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Photography arrived in India in 1840 and ever since it has remained rooted in the distinctive aesthetics and cultural iconography of the sub-continent while also serving as a reflection of the political context of the times. The symposium will be chaired by Rahaab Allana, consultant curator of Illuminating India: Photography 1857–2017, curator of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi and Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in London

Booking is now open here: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/events/exhibition_events/illuminating-india-events/indias-place-in-photographys-world

India’s Place in Photography’s World

Science Museum

Friday 6 October, 14.00-19.00

Free, ticketed / All ages

The restoration of Robert Howlett's grave is complete.  Restorers lifted the memorial plinth on Tuesday 1st August and, after some remedial work beneath, installed a new bespoke concrete base.  The plinth was then lowered onto this solid base which replaced crumbling, unstable brickwork, and will support his Yorkstone memorial indefinitely.

On 3rd August the obscured text inscription was re engraved using skills authentic to 1858, bringing the grave back to its original condition.

This crowdfunded project has only been made possible by the generosity of people from all corners of the world, photographers, distant relatives and anonymous well wishers.  Howlett's grave will be re dedicated on 14th October in a unique ceremony celebrating this young man's short life.  

Details here: http://www.rps.org/events/2017/october/14/re-dedication-of-pioneer-photographer-robert-howletts-memorial-norfolk

A JustGiving page is available for donations towards the on going care of his grave to preserve this wonderful restoration here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/howlett-grave

I am looking for information on the German born industrial photographer Adolf (sometimes Adolph) Morath who worked extensively for British Petroleum and the Kuwaiti Oil Company in the mid-20th century, photographing oil workers, their daily life and the company facilities in Kuwait and other places. Despite his huge portfolio, there seems to be hardly any information on Morath. I would be very thankful for any information, material or recommendation where to look.

Information Request :   Can anyone fill in detail about this Portrait worker and Photo Magazine author who seems to be connected with Norman Lewis, possibly through the Camera Club London. I understand he suffered a Motor Accident early in the War.

The second edition of the St Andrews Photography Festival opens on 1 September. The full programme is available here.

Of particular note to photo-historians are: 

• 40th anniversary of Stills Gallery. Stills is presenting a display of exhibition posters from its archive. Dating from 1977 to the present day, these chart the organisation’s rich and diverse programmes of exhibitions over the last 40 years. In that time, Stills has brought work by many of the world’s most celebrated and historically important photographers to Edinburgh for the first time for Scottish audiences to discover and enjoy at home.
• Calotype views of St Andrews / Robert Douglas. Using the methods and Chemistry described by Dr John Adamson combined with Victorian lenses, Robert Douglas the “21st century Calotypist” brings you Calotype Views of St Andrews harking back to the infancy of photography before the art became industrialised. These were produced during the course of several visits to St Andrews each image taking many hours to produce. They are the result of much research, effort and passion.
• Valentines Scottish Islands. This exhibition gives a flavour of how the postcard firm of Valentine & Sons depicted the Hebridean Islands of Scotland during the period 1890 to 1960. Valentine’s postcards and photographs of any place was driven by what they thought would sell to the public and this lead to a different depiction of the country to the tourist view we have today. Many of the images taken and made into postcards are of the towns and villages of the islands and transport as well as the more recognisable tourist attractions of the countryside, castles and ancient monuments. The images in this exhibition thus reflect the commercial and social values of the times and the purpose the images served in being a souvenir to send home, or a photograph to show on returning home in a time when few people had cameras.
• The Kinnairds of Rossie Priory.  Rossie Priory is a country house and estate to the north of Inchture. An early calotype photographic studio was established here for George Kinnaird, 9th Lord Kinnaird with the assistance of Thomas Rodger around 1850. These images represent a wonderful array of early photographic practitioners posing at Rossie Priory with their apparatus, portraits of gentlemen and ladies in period attire, key figures from Scotland’s early photographic circle, and the darkrooms at Rossie Priory.
• plus a range of talks, demonstrations and events

The National Portrait Gallery is to stage an exhibition of photographs by four of the most celebrated figures in art photography, including previously unseen works and a notorious photomontage, it was announced today, Tuesday 22 August 2017.

Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography (1 March – 20 May 2018), will combine for the first time ever portraits by Lewis Carroll (1832–98), Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79), Oscar Rejlander (1813–75) and Lady Clementina Hawarden (1822-65).

The exhibition will be the first to examine the relationship between the four ground-breaking artists. Drawn from public and private collections internationally, it will feature some of the most breath-taking images in photographic history, including many which have not been seen in Britain since they were made. 

Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography will be the first exhibition in London to feature the work of Swedish born ‘Father of Photoshop’ Oscar Rejlander since the artist’s death. it will include the finest surviving print of his famous picture Two Ways of Life of 1856-7, which used his pioneering technique combining several different negatives to create a single final image. Constructed from over 30 separate negatives, Two Ways of Life was so large it had to be printed on two sheets of paper joined together.

Seldom-seen original negatives by Lewis Carroll and Rejlander will both be shown, allowing visitors to see ‘behind the scenes’ as they made their pictures.

An album of photographs by Rejlander purchased by the National Portrait Gallery following an export bar in 2015 will also go on display together with other treasures from the Gallery’s world-famous holdings of Rejlander, Cameron and Carroll, which for conservation reasons are rarely on view. The exhibition will also include works by cult hero Clementina Hawarden, a closely associated photographer. This will be the first major showing of her work since the exhibition Lady Hawarden at the V&A in London and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1990.

Lewis Carroll’s photographs of Alice Liddell, his muse for Alice in Wonderland, are among the most beloved photographs of the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection. Less well known are the photographs made of Alice years later, showing her a fully grown woman. The exhibition will bring together these works for the first time, as well as Alice Liddell as Beggar Maid on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Visitors will be able to see how each photographer approached the same subject, as when Cameron and Rejlander both photographed the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the scientist Charles Darwin, or when Carroll and Cameron both photographed the actress, Ellen Terry. The exhibition will also include the legendary studies of human emotion Rejlander made for Darwin, on loan from the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University.

Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography celebrates four key nineteenth-century figures, exploring their experimental approach to picture-making. Their radical attitudes towards photography have informed artistic practice ever since.

The four created an unlikely alliance. Rejlander was a Swedish émigré with a mysterious past; Cameron was a middle-aged expatriate from colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka); Carroll was an Oxford academic and writer of fantasy literature; and Hawarden was landed genty, the child of a Scottish naval hero and a Spanish beauty, 26 years younger. Yet, Carroll, Cameron and Hawarden all studied under Rejlander briefly, and maintained lasting associations, exchanging ideas about portraiture and narrative. Influenced by historical painting and frequently associated with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, they formed a bridge between the art of the past and the art of the future, standing as true giants in Victorian photography.

Lenders to the exhibition include The Royal Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin; Munich Stadtsmuseum; Tate and V & A.

Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography will include portraits of sitters such as Charles Darwin, Alice Liddell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Thomas Carlyle, George Frederick Watts, Ellen Terry and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘The National Portrait Gallery has one of the finest holdings of Victorian photographs in the world. As well as some of the Gallery’s rarely seen treasures, such as the original negative of Lewis Carroll’s portrait of Alice Liddell and images of Alice and her siblings being displayed for the first time, this exhibition will be a rare opportunity to see the works of all four of these highly innovative and influential artists.’

Phillip Prodger, Head of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery, London, and Curator of Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography, says: ‘When people think of Victorian photography, they sometimes think of stiff, fusty portraits of women in crinoline dresses, and men in bowler hats. Victorian Giants is anything but. Here visitors can see the birth of an idea – raw, edgy, experimental — the Victorian avant-garde, not just in photography, but in art writ large. The works of Cameron, Carroll, Hawarden and Rejlander forever changed thinking about photography and its expressive power. These are pictures that inspire and delight. And this is a show that lays bare the unrivalled creative energy, and optimism, that came with the birth of new ways of seeing.’

Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography is curated by Phillip Prodger Ph.D, Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London. He is author and editor of eighteen books and catalogues, including the acclaimed Eggleston Portraits (2016). A recognised expert in Victorian photography, he is the author of the award-winning Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement (2003) and Darwin’s Camera: Art and Photography in the Theory of Evolution (2009), named by New York Times as one of the best art books of the year.

VICTORIAN GIANTS: THE BIRTH OF ART PHOTOGRAPHY

1 March -20 May 2018, at the National Portrait Gallery, London www.npg.org.uk

Tickets with donation: Full price £12 / Concessions £10.50

Tickets without donation Full price £10 / Concessions £8.50 (Free for Members and Patrons)

www.npg.org.uk/victoriangiants or 020 7321 6600 #VictorianGiants

Press View: Wednesday 28 February 2018 10.00-12.00 (with a curators’ tour at 10.30).

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated book by curator Phillip Prodger which will be available to purchase from the National Portrait Gallery shops priced £29.95 (hardback).

The exhibition will tour to Millennium Galleries, Sheffield June – Sept 2018

Images: Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll, 1858 (c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty ) by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1866 © Wilson Centre for Photography, Photographic Study (Clementina Maude) by Clementina Hawarden, early 1860s © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Two ways of Life by Oscar Rejlander, 1856-7 (c) Moderna Museet, Stockholm

I have discovered yet another 19thC photographer in my family, this time on my Father's side and operating from the Old Kent Road area. I have found one of two examples of his CDV's but would welcome any further information?

Regards, Peter

The FLOW Photofest is presenting a series of talks on the work of Inverness salon photographer Andrew Paterson (1877-1948), the use of archives in contemporary art, and the results of a community curation project on a set of photographs of Francis Grant, an Inverness solicitor in the 1930s.

This day is sponsored by the Scottish Society for the History of Photography (SSHOP). All workshops and talks are being held in Eden Court Theatre in Inverness and admission is free.

For more details please check out the full programme at https://flowphotofest.co.uk/

Drawn by Light is the title of a two-part podcast, totalling nearly two hours, looking at the move of the RPS Collection from Bradford to the V&A Museum, London.  It looks at the reasons behind the move and the processes which underpinned it through interviews with some of those involved and others with an interest in the move. It uses the move of the RPS Collection as a prism to examine some of the wider issues around the centralisation and the funding of the arts in the United Kingdom.

Part one opens with Colin Ford CBE, the founding Head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT), reprising his story of how a national museum of photography came to Bradford culminating in its opening in 1983.  ‘Colin’s gift’ of the museum, as the interviewer Callum Barton puts it, was the natural home of the RPS Collection both of which embraced the art, science and technology of photography. The Collection was acquired in 2003 by his successor Amanda Nevill. When the move from Bradford to London was announced in 2016 Ford described himself as angry and upset and the move as wrong for photography, politically and geographically.

The broader context for the move has been an increasing centralisation of the arts in London and disproportionate funding cuts in the regions associated with the government's austerity programme since 2010. In to that mix the Science Museum Group’s (SMG) move to a STEM agenda, in support of government policies, spelt the end of an holistic approach to photography in Bradford. ‘Cultural asset stripping’ and more emotive phrases were used at the time.

For the National Media Museum (NMeM), the root of this lay with the near closure of the museum in 2013 and a proposed 30 per cent cut in funding. The public outcry in Bradford and from the wider photography world led to Ian Blatchford the SMG’s director being questioned by a parliamentary select committee. He defended the proposal highlighting declining visitor numbers and the impact of a poorly considered rebrand from NMPFT to NMeM in 2006. The subtext was that there was not enough science at the NMeM which had become a priority for the SMG and its constituent museums. The NMeM was ultimately saved and a process of review was set in train. In late 2012 Jo Quinton-Tulloch, was tasked with a brief to focus on science and technology and to realign the museum within the SMG. The holistic approach to photography, taking on both its art and science, was dropped in 2013 and a new mission statement published which concentrated on science and culture.

The RPS Collection with its primary focus on art and a user based concentrated on its artistic holdings became increasingly untenable.  In 2015 259 visitors used the Collection; the cost of maintaining it and making it available did not sit easily in a climate of declining funding.

Part 2 examines the transfer in more detail. In March 2015 Quinton-Tulloch proposed that the Collection be moved to a new SMG research centre. This proved unviable and the decision was ultimately taken to transfer the Collection to the V&A which offered to open it more widely physically and digitally. V&A curator Martin Barnes describes this in detail.

The wider discussion of centralisation in London of culture, a dramatic funding imbalance and an inequitable relationship between the centre and the regions occupies much of this part. Local authority cuts of 17 per cent since 2010, the stronger ability of the London institutions to raise private funding, all impact adversely on the regions. Barnes confirms that the first £1 million of the £7 million costs of the photographic research centre has already been secured in the space of a few months, something the SMG could only imagine. In 2012 80 per cent of private sector support for the arts went to London.

The RPS Collection transfer is cited as an example of London-centric trustees making decisions without any democratic or local accountability. Public consultation was absent, there was a lack of sensitivity to Bradford and the region and there had been no input from the wider photography sector. The poor handling of public criticism of the transfer by the SMG only compounded the controversy.

While due process between the SMG and V&A had been followed, the original purchase of the RPS Collection in 2003 through HLF and other sources, described in the podcast as ‘public money’, should have required a different approach. The SMG did not seek any compensation for the loss of the £4.5 million collection and Barton argues that such an approach potentially compromises future funding bids from HLF.  A policy fix is needed for such acquisitions. There are 13 further collections at the NMeM (now the National Science and Media Museum) including Tony Ray-Jones, the Herschel album, Talbot material and NMPFT/NMeM acquired material that have been earmarked for removal. Most telling, Burton suggests, is that the opportunity was missed to consolidate in Bradford at the NMeM, around one of  the greatest photography collections in the world.

So, what does the podcast tell us? Austerity and funding cuts disproportionately affect the UK regions; people do not want to lose cultural assets even if they rarely use them; that the decentralisation that saw the NMPFT move to Bradford in 1983 has been reversed; and, there is a growing centralisation of objects and funding in London. Ultimately, arts policy needs a serious and thorough review to deal with these issues.

What the podcast doesn’t do is provide the full story of the move of the RPS Collection to the V&A. There is much more that could be said around many aspects, including the original transfer from the RPS to the NMPFT and there are valid counter arguments as to why the move from Bradford to London, might have been the right one which should also be explored. These deserve an equal airing.

In the end, the debate about the RPS Collection transfer is academic. The V&A must now deliver on making the RPS Collection accessible and central to its new photography centre as it promised; the handling of any future disposals from the NMeM’s successor, the National Science and Media Museum, must be done more openly; and the photography world needs to do more to make its presence felt; although it may have been overtaken by events the absence of a national museum of photography is still up for discussion, but, most importantly, there needs to be a harder look at national arts policy, and the UK regions need to work to get the government and Arts Council England to allocate limited resources in a more equitable way.

Drawn by Light is a non-profit production for Saccadence
  it features interviews with Colin Ford, Michael Terwey, Martin Barnes, Francis Hodgson, Jo Booth and others. 
Written, edited and produced by Callum Barton
Listen to both parts here: https://www.drawnbylightpodcast.org/

The studio BYRNE & Co of Richmond - are any facts available ? I mean how long in the photographic business, who was owner/founder etc. Please take a look at the letter cover.

The photograph as a byproduct of intention does not begin with its publication. Although photographs are uniquely powerful because of their reproducibility, the specific camera equipment and its use also needs to be considered for a fuller understanding of the image. Research that focuses on camera technology will help us understand how and in what ways imaging technology impacts and forms the representation out of which we make knowledge, base our judgments, and ultimately act.

Before Representation: The Camera as Actor is an edited collection that aims to lead this conversation by bringing together scholars from various backgrounds and fields who study photographic technology in different time periods. By focusing on the camera, this edited volume builds on current literature to demonstrate the ways in which various types of imaging technology informs, elicits, and produces specific ways of seeing. Considering the photograph as a materialization resulting from a type of technology is often overlooked when thinking about the power of a photograph’s meaning. But photographs are the result of specific instruments that create powerful image extractions. A critical examination of camera technology will demonstrate the ways in which intention and imaginaries are married into facts through the potent inscription device called the camera.

Of particular interest are papers that take the camera as the object of inquiry with specific case studies about how photography has been, or is being, variously implemented and the impact it has on both social and scientific knowledge. From missile tracking to disease mapping, developing camera technology is being applied widely and variously to produce and render new and varied forms of photographic representations. Examining the types of changes that have occurred between older analogue forms and newer digital ones offers a comparative analysis about the ways in which camera choice does not simply influence the way a photograph looks, but determines which views and ideas are desired and potentially made possible.

Some questions authors might address include:

1. How have the camera and scientific research been related? Can the instrument be separated from its evidence?
2. Are affective qualities of the image created or enhanced through specific technologies?
3. What knowledge has been realized specifically through camera technology? What has been foreclosed?
4. What information has been asked from the photographic instrument?
5. What emerging photographic technologies exist and how are they being utilized?
6. Have changes in photographic technology ushered in new possibilities for the social?
7. Does new photographic technology impact identity, representation or sociality in ways that vary from earlier photographic technology? If so, in what ways?

Please email Amy Cox Hall (acoxhall@amherst.edu) by October 1, 2017 with an extended abstract and brief bio for consideration. 

Fotografiska, Stockholm's centre for contemporary photography, is to open a new building to be called Fotografiska - London Museum of Photography in 2018.

Fotografiska - London Museum of Photography will occupy the lower ground floors and a new office pavilion at The White Chapel Building, designed by Fletcher Priest Architects, at 10 Whitechapel High Street, E1, This is Fotografiska's first gallery outside Stockholm and will add another important cultural and leisure hub to the fast improving Whitechapel area. Fotografiska is also believed to be about to lease a 45,000 sq. ft space in New York on Park Avenue South.

In London, the initial rent is £2.4m per annum or £27 per sq ft. with Fotografiska occupying the whole of Phase 2 comprising 89,000 sq ft on a 15-year lease.

John Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Derwent London, said: “We are very excited to welcome Fotografiska - The London Museum of Photography to The White Chapel Building.  We believe their arrival will be a major benefit to the area and Fotografiska’s character endorses the Group’s focus on good design.  This pre-let means that we will have successfully let the entire property."

Tommy Rönngren, Founding partner and Chairman of the Board of Fotografiska London, said: “Derwent is a developer with great creative vision and we chose to work with them because of the combination of the building itself and the creative heritage of Derwent.  Fotografiska has for a long time been searching for suitable facilities in London, one of the world's most dynamic cities when it comes to photography.  Whitechapel, which is one of London's most dynamic areas, will be a perfect location.  It will be really exciting to bring the concept of Fotografiska to London.”

Fotografiska, is a privately-run 'museum' of photography on the waterfront in Stockholm and opened 2010, although, as Wikipedia pithily points out, it is not a museum having no collection, conducting no research and it is for profit. Fotografiska describes itself as an international meeting place where everything revolves around photography. In practice this means exhibitions and commercial activities which attract some 550,000 visitors annually. The founders of Fotografiska are brothers Jan and Per BromanIt and it is co-owned by venture capitalist Jan Tommy Rönngren.

I am researching John Thomson’s time in the Pearl River Delta region of China (namely Hong Kong and Canton) as part of a doctoral thesis at SOAS, University of London. I am particularly interested in any prints and carte-des-visites that he made in this region in the period 1868-1872. I would also love o speak to anyone who has carte-des-visites made by other photographers in Hong Kong at around this same time. I can be contacted through this website or at the email address (thecheungstudio@gmail.com). Thank you!

The V&A has a number of courses and workshops taking place during August, September and October which include practical photographic process workshops and a history of photography evening course. Details are below. 

Salt Print Photography

Practical Workshop

Sat 19 August

10.30 – 17.00

Explore one of the earliest historical photographic processes and discover how to use digital negatives to create salt print photographs. Be inspired by the Museum and learn how to coat, expose and fix your own salt print with artist Molly Behagg.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/L0Ed8Y7g/salt-print-photography-aug-2017

History of Photography

Evening Course

Tuesdays 3 October - 14 November

18.30 – 20.30

In 1852, the V&A became one of the first museums to acquire photographs for its collections, holding its inaugural photography exhibition in 1858. Today, the collection is one of the most important in the world with approximately 800,000 images dating from the 1820s to the present day. This course will present an overview of the history of the medium of photography, encompassing works by a broad array of historic and contemporary practitioners.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/Vn1NRayw/history-of-photography-2017

Photographic Processes

Practical Workshop

Mondays, 6 - 27 November

10.30 – 13.00
Join photographer Almudena Romero for a practical exploration of photographic processes, from 19^th century printing techniques to the latest 3D scanning technologies. You will learn a variety of processes, including those based on natural materials as well as digital processes.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/23okLE3l/photographic-processes-november-2017

Portrait Photography

Practical Workshop

Fri 1 & Sat 2 December

10.30 – 17.00

Improve your photographic skills with photographer Nigel Wilson and explore a range of approaches to portraiture. Draw inspiration from the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection and discover how the use of various camera techniques and lenses will bring the most out of your portraiture. 

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/venDqXdY/portrait-photography-december-2017

The Female Gaze: photographic practices

Practical Workshop

Tuesdays, 31 October - 19 December

10.30 – 13.00

This extensive hands on photography course, led by Grace Gelder, will explore women's contribution to photography, from Julia Margaret Cameron to Deborah Turbeville. With access to original prints in the V&A's collection you will explore a range of approaches to creatively develop ideas.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/MkrqqdGD/the-female-gaze-photographic-practices-2017

Photo Oxford 2017 is presenting an afternoon of stimulating discussions with artists, curators and academics that draw on the themes and theories explored in Photo Oxford 2017, a series of explorations into the complex and often contradictory relationship between photography’s capacity to both conceal and reveal. Of particular note is Professor Val Williams on the practice of reconceptualising photographic archives and Martin Parr discusses the making of his newly-commissioned project Oxford, created for the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University Press and Photo Oxford, with Richard Ovenden.

Thursday September 7th

The Weston Library’s Lecture Theatre

Bodleian Libraries

University of Oxford

See more and book here

Derby's historic photography studio W W Winter will be opening its doors between 8-10 September as part of Heritage Open Days. 

See more here: http://wwwinter.co.uk/historyandheritage.html Booking is essential at: office@wwwinter.co.uk

Some months ago while browsing the net I came upon several photographs attributed to Thomas Begbie; I recognised several of these photographs as ones which I held in my collection. This led me to the Capital Collections website of Edinburgh Council libraries and museums where I recognised several further images which I own. I then acquired a copy of the 1992 book Thomas Begbie's Edinburgh - a Mid-Victorian Portrait by Joe Rock and again there were further photographs illustrated that I own. However in every case the photographs that I recognised were original Victorian stereographs by Alexander McGlashon.

It was immediately apparent that the dating of the photographs, mostly stereographs, on the Capital Collections site was generally incorrect. The images are mostly dated 1887 on the site but many of these were advertised for sale by McGlashon in 1858 in Menzies Magazine. This dating problem can be verified additionally in some instances from physical features in the photographs; for example a view of Princes Street in Edinburgh from the Scott Monument shows Campbell’s North British Hotel which was still trading as such in 1857 but by 1858 had become Wilson’s North British Hotel. Similarly a stereo of the Covenanters Tomb in Greyfriars Churchyard is dated 1887; however the stereograph which I own, in addition to bearing the McGlashon name, has on the right hand margin the embossed stamp of the Edinburgh Stereographic Co of New York, which operated in the late 1850s. Capital Collections incorrectly dates these and other images to 1887.

Begbie was born in the first half of 1841 making him age 16/17 when these stereos were taken. Oddly there are few contemporary references to him. Indeed a detailed search of the online British Newspaper Archive failed to produce any references to him. Begbie did run a studio from his house in Leith Street from 1874 – 1881 but from the lack of any other recorded photographic activities it is reasonable to assume that he was not particularly successful as a photographer. Indeed I am struck by lack of surviving photos bearing the Begbie name and in particular I have not seen any Victorian stereoviews with his name on them. By contrast the contemporary press confirms the active photographic involvement of McGlashon - he photographed many well known individuals;  he lectured on the theory and practice of photography in the Edinburgh Institute; he was a council member of the Edinburgh Photographic Society whose meetings he on occasion chaired and he also gave talks to them on photographic subjects; he was involved in photographic projects with Octavius Hill including exhibiting at the London International exhibition in 1862.

If these stereo plates were ever in the possession of Begbie, and there is no clear evidence that they were, I would suggest that the most likely scenario was that he purchased them from McGlashon with a view to reusing them, but that his business never grew sufficiently for him to make use of them. Bearing on mind that these plates were discovered in St James Square, Edinburgh in 1950 it may also be relevant that at the time of his death in 1877 the McGlashon business was based in St James Square and his daughter lived in a further address in that Square which she still owned at the time of her death in 1919.

In the introductory pages of the book by Joe Rock there is clear and I believe well founded scepticism that the youthful Begbie could have been the photographer. I have recently corresponded with Joe on this subject and he has confirmed that he has always been sceptical of the attribution of these photographs to Begbie; as he stated in the book “on balance we must accept Begbie as the author until more evidence should prove otherwise” – I think that the required evidence is now available that the photographs are by Alexander McGlashon and should be recognised as such.

Pauline Heathcote’s archives in the care of Eric Butler at Bromley House Library have been the cornerstone of our research into Somerset Photography . The Archive and the book “A Faithful Likeness” written by Pauline and Bernard Heathcote covers early British photography from its beginnings to 1855 it is a mine of information for researchers of early  photography . I recommend them to anyone embarking on a similar county study like ours for Somerset which should be available in the next few months .

The Archive is available by contacting Eric Butler , a member of this site , the book is well worth having if you can find a copy .

Having just joined the British Photographic History Group, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and the research that I am carrying out. My name is Peter Norman, I am a Technician working at the National Portrait Gallery in London and I am looking to develop a workable method to reproduce the Lumiere Autochrome colour process. Over the past year I have been learning the Silver Gelatin Bromide technique as well as producing the coloured starch mosaic that is integral to this process (see image). I have recently appeared in the BBC documentary, 'Olive Edis: Fisherman to Kings' explaining how the Autochrome works and the research that I am doing. Further to this I would like to make contact via this page with those who are interested in following my work and who have knowledge of the Autochrome process. Please feel free to post comments and here is a link to my instagram page. https://www.instagram.com/theautochromeproject/

An opportunity for two library cataloguers has arisen to catalogue a unique photobook collection of 13,000 items. The collection has been meticulously assembled over decades and requires cataloguing to become part of Tate Library’s Special collections. It is both national and international in its range.

You will have a qualification in librarianship or related discipline combined with relevant post-qualification cataloguing experience with serials, monographs and exhibition catalogues using an automated library system, AACR2 and MARC 21. You will also have experience in cataloguing materials in English and in languages other than English as the collection is international in scope.

You will be joining a small, enthusiastic and friendly team of Librarians, all of whom participate in the delivery of research services to Tate staff and external researchers in the Reading Rooms at Tate Britain.  You will, therefore, have good communication and interpersonal skills with experience of delivering excellent customer service.  

Tate Library is part of the world’s largest repository of British art from 1500 and international art from 1900. The Library Collections are housed in the Hyman Kreitman Reading Rooms and Stores at Tate Britain.

The photobook collection is likely to be Martin Parr's collection of photo books which the Tate has acquired.

Applications close 20 August 2017

See more here:  http://workingat.tate.org.uk/pages/job_search_view.aspx?jobId=3406