Blogs

This new book Belgian Photographers 1839-1939 - A Chronological Bibliography of Publications from 1945 to 2020' offers an overview of printed publications, published between 1945 and 2020, about Belgian photographers who were active from the invention of photography until the beginning of the WWII. It is a chronological bibliography, followed by an index of authors and photographers. The latter makes it possible to find all publications in which a particular photographer is mentioned. It includes both professional and amateur photographers and photographers of local, national or international renown.

There are some 7 700 entries, including a couple of hundred cross-references, covering professional and amateur photographers as well as firms and individuals active in connected trades (for instance, platemaking, photomechanical printing, postcard publishing). For further explanations on the content and structure, please consult the section Directory: structure of entries.

This database is a revised and expanded version of the Directory of Photographers in Belgium 1839-1905 by Steven F. Joseph, Tristan Schwilden and Marie-Christine Claes, published by the Museum of Photography, Antwerp in 1997. The same authors have been active in creating this online version, once again with the enthusiastic support of FOMU. English is used throughout, in order to make the database accessible to a broad audience of international scholars and researchers. An exception is made for locations and Place Names in Belgium, which have been faithfully transcribed from the original sources used by the photographers themselves.

Belgian Photographers 1839-1939 - A Chronological Bibliography of Publications from 1945 to 2020
Frank Driesen
Brepols, with the support of FOMU
ISBN 978-2-503-59779-9
Paperback: €30 incl. VAT (Belgium), € 28,31 / $ 37.00 / £ 24.00 excl. VAT and/or taxes

Read more here: https://fomu.atomis.be/index.php
Download the flyer and order form here:  BELGIAN%20PHOTOGRAPHERS.pdf

The Folly is a Grade I listed historic house from 1679 in the heart of historic Settle. It houses the Museum of North Craven Life, which tells which tells fascinating tales of the people and landscape of the local area. We have recently acquired the Horner Collection, comprising approximately one thousand glass plate negatives from the Horner Photographic Studio in Settle, which operated from around 1867 to 1960.

We have been awarded a Cultural Recovery Fund Grant, which includes £5,000 appoint a consultant technician to work on The Horner Collection. They will undertake research into the collection, investigate its history, create a preliminary inventory with dates and condition reports, and to provide advice preparatory to development of a detailed catalogue. The role-holder will also train a small group of volunteers to scan and repackage the negatives.

Contact: Caitlin Greenwood hdo@ncbpt.org.uk 

Details of the Horner Collection here: https://thefolly.org.uk/blog-horner/

The National Science and Media Museum is implementing new programmes of research and interpretation of its world-leading collections relating to photography, film, television and sound technologies. The role of Curator of Television and Broadcast will take a leading role on championing our world class collections of Television and Broadcast in relation to the rest of our core collecting areas.

As Curator of Television and Broadcast you will work with colleagues across the Science Museum Group to explore the history and current practice of television and broadcasting technologies and create opportunities for engaging visitors with media, technology and engineering-related content across SMG public programming.

You will work closely with the exhibitions team at the National Science and Media Museum and digital content teams across the group to develop the content and interpretation for our new permanent galleries, Sound & Vision, as well as our temporary exhibition programme. This role will support our celebration in 2022 with the BBC of a 100 years of Broadcasting.

Working alongside other specialist archivists and curators in National Science and Media Museum, you will foster links with internal and external stakeholders in the television and broadcasting communities. As a curator you will feed into strategies for embedding television and broadcasting collections in SMG’s forward programmes of temporary exhibitions and permanent galleries and ensure a presence for them in SMG’s social and broadcast media outputs.

Joining us you will have a broad knowledge of the history and current practice of history of science and/or media alongside experience of working with museum collections. You will have excellent communication and interpersonal skills with experience communicating history or complex information to non-specialist audiences for example in exhibitions, articles, blogs, outreach or teaching.

Details here.

The Magic Lantern Society has announced preliminary details of its 11th international convention which will take place in Birmingham from 29 April-1 May 2022. It will take place at its regular venue, the Birmingham and Midland Institute. 

See more here: http://www.magiclantern.org.uk/convention2022/

Earlier this year, the School of Scottish Studies Archive and the Centre for Research Collections teamed up with renowned Scottish photographer, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, to add a landmark collection of photos to the School’s documentary collections. Sutton-Hibbert has worked as a freelance photographer and photojournalist for over 30 years and in 2012 co-founded Document Scotland – a collective of Scottish documentary photographers.

Sutton-Hibbert’s documentary work focusing on Scotland filled a natural gap in the Archive’s extensive photographic holdings, and the team worked with him to identify three series of photographs which would best suit the collection. Selections were made from his North Sea Fishing (1992-1995), the recently demolished Longannet Colliery (2001), and Paddy’s Market (2000) which echoed with coastal working life, Scottish industrial cultures, and urban living which can be found throughout the School’s archive.

Read a full account here: https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/sssa/jeremy-sutton-hibbert/

Image: Tam Gay repairs torn nets aboard the Mairead, North Sea, February 1993 SSSA/JSH1/20

The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has published a short film about Caroline Douglas’s research project which focuses on a series of calotype salt prints made by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in Edinburgh in the late nineteenth century. Hill and Adamson’s series of portraits of Newhaven fishwives are one of the world’s earliest examples of photographic portraiture. Through her research and her own photographic practice, Caroline makes an exciting discovery after uncovering a series of outtakes from the calotype portrait of Mrs Elizabeth Johnstone Hall.

This project was supported by an Andrew Wyld Research Support Grant.

See the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAknd5DDmJw&t=3s

The Guardian newspaper reported that Bonhams New York was to sell an albumen photograph of the Rossetti Family at home (detail, right), dated 1863. The catalogue entry noted ' No similar quality original Lewis Carroll photograph of the Rossetti family has sold on the open market in recent years. Of the three known complete images of this photograph, only this and one other exist in private hands.'  The photograph was offered in New York with an estimate of US$ 50,000 - 70,000 (£38,000 - 53,000). It failed to find a buyer. 

See The Guardian news story https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/14/extremely-rare-photograph-of-the-rossettis-taken-by-lewis-carroll-up-for-auction

See the lot description: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26898/lot/177/

Folklore recording in Poulaphouca, County Wicklow, 1939. This shows the recording of local folklore before the flooding of a large area in 1939 for a reservoir and hydroelectric scheme. Image courtesy of the National Folklore Collection at University College, Dublin. One item of many in a new feature from the Gallery of Photography, Ireland. 

The interactive digital timeline brings together for the first time a dazzling array of photos spanning more than 180 years. The goal is to situate the development of photography in Ireland within broader technical, historical and artistic movements.

https://timeline.galleryofphotography.ie

This is part of the project called 'In Our Own Image' which the Gallery of Photography, Ireland has launched to record the history of photography in Ireland since 1839 and its development as regards techniques and practice ever since. The project will include a major exhibition in Dublin Castle, already described on this blog, as well as talks and publications plus this new online feature.

Michael Pakenham Edgeworth who was an early Irish Calotypist. This image from about 1842 or 1843 may be a self portrait. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland

In the early 20th century, fashion and photography were indelibly wedded through the efforts of a number of photographers, fashion designers, and magazine publishers. Once these cultural power shapers created the form, fashion photography took on a life of its own and became—perhaps always was—art. This art form has since been elevated to heights such that being a fashion photographer can be seen as very important chapter in many well-known photographers’ career: designers rely on them; models request them; magazines use their work: celebrities choose them for shoots; and the power they have to represent others is beyond compare in today’s, 21st century image-driven world.

Following our first Fashion and Photography conference in Palermo in 2018, we are further broadening the interdisciplinary mix and range of potential discussions and activities. Whether dance, theatre, drama theory, directing or performance practice, the different aspects of the performing arts will be explored and developed alongside previous discussions, especially with the new challenges of technology along with the changes in audiences and performers in the 21st century.

Our Fashion and Photography: 2nd Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary event will examine the dynamics of all these (and related) fields. In a world which is experiencing the transforming realities of globalization, with people engaging at all levels and in diverse ways, the intersections and engagements created at the interface of all the modes of representation involved in these areas and activities are paramount. They involve cultural, social, commercial, artistic, financial, and political issues, and from the bottom to the top can determine power relations, careers, sexual norms and deviance, and more.

We live in a period of so-called hyper-consumption which encourages individuals to consume for their own personal pleasure. Fast fashion, trends in sustainable and recyclable fashion, the rise of performance fashion and fashion as performance art  denotes a society now defined by movement, fluidity, and flexibility. Performance from ballet to theatre, the catwalk to festivals, is increasingly oriented towards pleasure and satisfaction, a fleeting hedonism which quickly changes focus. The experience is mixed with tensions, conflicts, and even anxiety. The uncertainties and fears of 21st century living are reflected in fashion, performance and all forms of visual representations.

This conference aims to consider ways in which we can re-imagine our practices in relation to others, our history, and the environment with a view to forming a selective innovative interdisciplinary publication to engender further collaboration and discussion, whilst also continuing the evolution of the project.

Unlike other conferences or gatherings, our event proposes to step outside the traditional conference setting and offer opportunities for photographers, designers, practitioners, theorists, independent scholars, academics, performers, writers, and others to intermingle, providing platforms for interdisciplinary interactions that are fruitful and conducive to broadening horizons and sparking future projects, collaborations, and connections.

2nd Global Conference. Fashion and Photography. An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Project
Friday 8th July 2022 - Saturday 9th July 2022
Athens, Greece

See more here: https://www.progressiveconnexions.net/interdisciplinary-projects/global-transformations/fashion-and-photography/conferences/

For my current book project, I am looking for photographs of troops making craft objects to cope, heal or rehabilitate from injury or trauma associated with wars of the 20th and 21st centuries. I am also looking at civilians making craft to cope and to send items to troops in training or abroad. By craft, I mean objects made mainly by hand, using clay, fibers, metals, wood, and paper, and that tend to be valued for their hand-made properties in contrast to machine-made mass produced and distributed consumer goods. With thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Do you have any stereo cards of scenes in or around Newbury (Berkshire, UK)? This is a request for your help with some research I'm doing.

Below is a nice example of a card by the professional Newbury Photographer E T Brooks. It was probably one of a short series of cards produced for sale to tourists. I would imagine it dates from the 1870s. This card shows the surprisingly little changed scene of the canal swing bridge in West Mills.  If you view in 3D there are a charming row of very small children arrayed across the bridge. 

Do you have any stereo cards of Newbury?  If so I would love to hear from you and see the cards.  Both Professional and Amateur images are of interest. Thank you!

The nature, form, and impact of the book changed dramatically with the introduction of photography, altering the way books would be made, would appear, and would help transform the communication of ideas in visual form. In parallel to this phenomenon, the ability of the photograph to reach its widest audience would entail an essential partnership with the form of the book. The nomenclature of photography remains tied to the book: we think of the photographic “print” and of “printing” a photograph, even in an era where digital imagery dominates. 

Alongside these intertwined histories is the current phenomenon of the “photobook,” with a great resurgence and flowering of studies on photobooks, and of contemporary photography’s increased creative engagement with the format of the book through dealers, fairs, specialized auction sales, and publications, and through a wealth of practice. 

This course is designed to explore the history of the photographic book since Anna Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae was first privately circulated in 1843. It will be comprised of six two-hour sessions delivered online, based on the collections of Oxford’s Bodleian Library and delivered by Richard Ovenden. 

The five sessions will emphasise the physical form of the photographic book, an element neglected by most of the recent studies of the genre. It aims, therefore, to bring together the twin disciplines of the history of the book and the history of photography. Classes will be structured around the examination of exemplar cases—and will examine these case studies through paying close attention to the materiality of the books: paper, printing techniques, and design, as well as distribution, sales, and prices. Many of the examples will be illuminated through supporting archival evidence.

I-45v. The Photographic Book since 1843
Richard Ovenden
Course Length: 12 hours
Course Week: 5–10 June 2022
Format: online only
Fee: $800

See details here: https://rarebookschool.org/courses/illustration/i45v/

Just finished a Photogravure on Copperplate (Heliogravure) work with three steroscopic photogravures. The work is based on some data found on the epistolar relationship between Charles Wheatstone and William Henry Fox Talbot about stereoscopy and photogravure.

More details in a post of my blog: https://carlesmitja.net/2021/12/07/xix%c2%b7xxi-project/?fbclid=IwAR35evLf-TR_vyNFzyNT4jN2EnCpjD_E-BiWqEJO6ulCnpZ_chCp6xb4po4

The latest addition to my collection is this Howard Grubb aluminium Aplanatic 12x10 lens made in Dublin, probably in the late 1890s. This was probably one of the earliest aluminium lenses made by Grubb. Were there aluminium lenses from other manufacturers before this time? Aluminium was lighter than brass, but was then new as a refined product for manufacturing and very expensive to produce.

The lens has a diaphragm aperture, shown below at f22.

The lens has an aperture scale showing f11.3, 16, 22, 32, 45 and 64. F 11.3 was used in the Royal Photographic Society aperture scale which was introduced between 1895 and 1902. Any information about the date of introduction of the RPS scale might help to date the lens. I have access to a works notebook which provides finish dates for various Grubb lenses made in Dublin, but it ends before this serial number.

You may be interested in an article I have just published in Litro on the Hartlepool photographer David Wise - he is a figure who deserves greater recognition.

I first came across the photographs of David Wise in the Independent Magazine (24 March 1990) where they illustrated an article about drinking in Hartlepool pubs. The black and white pictures were raw and honest – brutally so – but they also depicted moments of great tenderness: a man looking at his crying girlfriend unable to comfort her, a drunken kiss, a last desperate hug before kicking out time...

Read the full article here:

https://www.litromagazine.com/every-saturday-litro-magazine-publishes-essays-that-reach-far-beneath-the-surface/hard-beauty-the-photographs-of-david-wise/

David

The history of photography in the 19th century has been constructed according to its creators, techniques and geographical origin, and there are still many possible ways of looking at its significance. Among them is that of the photography of civil engineering, the nature of which is explained within the historical, political, economic, cultural and technological context of the 19th century. The layout through this book forms the map that defines and introduces us to these images, from which to continue exploring meanings in such exciting areas as landscape, the development of technology and the aesthetics of these images that were born in the technical field of engineers but which, in reality, it is their collaboration with photographers that makes them a representation of the real change in nineteenth-century society towards the progress that will affect its ways of moving, relating and living.

Imágenes del progreso.pdf

Index

This event will focus on photographic archives and histories of empire. Three speakers will present short interventions (10 minutes) on the challenges and opportunities of working with such material today. The speakers will address methodological, ethical, and cultural considerations, offering case sy reflections on the changing research landscape for histories of empire in the archive.

Speakers:
Helen Mavin, Head of Photographs at Imperial War Museum;
Maria Creech, PhD student at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture; AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award Student in partnership with the Imperial War Museum;
Tom Allbeson, Lecturer in Cultural History at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture.

Chair:
Claire Gorrara, Dean for Research and Innovation for Cardiff University’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of French Studies at the School of Modern Languages.

Rethinking Histories of Empire: Visual Cultures in/or the Archive
Wednesday, 8 December 2021, 14:00-15:00
Free information and book here: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/events/view/2584682-rethinking-histories-of-empire-visual-cultures-inor-the-archive

An online roundtable event as part of the Global Language-based Area Studies research theme at the School of Modern Languages.

Atelier Éditions has announced announce the release of Nudism in a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists in Mid-20th Century Britain by Annebella Pollen, available in the UK/Europe at the end of November, 2021 and the USA/Rest of World early January, 2022.

Annebella Pollen’s richly illustrated study examines the idiosyncratic phenomenon of social nudism, or naturism, in 20th-century Britain, a place known for its lack of sunshine and conservative attitudes to sex. By bringing naturists’ own words and images to light, Nudism in a Cold Climate tells this little-known but fascinating history for the first time.

From the 1930s, thousands of people appeared nude in books and magazines associated with the nudist movement, drawing attention to the cause, attracting public curiosity and inciting moral panics. Naturist nude photography offers a fascinating lens on moral, legal and aesthetic shifts over a century of dramatic social change, including national beliefs about sex and gender, ethnicity and class, pleasure and power.

Nudism in a Cold Climate offers readers a fascinating glimpse behind British veils of propriety and a unique view inside an enduring experimental culture that sought to radically challenge, liberate and ultimately transform conventional attitudes to bodies and their representations.

Details here: 

Nudism in a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists in mid-20th Century Britain
Annebella Pollen
272 pages including over 100 archival photographs
Printed sustainably in Belgium
ISBN # 978-1-7336220-6-6

See: http://atelier-editions.com/store/nudism-in-a-cold-climate-by-annebella-pollen

Read The Guardian review here: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/dec/03/from-utopian-dreams-to-soho-sleaze-the-naked-history-of-british-nudism

As part of the British Society for the History of Mathematics meeting being held at the University of Warwick on 11 December Deborah Kent will give a paper “Fit for making a decent observation”? Photography and the British eclipse expedition of 1871. 

The abstract reads: 
Nineteenth-century mathematical innovations revolutionized eclipse prediction to allow ample time for organising viewing expeditions. From the 1850s onwards, developing technologies of photography and spectroscopy offered new tools to train on open questions about the size of the universe and the chemical composition of the corona. After opportunities to observe eclipse totality in India in 1868, in North America in 1869, and in Spain in 1870, hopes ran high for additional insights in 1871. The utility of photography was particularly under scrutiny in anticipation of a much rarer Transit of Venus in 1874. The work of British observing parties in 1871 not only confirmed and extended prior results, but also gained some notoriety for an indigenous Indian astronomer and solidified the significance of photography as a research tool.

Details and registration here: https://www.bshm.ac.uk/events/christmas-meeting