Blogs

Over at our Press Photo History project we are on the lookout for footage of Fleet Street photo agencies or newspaper photographic departments.

The Press Photo History project has been researching and publishing memories and images from photo agency, here are a couple - Central Press lunch break 1960's and A Day In The Life Of A Fleet Street Photo Press Agency -1960’s 

Now we want to start documenting the busy life of a Newspaper photo department 

• Photos, enquires and memories to will@photoarchivenews.com 

Thanks.

The Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group is holding its annual research day. It will consist of presentations by new and experienced photographic history researchers. presenting results and conclusions from completed projects. Each presentation will be allocated 20 minutes. Those wishing to talk about new projects or work in progress will be allocated 10 minutes. 

The aim, as always, is to provide researchers with an opportunity to present their work in a friendly and supportive environment. Contributions from new researchers are particularly welcome and there will be several experienced members on hand to give advice if sought.

Confirmed speakers:

Dr Ron Callender FRPS - “Land Ahoy!” Experiments on the Land effect and digital processing – surprises and puzzles.

Rose Teanby ARPS – The life and work of Thomas Frederick Hardwich.

Tom Harrison (Lecturer, SHU) - In the footsteps of Maxwell and Stone (followed by practical demonstration)

Andrew Robinson (Senior Lecturer, SHU) - Lilliput, Brandt, and the Photo Essay.

Pete James FRPS ASICI - George Shaw of Birmingham.

Howard Bagshaw ARPS - The research approach leading to the production of the award-winning AV Migrant Mother, which will be shown at the conclusion of this paper.

Steven Joseph FRPS - Development of the online database: Directory of Belgian Photographers.

Darcy White (Principal Lecturer, SHU) - Awesome Topographies: tensions and speculations on the role of the expressive and factual in landscape photography.

Janine Freeston ARPS - A tour of the first Exhibition of Colour Photography in Britain.

Colleen Aveston (Recent Graduate, SHU) - Hybrid Cyanotypes – a brief introduction to the use of a digital/analogue workflow in the production of contemporary Cyanotype prints (followed by a presentation of work).

Kate O’Neill - Photography and domestic service 1850 – 1920.

To book a place click here: http://www.goo.gl/xGbnVm

The birth of abstract art and the invention of photography were both defining moments in modern visual culture, but these two stories are often told separately. Into the Light is the first major exhibition to explore the relationship between the two, spanning the century from the 1910s to the present day. It brings to life the innovation and originality of photographers over this period, and shows how they responded and contributed to the development of abstraction. Key vintage prints are brought together from pioneers like Paul Strand, László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, as well as lesser-known experimental works and those of contemporary artists such as Barbara Kasten and Thomas Ruff. Their work is shown alongside abstract paintings, sculptures and installations by major figures in abstract art, from Georges Braque and Jackson Pollock to Carl Andre and Bridget Riley.

See more here here and book tickets: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/light-photography-and-abstract-art

Image: Guy Bourdin, Untitled 1952 © The Guy Bourdin Estate

London's Cinema Museum occupies a NHS-owned building, the former Lambeth workhouse in Kennington -  which housed the child Charlie Chaplin. The premises are now under threat and a petition has been launched to ensure that this important museum, archive and collection can remain in such an important and relevant building. It is important not simply for London, but for Britain and international film history. 

Over 13,000 people have signed, find out more and lend your support here: https://www.change.org/p/matthew-patrick-slam-nhs-uk-love-cinema-save-the-cinema-museum/

The Royal Collection has over 450,000 photographs . They have been acquired by British monarchs, their consorts and other members of the royal family from 1842 to the present day. Queen Victoria (1819–1901) and Prince Albert (1819–61) laid the foundations of the collection, acquiring and commissioning new works from some of the finest early photographers, including Francis Bedford (1815–94), Roger Fenton (1816–69), Nicolaas Hennemann (1813–98) and Oscar Rejlander (1813–75), among many others.

Queen Victoria was particularly keen to acquire portraits that reflected the diversity of human experience, society and culture from across Britain and the British Empire. This trail highlights lesser known Black and Asian history in Victorian Britain, told through the individual narratives of Maharaja Duleep  Singh (1838–93), Prince Alamayu (1861–79), Sarah Forbes Bonetta (1843–80) and Cetshwayo, King of the Zulu (1826–84). Their stories, seen through selected photographs and works of art from the Royal Collection, connect with broader colonial and imperial histories and with the expansion of Empire during the nineteenth century.

The representation of Black and Asian individuals and communities within early photography in the Royal Collection is the focus of ongoing research as part of a partnership with Autograph ABP.

See more and explore the Collection here: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/trails/black-and-asian-history-and-victorian-britain#/

Image: Dr Ernst Becker (1826-88), Maharaja Duleep Singh of Lahore (1838–93) 23 August 1854. RCIN 2906149

The Girona City Council through the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) and the Museum of Cinema, in collaboration with the Friends of UNESCO, commemorate once more the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage with two online proposals:

1. CRDI presents a new audiovisual product, created using 3D technology, for a better understanding of the technical procedure of formation of the gravure on copper plate from the original technique of Talbot-Klic (1879). Script by Carles Mitjà. Project execution by CIFOG (Escola de Cicles Formatius de Girona).
2. Part of the bibliography collection about Photography Technique it's available online for researchers and for all users. This collection belongs to the specialized library of the Municipal Archive and to the one from the Institut d'Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya. The digitisation and online publication aims to offer full access to 127 books dated before 1950.

The exhibition William Henry Fox Talbot. At the Origins of Photography will be held from February, 5 to April, 9, 2018 at The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. As part of this a conference will be held.

The prime objective of the conference is an analytical comprehension of a new phenomenon in the history of photography of the 19th century – negative-positive process, invented and patented by British scientist William Henry Fox Talbot in 1841.

In this regard it is planned to discuss the next range of questions:

1. Concept photographical in sociocultural and art meaning;

2. The peculiarities of the calotype process: the negative and the print;

3. The first cameras of the 19th century;

4. Copying: technical process and its possibilities;

5. The peculiarities of the one-layer printing technologies of the 19th century.

The conference aims to consider the unique phenomenon of early analogue photography as an aesthetic category. Equally important is the range of issues related to the uniqueness of the historical prints, and therefore to the problems of their historical existence, collecting, study and advanced storage: a) the problems of restoration and preservation of the early negative-positive prints and negatives; b) the problems of identification of early photographic processes; c) the problems of cataloging and storage of the photographs.

The subject of the conference allows for interdisciplinary approach. We invite researchers of history of photography, art historians, curators of early negative-positive prints, conservators, photographers, culturologists, philosophers, experts in related fields to participate in the conference.

The time limit on speeches is 20 minutes.

The conference reports will be published on the website of The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.

The travel expenses are at the cost of the speakers.

Deadline for submissions: December, 15, 2017.

For registration please contact marina.davydova@arts-museum.ru

Please specify:
1. Name
2. Place of employment, position (academic rank)
3. Contact details: telephone, e-mail
4. Title of the report, the abstract (1,000 characters or 180 words)

The Organizing Committee forms the conference programme in accordance with its objectives.

For all questions, please contact:

Olga Averyanova, Head of the Art of Photography Department, The Pushkin State
Museum of Fine Arts
olga.averyanova@arts-museum.ru
Tel. +7 (495) 697 60 35

Marina Davydova, Curator of the conference, Researcher of the Art of Photography Department, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
marina.davydova@arts-museum.ru
Mob. +7 (926) 652 38 91

For more information: http://www.arts-museum.ru/events/archive/2018/talbot/conference/index.php?lang=en

Four Corners announced last year its new archive project, which was made possible by a generous grant of £100,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).The project will explore and document the heritage of film and photographic work of Four Corners and Camerawork that flourished in Bethnal Green, East London from the 1970s.

An extensive public programme will provide access to this history for the first time, offering screenings, talks, study days and a final exhibition. Volunteers will gain skills in archive research, digitization and oral history techniques; record the memories of early participants and help collate archival material.

This project marks the 40th anniversary of Four Corners in East London, and 40 years since the first issue of Camerawork magazine. It will create a lasting account of Four Corners’ early work within independent filmmaking, and Camerawork’s unique contribution to photographic practice; bringing unique archival resources into the public realm to make this important contribution to British cultural history widely accessible.

Loraine Leeson, Chair of Four Corners said: “I am delighted that this significant work will at last be documented and made available to the wider public. The impact that Four Corners and Camerawork had on the UK’s independent film and photography sectors cannot be underestimated.”

Stuart Hobley, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund London, said: “Thanks to National Lottery players, this exciting project will explore and digitise an archive of work relating to 1970s and 1980s East End film and photography. HLF is pleased to support Four Corners as it strives to make the British history of community-arts movements more accessible to audiences.”

Four Corners was founded by four filmmakers - Joanna Davis, Mary Pat Leece, Ronald Peck and Wilf Thust, who came together to develop a new kind of independent filmmaking, to “bring films and filmmaking to those who had previously been excluded from the whole practice”. In Roman Road in 1976 they set up a film workshop and cinema, screening films to local audiences. Early films documented diverse communities: East End, working-class women, first generation Bangladeshis, people from London’s gay community. One of the earliest film workshops in Britain, it was part of a broad oppositional film culture that promoted ‘independent’ filmmaking.

The Half Moon Photography Workshop (later Camerawork) was created in East London by a cooperative of photographers in 1972. Wendy Ewald, Ron McCormick, Julia Meadows, Paul Trevor, Mike Goldwater, Tom Picton, Jo Spence and Terry Dennett, set up a gallery and workshop project with a strong emphasis on social documentary. They began publishing the highly influential Camerawork magazine in 1976, whose aim was to “demystify the process” of photography, and its innovative approach drew on the social and political upheavals of the time. HMPW also brought an extraordinary range of photography to UK and worldwide audiences through the use of innovative laminated touring shows.

From 1978 both organisations were based on Roman Road, just two doors apart. When Camerawork closed in 2000, Four Corners extended its remit to cover photography, with a successful tender to the Arts Council to run the photographic resource. Today Four Corners supports community-based learning, production and exhibition in both film and photography.

The project runs over two years from autumn 2016, comprising:

1. Public programme of screenings, talks, study days, and exhibition.

2. Oral history project with early participants.

3. Online archive including digitization of the Camerawork magazine.

4. Volunteer programme with skills training in research, oral history, and darkroom printing.

5. Physical archive to be lodged at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Call out for material and oral history interviewees

Four Corners is seeking to meet and interview practitioners and participants who would be willing to share their memories, as well as offer access to collections of archival material for digitization and potential deposit at the Bishopsgate Institute.

Four Corners is looking for volunteers who would be interested in participating in the project at many levels, including research, cataloguing, oral history recording, and a wide range of related activities.

Further information contact: info@fourcornersfilm.co.uk

The Martin Parr Foundation (MPF) was launched with an opening party on the 20 October attended by photographers, curators, archivists, academics, writers and others from the world of British photography.

The following day continued the celebration with a seminar on British photography. After a short introduction by Martin Parr, Emma Chetcuti of Multistory spoke about the organsation's work using photography to engage with the local community in West Bromwich and the Black Country. Parr’s own contribution to their work, Black Country Stories, was on display as the MPF’s opening exhibition.

Paul Trevor, an important and remarkable photographer, quit a job as an accountant to become a photographer in the early 1970s. In 1973 he joined the Exit Photography Group, was a founder of the Half Moon Gallery and in 1975 launched the Camera Obscured seminar series. He was a key player in the seminal publication Camerawork which launched in 1975 and ran for 32 issues over a ten year period. His own publications such as Down Wapping remain important books documenting London’s East End.

He has never had the recognition of some of his contemporaries but has continued to work and is currently working with Four Corners to put the Half Moon archive and Camerawork online.  He made a call for anyone with knowledge of any extant exhibitions and the Half Moon slide archive to come forward.  His career to date was summed up in the title of his presentation: Doing the wrong things the right way.

Chloe Dewe Mathews, a young, rising British photographer, and highly regarded by Parr, spoke about her two recent projects documenting the Caspian Sea and the on-going Thames and the traditions and rituals associated with it. This latter work will be published by Aperture in 2018.

Another of Britain’s, perhaps Manx would be more accurate, influential post 1970 photographers Chris Killip (below, left) gave an overview of his career from the perspective of having lived in the United States for the past twenty-six years. He retold stories associated with the people he photographed on the Isle of Man and on the north-east and Cumbrian coasts: tough people, suspicious of incomers (and photographers), working in tough jobs associated with coal and fishing. Having re-investigated his own archive and discovering images that he had overlooked and never printed from he posed the question “who’s pictures are these?”. His, or the subjects and the communities in front of his camera? In Chris’s view it was clearly the latter.  His distinctive photography and avoidance of particular subjects was, as he said, to avoid becoming becoming labelled a 'nature' or 'industrial' photographer.

Recently he had been looking anew at his work of Newcastle’s Harland and Wolff shipyards and The Station, a Newcastle punk music venue which arose after the 1984-5 miners’ strike. He aims to publish these pictures for the first time in a book, The Station, and showed a dummy. He is currently seeking funding.

The day concluded with a panel discussion on British photography in the twenty-first century, chaired by Parr and with Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern,  Val Williams, from PARC, Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers’ Gallery and Susanna Brown, a curator of photography at the V&A Museum.  

Each gave a short introduction to their institution. Brown highlighted the V&A’s history of collecting photography and noted the opening of the first phase of the museum’s new galleries and research centre at the end of September 2018. Morris highlighted the absence of photography from the Tate until 2009 and claimed it was now centre stage. Unlike the V&A the Tate did not have a department of photography as it integrated lens-based practices (photography?) in to everything that the Tate did.  

Rogers noted the Gallery’s fiftieth anniversary in 2021 and its historical position along with Impressions, Stills and Amber/Side. All institutions needed to collaborate to create larger audiences for photography. She flagged the pressure from commercial galleries “doing our jobs and competing with us and not helping us”. She considered online and digital as offering an opportunity which the Gallery had recognised in 2011 when she appointed a Head of digital photography.

Williams felt slightly melancholic after hearing the day’s presentations and how much of 1970s photography had been forgotten. She felt British photography was largely neglected and betrayed by larger institutions. She considered that all institutions needed photography because of its accessibility for audiences.  Parr added that national gallery directors did not attend the major photography festivals such as Arles in the same way as they did art festivals such as the Venice Biennale.

In response to a question about how institutions purchased photography Brown said the V&A looked to fill gaps in its collections and bought when it had an exhibition upcoming and after an exhibition had closed. The V&A curators met photographers and visited graduate shows.  For the V&A storage space was a problem and limited acquisitions of acrhives.  Williams highlighted the importance not just of photographs but also the contextual material such as notebooks and letters. She noted that there was a whole group of photographers in the room who were reaching a point when they needed to consider what happened to their own photography archive. Morris said that the Tate only collected for display and did not collect archives, in part, because of the responsibility of looking after them and providing public access. There was a challenge around collecting digital media.

Rogers opined that there was a need for a philanthropist in the UK to fund a space to store and protect photographers’ archives as Pier 24 was doing in New York. The ensuing discussion focused largely on photographers’ archives and how they should be preserved.  Chris Killip (left) said he was tempted to select 1400 of his best images and burn the remainder so that his legacy was not misrepresented by future curators. Jem Southam noted that there were proposals for a dispersed national photography collection and a common strategy but, ultimately, it was for photographers to solve the problem and not the big institutions.  Four Corners, which houses the Half Moon Archive, suggested that market forces would determine the shape of an archive.

Parr said that he looks at work from young, British photographers to collect when they are “cheap and under-rated” . He endorsement can help establish careers. He noted that the MPF will house the Peter Mitchell archive. 

The Martin Parr Foundation is a new centre for British photography and the work of Martin Parr. It is open to the public and will be running regular events. For more information and to sign up to its mailing list visit: http://www.martinparrfoundation.org/

Colleagues, Please consider applying for a research fellowship at the Harry Ransom Center, home of the Gernsheim Collection, the Magnum Photos, Inc. Collection, and several major archives. Search our holdings here: http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/photopublic/index.cfm

Application information follows: 

The Harry Ransom Center invites applications for its 2018­-2019 research fellowships. 

The Ransom Center will award 10 dissertation fellowships and up to 50 postdoctoral fellowships for projects that require substantial on-site use of its collections. The collections support research in all areas of the humanities, including literature, photography, film, art, the performing arts, music, and cultural history.

The deadline for applications, which must be submitted through the Center’s website, is November 15, 2017, 5 p.m. CST. All applicants, with the exception of those applying for dissertation fellowships, must have a Ph.D. or be independent scholars with a substantial record of achievement.

The fellowships range from one to three months, with stipends of $3,500 per month (domestic) or $4,000 per month (international). Travel stipends and dissertation fellowships provide stipends of $2,000 (domestic) or $2,500 (international). Fellowship residencies may be scheduled between June 1, 2018, andAugust 31, 2019. During the fellowship, scholars will work on-site at the Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.

Fellows will become part of a distinguished group of alumni. Since the fellowship program's inauguration in 1990, the Ransom Center has supported the research of more than 1,000 scholars from around the world.

For details and application instructions, visit: http://budurl.com/rm2n

Questions about the fellowship program or application procedures should be directed to ransomfellowships@utexas.edu.

On Saturday, 14 October around 30 people came together in the small parish church of St Peter and St Paul, Wendling, to remember the photographer Robert Howlett (1831-1858) who died on 2 December 1858, aged 27 years. A year long project which was crowd-funded, but initiated and realised by Rose Teanby culminated in the restoration of Howlett's grave and its re-dedication led by Reverend Julia Hemp. 

The proceedings were attended by Teanby, representatives of the Royal Photographic Society, descendants of Howlett and Thomas Hardwich, Howlett's great friend and collaborator. Along the way Teanby has dispelled misconceptions about Howlett'ds life and work, corrected oft-repeated facts and revised attributions of photographs. She has also rewritten the history of Howlett's most famous photograph showing Brunel in front of the chains of the SS Great Eastern. 

Saturday's ceremony was a fitting culmination of this work and a tribute to an important figure in photography's early history. Some further work is in hand including a catalogue raisonné of Howlett's photographs and there is the possibility of another grave retsoration project of another early, forgotten, photographic figure. 

See: http://www.photohistories.com/Photo-Histories/51/robert-howlett-and-the-power-of-photography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Howlett

The final Workshop of the Million Pictures project will be held in Exeter, south-west England, on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 January 2018, with an additional meeting of the research group on the morning of Saturday 13 January.

The project is a collaboration between magic lantern researchers in five institutions in different European countries, examining the uses of lantern slides and technologies in educational and institutional contexts. More details are at http://a-million-pictures.wp.hum.uu.nl/.

The detailed workshop programme will be available a little later, but the outline plan is:

Thursday 11 January

-- 14.00-17.00 (approx.), presentations and panel discussions

-- 18.00 - evening reception, performance, dinner

Friday 12 January

-- 09.00-17.00 (approx.), presentations and panel discussions

-- 18.30 (approx.), buffet dinner

-- 20.00 magic lantern spectacle at local theatre (also open to the public).

Saturday 13 January

-- 10.00-12.00 (approx.), research team assembly

The venues will be the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (www.rammmuseum.org.uk), the Barnfield Theatre (www.barnfieldtheatre.org.uk) and the Devon and Exeter Institution (www.devonandexeterinstitution.org).

Everyone is welcome to join us for discussions and presentations on all aspects of lantern slide use in educational contexts, plus reflections from the project teams and thoughts on how we should build on the excellent progress made in the course of the project. There is no charge for attendance, and the evening events are included for workshop participants, but if you are interested please register your attendance with us by 31 October 2017 so we can plan the catering and other arrangements.

If you would like to join us, or have any questions (including travel, accommodation etc.) please contact Richard Crangle (r.crangle@googlemail.com) or Joe Kember (j.e.kember@exeter.ac.uk).

The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research at the Humboldt Area Foundation has awarded 35 grants since its inception in 2005.  A website www.palmquistgrants.com now provides information about the recipients and their projects in addition to information about Peter’s work.  An application is also available through the website, due November 1, 2017. 

The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research provides financial support to independent researchers who are studying either Western American photographers before 1900 or women photographers past and present. The Humboldt Area Foundation in Bayside, California, administers this fund, which solicits applications for grants once a year in the fall and awards the grants the following January. A small panel of outside consultants with professional expertise in the field of photohistory and/or grant reviewing determines each year’s awards.

The University of St Andrews has an outstanding collection of books, archives and photography, accumulated throughout the six hundred years since the University’s foundation.  The collection is especially rich in the History of Science, Theology and Church History, Literary Studies and Photography.  In addition to a substantial collection of incunabula and early printed books, the library has a significant eighteenth-century collection dating from its period as a Copyright Library (1710-1836).  The archives also include an exceptional collection of 15th -16th century materials relating to Fife and to the University and city of St Andrews.

What is a University of St Andrews Library Visiting Scholarship?

Visiting Scholarships are an opportunity for applicants external to the University of St Andrews to research a topic in the Library’s Special Collections.  The scholarships are open to all interested researchers, whether or not affiliated to a university, and at whatever level. This Scholarship gives the applicant the opportunity to visit the University of St Andrews and experience first-hand the Library’s unique collections which offer research potential across an exceptionally broad array of disciplines.

Assessment of applications

All applications are assessed by a panel of academics and Library staff.

Successful candidates will be in receipt of

• Financial support up to a maximum of £1,500 to cover travel and accommodation, but not subsistence, during the Scholarship
• Accommodation in a University hall of residence.  The cost of this will be paid directly by the University, which will also make all necessary arrangements for residency. 
• A warm welcome to Special Collections and invitations to take part in its activities, e.g. seminars and workshops
• Curatorial support during the Scholarship
• Reading Room provision
• Sponsored email account
• Scholarships can be taken at a mutually agreed time between 1 July and 31 August 2018.
• Scholarships will last for a period of between two and eight weeks.  

Essential Criteria

All activity must be based strongly on the Special Collections of the University of St Andrews Library. Of particular interest to BPH readers will be the outstanding photography collections and a list of the key collections can be found here; https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/imu/imu.php?request=browse&browsetype=about

Visiting Research Scholar Application Process

Further details can be found here: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/researchandenquiries/visitingscholars/

Explore Your Archive is a campaign that showcases the best of archives and archive services in the UK and Ireland. The campaign is owned by the sector itself and delivered by a wide range of partners and stakeholders, including The National Archives (UK) and the Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland). By providing a range of marketing and information templates and materials, it aims to help professionals, volunteers, interns and students celebrate the unique potential of archives to excite people, bring communities together and tell amazing stories.

The campaign aims to open the phenomenal archival collections held by organisations – public and private – across the UK and Ireland, whatever their size and scale, and wherever they are. There is no ‘theme’ and there is no set date, thought there is an annual launch week (18-26 November in 2017). Any archive in the UK and Ireland can take part and freely use the material on this site (though note that the ARA owns the copyright to the campaign branding).

There are a number of events listed relating to, and about photography, which will be of interest to BPH readers coming up including:

• Sara Stevenson on The Police and Photography in the early years of invention 1840-80
• David Bruce on John Henry Greatrex: A Very Criminal Photographer

See: http://www.exploreyourarchive.org/

I have acquired a half stereo view, from the series "The Great Eastern in the Stereoscope", showing a scene onboard the great ship, after "The Explosion".  One of the funnels is clearly broken in half, and a gent in top hat is observing.

I assumed that this must be Brunel himself, viewing the destruction.

I also assumed that this was one of Robert Howlett's stereo views of the Great Eastern.

But, the facts don't add up. I'm confused, and am hoping members can help me understand.

The reverse of the image has a pencil notation (probably later) stating "Scene on the deck after the explosion, 1858".

From what I understand;

The explosion occurred on 9 Sept, 1859.

Howlett Died in December of 1858.

Brunel Died on 15, September, 1859.

So, Did Brunel inspect the damage 6 days before his death? Or is this someone else in the top hat? Who might that be?

As Howlett had untimely passed, was the photographer George Downes? or someone else?

Or do I have all my dates incorrect? Everything seems to have happened so quickly during this short time period.

Many Thanks,

David McGreevy

As part of the Stills Centre of Photography 40th anniversary events  Stills is pleased to present a talk by Brett Rogers OBE, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London. She will talk about the organisation's history, current priorities and future plans in light of their 50th anniversary in 2021. 

Brett Rogers OBE (b.1954, Australia) is Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London, the first publicly funded Gallery dedicated solely to photography in the UK. Founded in 1971, it established early on a reputation for its independent approach to curating and its promotion of photography in all its myriad forms. Now located in the heart of London’s Soho Quarter, the newly transformed building opened to the public in May 2012 continues to be recognized internationally as an innovator within the filed of photography and the wider image economy. Before joining the Gallery in 2006, Brett was deputy director of visual arts at the British Council, where she was responsible for establishing the British Council’s Photography Collection and curating an ambitious programme of international touring exhibitions on British photography. In 2013 her key role in developing the photographic field was recognized by University of the Arts London by appointing her a Visiting Fellow. Brett Rogers was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in the Queen’s Birthday Honors in May 2014. 

Book and see the other talks in the series here: http://www.stills.org/event/future

The Icon Photographic Materials Group is running an event on Friday 17th November to share knowledge on the conservation of photographs and film, following on from the successful Icon Scotland news and ideas exchange.

Speakers from public institutions, private conservators and students will talk about their dilemmas and solutions over traditional and modern photographic materials, from treatments to preventive measures, scientific investigation and routes into photograph conservation. The aim of the meeting is to build a comfortable space to discuss on-going projects. Tea, coffee, soft drinks, cakes and fruit will be provided.

If you’re willing to give a five minute talk, send a titled proposal (c. 100 words) with your name and affiliation by Monday 23rd October. Invited speakers will need to prepare approximately five PowerPoint slides, though these should be illustrative rather than textual. If you’d like any further details or to discuss your idea please get in touch as soon as possible: phmg@icon.org.uk. 

The event will take place from 12:30 (for a 13:00 start) -16:00. This will be followed by a short annual general meeting and a visit to Illuminating India: Photography 1857-2017 from 16:00-18:00. The annual general meeting and the exhibition are free.

A final version of the programme will be available from Tuesday 31st October. 

More information here: https://icon.org.uk/events/photo-conservation-round-table-discussion-annual-general-meeting-and-exhibition

"It has been called a revolution" reported the magazine Photography in 1907 describing the introduction of the autochrome plate. As the first colour photography process, which was easy to use and could achieve excellent colour results, the autochrome was celebrated as a turning point in the development of photography.

Art photographers, studio photographers, as well as scientists, devoted themselves to recording the world in colour. This publication provides the first comprehensive analysis of the colour revolution in Great Britain. It looks not only at the beginning of a debate about the value of colour in photography, which lasted until the 1980s, but also at the origins of a pictorial practice that continues into the digital age.

This book, in German for now, by Caroline Fuchs will be available from 7 November and is available through Amazon.

BPH will carry a review in due course. 

Das Autochrom in Grobritannien: Revolution Der Farbfotografie (Studies in Theory and History of Photography)
Caroline Fuchs
de Gruyter, 2017
324 pages, 100 illustrations
Printed book and e-book

ISBN 978-3110485882

Photoworks seeks to appoint a new Director to succeed current Director,  Celia Davies, after eight successful years with the organisation.

We seek a dynamic and ambitious individual who’ll build on our achievements to date and our distinctive and respected reputation. The new Director will inspire and lead the agile Photoworks team to deliver major cultural projects across different platforms nationally and internationally, overseeing the business plan implementation to realise them.

You’ll be a significant player in the photography and visual culture scene with a strong curatorial background and experienced in commissioning artists. You will have the vision to lead and ability to work in collaboration. You’re adept in understanding the operational demands of an organisation, with the ability to foster partners and stakeholders and seek out new cultural, strategic and commercial opportunities that extend the reach and impact of our work. You’ll be strongly committed to diversity and inclusion at every level of our activity.

Reporting directly to the Photoworks Board of Trustees, the Director will take overall responsibility for the organisation ensuring its full potential, its resilience and sustainability, and shaping its future.

Deadline for applications is Monday, 6 November 2017.

Interviews will be on Thursday, 16 November and Friday, 17 November 2017 in Brighton with possible second interviews on Monday, 20 November.

See more here: https://photoworks.org.uk/project-news/job-opportunity-director/#close-no