs

Books from the fourth printing are now available.  Demand for the book has been much greater than expected. Since it was first offered in October, 2016, three printings have been totally sold out. The quality of the books from the four printings are indistinguishable. I personally inspect, sign, pack, and ship each book.

I have accomplished my goal of placing books in many of the World’s major photographic libraries so I am going to exit the “business”.

The book's 470 pages  document the history and the technology Kodak used to make photographic films and plates. The products include those used for pictorial, professional, motion picture, x-ray, micrographics, graphics, and scientific applications.

Over 90% of the information in the book is not published elsewhere.  Nearly all of the over 400 photographs and drawings were made specifically for this book. In addition, information is included from unpublished interviews and writings from Kodak employees.  There are over 600 footnotes that document the sources of information.

Best regards,

Robert L. Shanebrook

makingKODAKfilm@yahoo.com

 http://makingkodakfilm.com

Britain in Focus: A Photographic History is a major new exhibition at the National Media Museum, exploring the fascinating and remarkable history of British photography; from everyday snapshots to world-renowned iconic images. It partners a three-part documentary series on BBC4 with the same name presented by award-winning photographer and picture editor Eamonn McCabe, part of a wider season of programmes exploring photography in the UK.

Both the exhibition (17 March – 25 June. Free entry) and the series start their journey with the dawn of photography in Britain in the 19th century, before charting its progress throughout 20th century to the present day, and the impact of the social media explosion.

Britain in Focus not only illustrates how a selection of acclaimed photographers documented, reflected and commented on their home country, and in doing so became known around the world, but how countless others have also contributed to the recording of national and social history over nearly 200 years.

 Alongside pictures taken by anonymous soldiers in the First World War trenches and press shots of historic moments, the exhibition includes examples from the colourful world of post card producer John Hinde; John Bulmer’s ground breaking images from the North of England, which appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine in the 60s; WHF Talbot’s photographs of Lacock Abbey in the 1840s – some of the earliest ever taken; a selection of Jane Bown’s portraits of cultural figureheads from the 60s and 70s; Martin Parr’s inimitable views of the 1980s; Eamonn McCabe’s reports from the Heysel stadium tragedy; and Fay Godwin’s visual hymns to the British landscape.

Among the pioneers featured are Julia Margaret Cameron, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Cecil Beaton, as well as contemporaries currently living and working in Britain, such as Nadav Kander, Peter Mitchell and Mishka Henner.

Through their images, Britain in Focus also traces the path of an industry: how glass plates gave way to film cartridges, black and white transformed to colour, and photographic paper was replaced by digital pixels. A selection of Cartes de visite – one of the first commercially available methods of sharing photographs - sit with a selection of images from the social media network Instagram, originally posted by a teenager from Huddersfield.

John O’Shea, Senior Exhibitions Manager at the National Media Museum, said: “Throughout Britain in Focus we see the fundamental role photography and photographers have played in recording the last two centuries in Britain – not only major social changes and historic moments, but also everyday life. Equally the exhibition shows the development of photography over this time, pointing to the incredible pace that technology, technique and subject matter have advanced, as its popularity made it the medium of choice for people to view and record their lives.”

Britain in Focus: A Photographic History is a BBC and National Media Museum partnership.

BRITAIN IN FOCUS: A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
17 March – 25 June 2017, National Media Museum

Image: John Bulmer,  Washing line, Halifax, 1965.

I am in the process of cataloguing a very large - c.4500 - collection of medium format negatives that, I believe, were taken by Mr. J. G. Combes of Lincoln, and have discovered one negative in particular that is puzzling me.

The image is that of two ladies, one seated, one standing, posing on a garden path at an address I believe to be in Lincoln, and which was taken by Mr Combes in 1930, when he would have been about 17 years of age.

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that lurking in the bottom right-hand corner of the image is a clear, if a little fuzzy, image of a medium-sized, woolly dog. This, according to other captioned images in the collection, is Rex. Or at least, an impression of Rex.

I am very keen to hear members' views regarding how this 'apparition' could have positioned itself on this otherwise plain and commonplace family photograph.

I have examined the negative very closely but cannot find any evidence of double-exposure, or other forms of image manipulation. The negative immediately preceding this frame displays an image very similar in content and pose, but without the misty canine presence.

I am a 'spirit photograph' sceptic, and in any case, there are further photographs of Rex in the collection that would appear to have been taken after the image in question is dated.

Any ideas?

Michael Holden,

Lincoln

Don't Fence Me In provides an entire career retrospective, made with the enthusiastic cooperation of Fay Godwin, filming from 2001 until 2005, which turned out to be the last five years of her life. She graduated from taking family snaps to documenting Camden social services, followed by a remarkable sequence of literary portraits, before moving on to landscape photography for a series of walkers' books which evolved into photographic collaborations with major writers, notably Ted Hughes. In 1985 she published Land, a substantial volume which provided a conspectus of British landscape, followed in turn by the polemical Our Forbidden Land, 1990, made when she was elected President of the Ramblers Association and documenting much that is wrong with the way the landscape is managed. Godwin was appointed Photographer in Residence at Bradford's National Media Museum and wanted to work in colour for the first time, documenting the city's dazzling multicultural landscape. Illness caused her to move from the macro to the micro, and she became increasingly obsessed with details of gardens and plants close to home, often seen through glass, gauze and netting. Whilst for much of Godwin's career she used a black and white chemical darkroom, latterly she eagerly embraced digital colour technology with the same enthusiasm and eye for detail. Godwin herself recounts her life and the film is structured through her appearance on Desert Island Discs and around three major retrospective shows of her work, first at London’s Barbican Centre, then the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia and finally at Scottish National Portrait Gallery Edinburgh. 75 mins 4:3 aspect ratio

ADDITIONAL FILM Talking About Fay Godwin

Fifteen of Fay Godwin’s friends, colleagues, associates and family talk about her life and work: Geraldine Alexander (Fay’s assistant); Peter Cattrell (Photographer); Margaret Drabble (Novelist); Colin Ford (Founding Head, National Media Museum); Ken Garland (Graphic Designer & Photographer); Nick Godwin (son); Paul Hill (Photographer & Teacher); Richard Ingrams (Writer); Ian Jeffrey (Writer & Historian); Peter Melchett (Environmental Campaigner & Organic Farmer); Brett Rogers (Director, The Photographers’ Gallery); Tony Stokes (Gallery Owner); Maggie Taylor (Friend & Colleague); Roger Taylor (Photographic Historian) and Shirley Toulson (Writer). 60 mins 16:9 aspect ratio

ADDITIONAL FILM Optics & Chemistry

Fay Godwin’s technical explorations and methods and their impact on her work, from Agfa Rapid papers to the Zone System, are discussed and analysed. 27 mins 16:9 aspect ratio Filmed and Directed by Charles Mapleston Edited by Libby Horner & Charles Mapleston

Don’t Fence Me In

Fay Godwin’s Photographic Journey

Production Company: Malachite Ltd. www.malachite.co.uk 01790 763538

Fay Godwin - The Drovers' Roads of Wales and other photographs is being shown as MOMA MACHYNLLETH opening at 11am on Saturday, 18 February 2017 and runs until 1st April, 2017. Also A Clearly Marked Path - original photographs by leading British photographers reflecting Fay Godwin's influence at PEN'RALLT GALLERY BOOKSHOP 

The Ghost Road – MOMA, talk with writer, Mike Parker Sunday, 5 March, 10am – 1.30pm - £3.00

DAY EVENT

Saturday 11 March 2017, 10.30 – 3.30 - £15.00 (£10 unwaged) at MOMA, Heol Pen'rallt, Machynlleth, SY20 8AJ

A day of talks, film, discussion and homage to British landscape photographer, walker and campaigner, Fay Godwin (1931 – 2005) including Don't Fence Me In – exclusive film preview and gallery talk, lecture and panel with photographers: Peter Cattrell, Pete Davis, Marian Delyth (chair); Film-maker: Charles Mapleston; Fay Godwin archivist: Dr Geraldine Alexander, and Paul Hill.

For details, to book the walk and register for the day event contact: www.penralltgallerybookshop.co.uk, 01654 700559, penralltbooks@gmail.com

This conference investigates photographs and photographic archives in relation to notions of place. In this context, place is used to explore both the physical location of a photograph or archive, as well as the place of photography as a discursive practice with regard to its value or significance as a method of viewing and conceiving the world. Photographs are mobile objects that can change their location over time, transported to diverse commercial, artistic, social, academic and scientific locations. The photograph’s physical location thus has an impact upon its value, function and significance; these topics are explored at the conference through a range of archives and across disciplines. How might the mobility of photographs open up thinking about archives and, in turn, classificatory structures in disciplines such as Art History, Archaeology and Anthropology, or in the Sciences? The conference also addresses questions of digital space, which renders the image more readily accessible, but complicates issues relating to location. What is the place, or value, of the photographic archive in the digital age?

The conference features internationally-renowned speakers, with a keynote lecture by Geoffrey Batchen and a final discussion led by Elizabeth Edwards. Site visits to Oxford’s outstanding photographic collections are also planned, including to the Bodleian Library’s Talbot Archive, the Pitt Rivers Museum, the History of Science Museum, the Griffith Institute’s archives of archaeological expeditions, and the History of Art Department’s Visual Resources Centre. 

Photo Archives VI: The Place of Photography

April 20–21, 2017

Department of History of Art, University of Oxford
Conference Venue: Christ Church, Oxford

See more here: http://www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/events/photo/

I am researching these two ambrotypes, recently acquired through eBay. They appear to be images of John Lee, Astronomer, Numismatist, 1858 and 1861, antiquarian, philosopher, et al. of Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire.

I can only find one actual photographic image of Dr. Lee, an apparent albumen, via the Science Photo Library website here.

These two ambrotypes are in remarkably good condition, and quite large. The first is 9 x 12cm, and the second 12 x 15cm, visible areas, I am assuming that the actual sizes are larger.

Ink inscriptions on the back indicate that these were taken by 'George Axtel'. My preliminary research finds no such photographer. Maybe it was mistaken for Axtell?

I would posit that the Royal Meteorology Society, or Royal Astronomical Society, or Society of Antiquaries would want these.

Are these unrecorded images of Dr. Lee?   Any guesses out there?

Many Thanks,   David

This symposium marks the opening of ‘Usakos – Photographs Beyond Ruins: The Old Location albums, 1920s-1960s’, an exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London. The exhibition centres on three private collections of historic photographs preserved and curated by four women residents of the former ‘Old Location’ in Usakos, an urban railway hub in central Namibia. With a view to reflect the resonances of these personal archives, Paul Grendon’s contemporary photographs enter a visual dialogue with the women’s collections, thereby providing a particular opening into the present and future.

Demolished under the apartheid plan for Namibia in the 1950s, the Old Location is remembered with nostalgia by its former residents, who were forcibly removed to a new township on the outskirts of Usakos. In the course of their research into Usakos’s history, Lorena Rizzo and Giorgio Miescher were introduced to the photograph collections of Cecilie //Geises, Wilhelmine Katjimune, Gisela Pieters and Olga //Garoës. These women had for many years been collecting, curating and circulating photographs taken in the Old Location, thus preserving and reshaping memories of this time and place.

These photographs, and the collections of which they are part, shed new light on southern African histories. Viewed from an urban history perspective, they differ strongly from hitherto dominant narratives of location life, focusing as they do on sociality and social relations, and the dignity and self-respect with which subjects presented themselves to the camera. In Usakos today, these images have become a particular historical form through which women negotiate their past, its bearing on their present and what it holds for imagining their future. Unlike the collections of African photographers’ studios, it is the people in the photographs to whom names can be attributed, and the photographers – some of whom were itinerant – who remain largely anonymous.

This conference takes the lead offered by this new research to focus on African women and photography. On the one hand, papers are invited that cover aspects of photographic practices defined in the broadest sense: African women as clients, as photographers, as photographic subjects and as collectors and curators of photographs and private photographic archives; women engaged in aesthetic practices that bridge conventional distinctions such as that between the visual and the oral; and women’s role in memory work – whether through purely photographic collections, or other private collections that include photographs, letters, identity documents, moving image, objects and other manifestations of material culture. We are particularly interested in the themes of historic collections and memory work, but will also consider papers looking at women’s engagement with photographic practice today.

On the other hand, the conference will reflect on how far female photographic practices constituted a domain in which women represented, commented on, responded to and made sense of their experiences of the transformations brought about by colonialism and apartheid. We invite papers which reflect on how women’s photographic and other archival and memory-work practices help to illuminate the specific histories of life under segregation, apartheid and colonialism more broadly – whether (for example) of urban planning, forced removals, housing, the railway system, migrant and domestic labour, cosmopolitanism, education and cultural life.

We expect that the majority of papers will focus on the African continent, but we also welcome proposals dealing with similar issues in the diasporic context.

The conference will be of relevance to academics and researchers in these fields as well as practitioners and a more general audience with an interest in Namibia and/or in African history and photography. Contributors are asked to bear this in mind when drafting their presentations.

The one-day conference will take place on Friday 14th July 2017 in the Senate Room, Senate House, University of London. More details and registration arrangements will be available shortly after the close of the call for papers. Unfortunately the symposium organisers are unable to assist with travel and accommodation costs.

Please send abstracts (300 words max.) and your name, title, affiliation (where appropriate) and contact details to:

Dr Giorgio Miescher, University of Basel, giorgio.miescher@unibas.ch and Dr Marion Wallace, marion.wallace@wallpear.plus.com by 17 March 2017.

Photographs Beyond Ruins: Women and Photography in Africa

A one-day symposium at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Friday 14 July 2017

Sponsored by:

Centre for African Studies, University of Basel

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

With support from:

Centre of African Studies at SOAS, University of London

College of Arts and Humanities, University of Brighton

Hutchins Center, Harvard University

For the Brunei Gallery exhibition see https://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/forthcoming/.

For more information on the Usakos photographs see: http://www.chrflagship.uwc.ac.za/photographs-beyond-ruins/

and: Paul Grendon, Giorgio Miescher, Lorena Rizzo and Tina Smith, Usakos: Photographs beyond Ruins. The Old Location Albums, 1920s–1960s (Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2015)

A combination of technological, cultural, and economic factors during the “long” nineteenth century made images more readily available in a wider range of media than ever before. These transformations raised new questions about the ownership and use of images.

On This Date In Photography presents an event that happened, or is happening, on the date of posting. Journalistic, not necessarily academic, it aims to broaden the interests of devotees of photography, with some posts specifically on British photo history, others more wide ranging.

Written on the day, of the day, your news of upcoming items for potential content, or other input, is most welcome.

(It's a 'labour of love' I am undertaking for one calendar year to revive my research and writing in preparation for penning a book on an aspect of photography next year.)

The redesigned Historical Photographs of China web site (https://www.hpcbristol.net/) has been re-launched and now contains over 10,500 images, including 1,400 recently added images from nine new collections.

 These including a large and diverse selection of photographs from Shanghai-based news photographer Malcolm Rosholt, the family photographs of Sikh life and work in Shanghai in the Ranjit Singh Sangha collection, and some of Felice Beato's photographs of the bloody 1860 North China Campaign. Mao Zedong, Rabindranath Tagore, the Tenth Panchen Lama, General Sir Robert Napier, Father Jacquinot, and sometime North China Daily News editor R.W. Little join the cast of personalities. The new images range from 1860 (with some earlier ones on their way soon), to 1949 (with some later ones on their way in the not too distant future).

On the relaunched HPC web site, we have tried to enhance discoverability and alleviate dependency on keyword searching, by offering several ways to find images, such as a 'Lucky dip' (random sampling of images), via collection names, via names of photographers and via some themed collections ('Featured Collections'), as well as an advanced keyword search facility.

Another new feature is a 'Related Photographs' link to other photographs linked in some way to the one displayed. We cannot say that coverage through this is comprehensive, but we are linking photographs where we can (where, for example, they might be split across albums, media (negatives and prints for example), or even collections.

Do please tell us what you think -- and we are always interested to hear how you use the site.  We'd be very happy too for notification of factual/name/location/date errors, typos, glaring omissions, etc.

 Developing the platform has been supported by awards from the British Academy, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, and Swire Trust, and with vital support from the University of Bristol's IT Services.

 Professor Robert Bickers (HPC Project Director), Jamie Carstairs (HPC Project Manager).​ Email: hums-chinaphotos@bristol.ac.uk

Image: Small Pagoda / Ba06-103. © 2008 Peter Lockhart Smith / HPC

Two exhibitions at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, both about photography, complement each other.Lakeland Pioneers in Climbing and Photography: The Abraham Brothers looks at the work of George and Ashley Abraham and celebrates their work with a range of their iconic climbing photographs and some of the well loved views they popularised and which are still admired today. Accompanying this is Instanto Outdoors. Which shows contemporary photographs by Henry Iddon, taken with a 100 year old Underwood Instanto camera, previously used by the Abraham Brothers. Both exhibitions run until 12 May 2017. 

See: http://keswickmuseum.org.uk/

In Italy the phrase “Photographic double ground - Crozat System - Patented” is well known by professionals as well as by vintage and historycal photography lovers. Indeed, it is stamped on the back of hundreds of cartes de visite produced in Italy between the second half of the 1860s and the early Seventies. Nevertheless, the information about the procedure as well as the biography of its inventor have hardly been known up to now. Though, the Crozat System, which included the photographic double ground, the instantaneous coloring and the preservative varnishing system, radically transformed and innovated Photography, especially in Italy. There, it was used by dozens of professionals in order to create a charateristic portrait type in carte de visite format, very much appreciated by the public for its æsthetic characteristics, transparency and brilliance and also for the possibility to color certain parts of the picture.

In the fall of 1862 Leandro Crozat and his younger brother Nicolás, born in Alcoy, Spain, sought and obtained from Her Majesty Queen Isabella II the privilege of industrial invention relates to the photographic double ground, a “mechanical process invented to obtain two grounds in the same photographic set” a shaded one and a general one. 

Since December 1862 Leandro had embarked on a long journey to advertise and sell the Crozat System in the most important Spanish cities. Then he tried to do the same in France (Marseilles), in the United Kingdom (London), Ireland and then in Italy (but also in Egypt and Portugal), before reaching South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay).

Apart from being an itinerant photographer (proposing and teaching the Crozat system), Leandro was also a merchant, a chief manager, a founder as well as president and member of spiritualist associations, Vice-Consul, and responsible for the reading room of the National Library of Chile. He lived a full of adventures life -not too happily, according to him- and characterized by frequent moves. He was a bachelor throughout his life.

Read the Italian version of the book here: https://issuu.com/robertocaccialanzacremona/docs/crozat_impaginato

From the sepia-toned mass graves of the American Civil War to today’s drone shots of the destroyed Syrian city of Aleppo, war photographs have shaped and continue to inform our understanding of human conflict.  Far from neutral, war photographs challenge our sense of humanity in a complex exchange between ‘taking’ and ‘viewing’. Exploring this relationship through an analytical rather than aesthetic perspective, our six-week course will introduce you to the ethical, theoretical and practical issues connected with taking, viewing and reproducing war photographs.

Beginning with a historical overview and rare opportunity to view original war photographs from the Library’s collection, we’ll consider key themes including photography and truth, ethics and aesthetics, and the idea of cultural memory. Throughout the course we’ll refer to the Library’s extensive photography collections, and analyze photographic images using a variety of theoretical approaches.

Centering our course within contemporary practice, we’ll also spend an exclusive evening at the nearby Foundling Museum, where innovative documentary artist Mark Neville will talk frankly about his photographs taken on the frontline in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Kenya, on display in the exhibition Child’s Play (3 February–30 April 2017).

This course is led by Dr Eleanor Chiari (University College, London) with contributions from British Library curator John Falconer (Lead Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photography Collections) and documentary artist Mark Neville.

In collaboration with the Foundling Museum.

Course dates: Tuesdays 21 and 28 February and  7, 14, 21 and 28 March
Times: 18.00 – 20.00
Where: British Library, London

See more at: https://www.bl.uk/events/shooting-war-photography-history-representation

You’re someone who’d love nothing more than to immerse themselves in The Hulton Archive. You’d thrive in a role where you can take a proactive approach to increasing its profile internally and externally. You’ll be establishing Getty Images as a recognised industry specialist in academic and museum circles as well as building increased awareness of our archive through emerging consumer division and related social media activities.

As a Curator you’ll be responsible for conservation, preservation, maintenance and accessibility of all analogue assets, including our special vintage collections. You’ll also project manage analogue assets for all brands and key point of contact for related issues such as library information, copyright information, legal support, pull & returns and asset locations are an additional aspect of the role, providing support and advice both in the UK and overseas, wherever analogue content maybe housed and maintained.

You’d join an office of 25 people which is made up of editors, production managers, curatorial assistants and researchers who are knowledgeable, passionate and world class photography experts.

Your next challenge:

• To have overall responsibility for existing, new and specialist analogue collections
• Manage a team of three Curatorial Assistants
• Maintain documentation (copyright, rights, acquisition’s register, storage locations etc.) databases and systems, including analogue/historic documentation
• Provide advice and assistance to internal & external clients regarding all aspects of analogue collections management
• Coordinate and build relations with related industry professionals, photographic partners etc. to maximise potential and exposure of archive collections
• Manage exhibition loans of vintage or analogue collections materials inc. gallery
• Advise on copyright, model release and R&C enquiries internally and externally in conjunction with Legal and R&C
• Assist in brand development and awareness through direct involvement in and input to social media, industry seminars, PR events and related activities, internal and external workshops, archival and related presentations, web-features, marketing, consumer activities e.g. web-features, internal communications and intranet documentation
• Research and curate activities both ad hoc and project related e.g. exhibitions, web galleries and features, web-based content events etc
• Manage the curatorial and conservation budget
• Reference and research into collections information e.g. valuations, captions etc

What you’ll need:

• Relevant and/or management experience within the media industry
• Knowledge of conservation practices, environmental tolerances etc
• Knowledge of library and classification systems
• Knowledge of History of Photography with special reference to photojournalism and commercial photography
• Experience within social media environment across most platforms e.g. Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat etc
• Identification and knowledge of historic photographic techniques (e.g. albumen prints, daguerreotypes etc.)
• Knowledge of market and insurance value of vintage material and recognised security procedures
• Curatorial skills e.g. exhibition/gallery management, museum standards and procedures
• Knowledge of EU copyright directives, IP rights, model release etc
• Project and Budget management experience
• Good presentation skills and familiarity with public speaking
• Relevant Arts Degree or Library Management related subject is advantageous

See more and apply here

The Manfred & Hanna Heiting Fonds/Rijksmuseum Fonds enables the Rijksmuseum to annually award two postgraduate Fellowships that stimulate outstanding object-based, photo-historical research by prospective curators from the Netherlands or abroad. Fellowships are awarded for a six-month period.

The focus of research should be related to the National Photo Collection held by the Rijksmuseum’s Print Room. The Rijksmuseum will endeavor to enable publication of the Fellow’s research in the series Rijksmuseum Studies in Photography. This could be an in-depth study of one photograph or photo book and/or its distribution; on a series of photographs or part of an oeuvre; on the aesthetic or technical aspects of photography; on the wider context of a photo book or album; or on combinations of art-historical research and research on materials and techniques.

The Rijksmuseum will provide working space for the Fellows, in order to stimulate an exchange of knowledge, ideas and experience. Access will be provided to all necessary information in the museum, as well as to the library and the resources of the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague.

The deadline for applications is 12 March 2017. Find our more here: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/manfred-and-hanna-heiting-fellowship

I am seeking information about this quarter-plate ambrotype of a young lad. There appears to be an etched signature above his left arm. Constant? 

Although this was bought in the UK, I suppose it might be French.

Does anyone recognize this signature?

Many thanks,

David McGreevy