Blogs

• Experience how the museum’s photographic collection and its new Panoramic Halton tablets have been integrated with hands-on exhibits and the local environment in the observatory (supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund). 
• Hear from Howard Hopwood, Trustee of Catalyst and former HARMAN Chairman and New Business Director, about the black and white chemistry in your archives and collections.
• Ask Howard Hopwood questions and discuss issues like dealing chemical problems, faulty processing and contamination of prints of old negatives and prints.Programme10.30 - registration & refreshments (at the cafe)10.45 - introductions from PCN and Catalyst11.15 - archive collection highlights and observatory tour12.15 - presentation & Q+A with Howard Hopwood13.00 - lunch and informal networking for delegates in museum cafe14.00 - closePricesPlaces for PCN members are priced at £10, with tickets for non-members priced at £15. Ticket prices include refreshments and a contribution to the work of the museum. Places are extremely limited - so do get it or regret it!

It may be of interest to BPH members to know of articles about 19th century photographers in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

An article on George Parker (1833-1907) is here:

http://pittvillehistory.org.uk/bios/GeorgeParker.html

Joseph Dunton ran Dunton's Portrait Rooms in the 1860s.  The early part of his career in Cheltenham, when he pioneered archery practice there, is covered in this article:

http://pittvillehistory.org.uk/bios/873.html

Dunton's life is covered more fully in the Cheltenham Local History Society Journal:

‘Joseph Dunton (1810-1886) – Part 1, Archery Entrepreneur’, CLHS Journal No. 33 (2017), pp. 3-11
‘Joseph Dunton (1810-1886) – Part 2, Photography and Fireworks’, CLHS Journal No. 34 (2018), pp. 24-31. 

Funded by the Clare Hampson Fund, the internship will focus on the conservation of photographic materials as well as giving the intern the opportunity to develop their understanding of audience engagement.

The National Archives is the official archive and publisher for the UK Government and guardian of over 1,000 years of iconic national documents. We are hosting an internship in the conservation of photographs. The intern will research and implement conservation treatment on photographs and engage audiences in their work.

The closing date is 14th June 2018 at 9am. 

Click here: https://icon.org.uk/what-is-conservation/internships and click 'vacancies'

Dawn Parsonage is a Photographic artist and collector of found photography based in London. For over 20 years she has collected thousands of photographs, negatives, slides and stereo-cards from anonymous photographers. Concentrating on the 1850s-1950s, she searches for the unexpected, humorous, emotive and beautiful. Images, that when viewed with a modern eye, are just as emotive as those taken by named and celebrated photographers. 

The talk will take a broad look at her collection and ask:

• What can these forgotten images teach us about our own relationship with photography today? 
• Can the act of collecting found photography be viewed as an art form? 
• What role do images which have begun to degrade play in Dawn's work?
• How did the progression in photographic technology influence these images? 
• How does Dawn's collection influence her own photography?
• What is the future of found photography?" 
  https://www.dawnparsonage.com/

Limited places are available. 
£3 per ticket, 

Book here: https://www.liop.co.uk/talks/

This is the first monograph exploring how, throughout its history, sculpture has provided a model to conceptualize photography as an art of mechanical reproduction. While there is a growing body of work examining how photography has contributed to the development of a Western 'sculptural imagination' by disseminating works, facilitating the investigation of the medium, or changing sculptural aesthetics, this study focuses on how sculpture has provided not only beautiful and convenient subject matter for photographs, or commercial and cultural opportunities for photographers in the market for art reproductions, but also an exemplar for thinking about photography as a medium based on mechanical means of production. In both media, processes from conception to realization involve apparatus that bypass the 'touch of the artist' - so important to enduring notions of the value of works of art.

The book closely analyses a number of case studies, from 1847 to the present, selected both to explicate the conceptual and technological continuities between the two media, and also because of how they illuminate the materiality of photographic objects. The final chapter considers the convergence of the two media in contemporary sculptural practices that use forms of 3D photography and computer-operated sculpting machines. 

Rooted in an understanding of the practical, social and aesthetic implications of photographic as well as sculptural technologies, this volume demonstrates how photographs of sculpture are particularly useful in revealing how photography's changing materialities shape the meaning of images as they are made, circulated, looked at, written about and handled at different historical moments.

Sculptural Photographs. From the Calotype to Digital Technologies
Patrizia di Bello
Bloomsbury, 2018

See more and order here