Blogs

The National Stereoscopic Association is happy to announce plans for a live convention and is seeking scholarly papers on the history of stereography for our third annual 'Sessions'.

Presentations are welcome on any aspect of stereo-media from the inception of stereoscopic photography to contemporary virtual and augmented reality. Topics include but are not limited to: historical and archival research; studies on collecting and the culture of stereography; marketing and incorporation; intersectionality; immersive media, interactivity and performance; stereoscopic perception; 3D cinema and virtual reality; instrumentality and simulation. Papers on topics from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century are invited.

Presenters may choose to present live or via a pre-recording. Please use the link to upload an abstract of 500 words, a biography of 250 words, and contact information:

Call for Papers

The National Stereoscopic Association’s: Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography III
at the 48^th Annual 3D-Con, The Hotel Murano, Tacoma, Washington, August 5, 2022.  https://3d-con.com/?id=nsa_3d_con_menu

Deadline for submissions: May 15, 2022.

Please be aware that conditions may change with COVID-19. Applicants for the “Sessions” and attendees are encouraged to check the website for the convention for updates: https://3d-con.com/?id=nsa_3d_con_menu

Photographing Protest: resistance through a feminist lens is a new exhibition opening at Four Corners, London, from 18 March, which showcases striking images by photographers from across generations, who have used their cameras to support political struggle and social change in Britain from 1968 to today.

The exhibition centres the voices and perspectives of women and nonbinary photographers, and those who have been making work within a feminist framework, challenging the male-dominated history of protest reportage.

Photographing Protest reveals how images of resistance resonate across generations. The exhibition opens with rarely seen images by activist photographer Sally Fraser, who captured defining social movements of the 1968 era, from the Hornsey Art College student sit-ins to the fiery beginnings of the Women’s Liberation movement. Social protests of the 1980s and 90s are shown through the prolific work of Format, the all-women photo agency: at the Greenham Common women’s peace camp, on the Miner’s strike frontline, at Reclaim the Night marches and more.  Alongside, the exhibition explores  a new generation of photographers engaging with contemporary struggles: anti-racism, LGBTQI+ community rights and climate justice among others, to ask how feminist protest photography can be an agent for today’s political change.

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of online talks, FEMINISM, PHOTOGRAPHY AND RESISTANCE, produced in collaboration with Kylie Thomas, researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD) in Amsterdam, and the editor of a special issue of MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture journal on photography and resistance (forthcoming). You can read about the full programme by clicking on the link below. 

Photographing Protest: Resistance Through a Feminist Lens
18 March 2022 – 30 April 2022
Four Corners, London
See: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/photographing-protest-resistance-through-a-feminist-lens

Thomas Annan of Glasgow. Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph is an open access book by Lionel Gossman and published by by Open Book Publishers in 2015.

It is available for free download here as a PDF .

Bringing together insights from environmental history and photographic history, this lecture will focus on climate and weather as subjects understood in and through photographic images, and the ways in which weather and climate shape the very possibility of photography in the first place. Focussing on specific historical examples, we will explore how weather changes are seen, felt and experienced by people, in relation to the ways in which photography “senses” changes in the atmosphere around it, and also with respect to the emotional atmosphere or collective mood captured by photographs of extreme and unusual weather.

Join Professor Georgina Endfield, Professor of Environmental History, and Professor Michelle Henning, Chair in Photography and Media, for a fascinating illustrated lecture.

Public Lecture Series 2022: Arts, Sustainability and the Climate Crisis
School of the Arts - University of Liverpool
A lens on the weather: historical perspectives on photography and climate
Wednesday 25 May @ 1730-2000 (BST)
Free, book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-lecture-a-lens-on-the-weather-tickets-251299733267

For decades, renowned author and photo critic Vince Aletti has accumulated one of the largest private collections of fashion magazines in North America. Join Ryerson Imaging Centre Director Paul Roth and Aletti in conversation as they discuss his most recent publication, Issues (Phaidon, 2019), which features select seminal issues from his archive. He will speak about the history of photography within this medium, explore the intersection of art and commerce, and describe how photographers from outside of the fashion world influenced the magazines they appeared in.

Vince Aletti is a writer, curator, collector and critic whose work can be found in Aperture, Art + Auction, Photograph, Artforum and Vogue Italia. Formerly a music critic for Rolling Stone, Aletti went on to be the art editor of the Village Voice from 1994–2005 and the paper’s photo critic for twenty years, after which reviewed photography exhibitions for The New Yorker. He has published extensively on the impact of fashion magazines on the history of photography, and won the International Center of Photography’s prestigious Infinity Award for writing in 2005. His most recent book is Issues: A History of Photography in Fashion Magazines (Phaidon, 2019).

Webinar
2 March 2022
1900 (EST) | 0000 (GMT)
Book here:  https://ryerson.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BtRaXaS9RiKiMH7t8jUrYQ

See details of the book here: https://www.phaidon.com/store/fashion-culture/issues-9780714876788/

Since the screening of Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay www.donotbendfilm.com I have continued to research the life of Bill Jay and the impact that he had on those around him. Subsequent research has unearthed further lost artefacts and stories that make connections between photographers and bring insight into how inter-connected the photographic community was in the 1960s and 70s between the UK and US.

In Search of Bill Jay will take the listener on a journey as I describe the process of researching Jay, making the film and subsequent events since its first screening at the Martin Parr Foundation in 2018. It will feature voices not heard in the film and stories not told, it will bring clarity to myths and suggest further areas for research. Just like the film it will be a fast paced rollercoaster ride!

All episodes will be posted at www.unitednationsofphotography.com and wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, and iTunes on the A Photographic Life podcast channel.

The V&A Museum has appointed Fiona Rogers as the inaugural Parasol Women in Photography curator. Rogers was at  Magnum from 2005 to 2020, ending up as Chief Operating Officer, and most recently she was Director of Photography and Operations for Webber Represents. She will start at the V&A on 7 March 2022. 

She is the founder of Firecracker which was set up in 2011 to promote women, those identifying as women and non-binary working in photography and has been a powerful voice in bringing women in photography to the fore. She also  acts as a trustee of the Martin Parr Foundation and The Peter Marlow Foundation, and advises the Royal Photographic Society. She has authored (with Max Houghton) Firecrackers: Female Photographers (Thames & Hudson, 2017) celebrating contemporary women practitioners.

The Parasol Women in Photography curator was advertised last autumn (see: https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/job-and-news-v-a-announces-the-parasol-foundation-women-in-photog) 

Details of Firecracker can be found here: https://fire-cracker.org/

I'd be interested in any information members can give me with respect to an album of fairly small images that I think were taken in or around Bethesda, a slate mining town in Wales. Some of the images show work at the slate mines and these images often have numbers and notes to the back. Other images show life in the town or the countryside around it. Many of the images are so good that I cannot help feeling there was some kind of commerical operation/motivation behind the production of the album but maybe it was produced by a talented amateur looking to record the places and activities around him or her. I attach a few images.

The Royal Horticultural Lindley Library is seeking an experienced cataloguer to catalogue its extensive collection of analogue photography relating to the history and practice of horticulture, as part of Heritage Lottery funded digitisation project to increase access to its heritage collections. This is a two year, part-time post working 21 hours a week. The photography collection sits within the RHS Heritage Collections and comprises of prints, transparencies, glass negatives and lantern slides, covering horticultural practise and personalities, plant portraits, gardens and gardening. 

Key accountabilities include: cataloguing designated collections to agreed standards using the Library collection management system (currently Axiell CALM); enhancing related documentation, such as accessions and donor records and creating relevant authority files; maintaining good location control; improving housing and storage of collections to conservation standards. 

Salary is £16,000 (£26,600 fte). For a full job description and person specification, please visit https://www.rhs.org.uk/about-the-rhs/opportunities. To apply please complete and return the short online application form to: recruitment@rhs.org.uk.

This workshop delivered by The National Archives, Kew, is designed to develop the knowledge and experience of students undertaking research in material culture, and in particular through the use of visual sources.

Students will learn about the different kinds of records held at The National Archives which can be particularly useful sources for material culture research. These comprise designs, images registered for copyright protection, and other artwork, graphic design and photographs produced or collected by government departments.

Our specialists will guide students through the history and structure of the different collections and explain how best to search and browse the online catalogue to find useful results. Students will also learn how to move between indexes and registers to find specific relevant material.

Attendance options

The National Archives is offering hybrid attendance options for its programme of PAST Skills and Methodology workshops in 2022. This workshop, focusing on visual sources, can be attended at two levels:

• Online-only workshop: Day 1 - 22 March  (online) only
• Full hybrid workshop: Day 1 (online) and Day 2 24 March (on site at The National Archives)

Course outline

Day 1 (online) will focus on providing an overview of the kinds of records relevant to material culture research and how they can be used and analysed. It will introduce three key areas of The National Archives visual collections: registered designs, art & graphic design and photographs & film. The day will include demonstrations of the use of Discovery, our online catalogue, and other online resources to access these collections and students will be given practical exercises to tests the knowledge they have acquired.

Day 2 (on site) will  give students the opportunity to handle and work with original records from each of the collections introduced in day 1. The sessions will include practical exercises to familiarise students with the use of indexes and registers to find material within the collections. There will also be an opportunity to hear about the research journeys of other researchers who have worked with The National Archives' visual collections to investigate aspects of material culture history.

At the end of the course, you will understand the range of visual records available at The National Archives and how they can be analysed and applied to the study of material culture. You will also feel confident using online search techniques, and original indexes and registers to find records in the different collections.

This event is aimed at current taught postgraduate and PhD students, but other researchers are welcome. Please get in touch if you fall outside these categories and would like to attend. 

Each day is a full-day workshop, running roughly from 9am to 5pm. Exact timings for the programme will be confirmed and published on this page a week before the workshop.

Details and booking here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/past-skills-methodology-visual-sources-for-material-culture-research-registration-229349258807

Eric Butler writes...Many people will be aware of the A4 sized paperback book with the pale blue cover, A Faithful Likeness the very informative book by the late Pauline and Bernard Heathcote. It is frequently referenced in publications about early photographers. A Faithful Likeness: The First Photographic Studios in the British Isles 1841 to 1855, has now been made available online by Bromley House Library, Nottingham. It is also accompanied by a five-volume appendix.

Background

Pauline Heathcote, supported by her husband Bernard, became a full-time researcher into early photographers and their studios. In her quest for information, she searched directories and wrote to librarians, archivists, museum curators and even descendants of the photographers. In addition, she also visited newspaper archives, scouring them for announcements, features, and advertisements relating to early photographers and their studios. Bernard and Pauline would travel around the country visiting archives or museums.

Bernard was, justifiably, extremely proud of his wife’s achievements and in 2015, ten years after her death, he donated the Pauline Heathcote Archive to Bromley House Library. The archive contains notes, letters, marriage and death certificates, and a large number of file index cards under the main headings Names, and Places. Today it is difficult to comprehend that such an extensive research archive had been compiled without using the internet. The archive has been available, by appointment, at Bromley House Library since 2015. Only a few people made use of this wonderful resource, possibly because they were familiar with the title A Faithful Likeness, but not with the name Heathcote.

Although published in 2002 and despite the advent of online resources A Faithful Likeness is still relevant today

Now Bromley House has made A Faithful Likeness and its 5 volume appendix available online. This significant publication lists over 800 photographers and the appendices comprise carefully referenced advertisements and editorial comment from newspapers throughout the country, from Aberdeen to York alphabetically. A total of over 600 pages.

Perhaps I should add that Bernard, until his death in 2020, was very protective of Pauline’s work and always insisted on appropriate acknowledgement!

Access the resource here: https://www.bromleyhouse.org/our-photographic-history/

Ikon was founded in the 1960s and is an internationally acclaimed, independent contemporary art venue located in central Birmingham. Housed in a magnificent neo-gothic school building, it is an educational charity and works to encourage public engagement with contemporary art through exhibiting new work in a context of debate and participation. It offers free entry to all. Ikon’s activity not only reflects the historical circumstances of Birmingham and the country as a whole since then, but also it constitutes a distinct point of view on British post-war art history. The gallery programme features artists from around the world. Ikon’s off-site programme develops dynamic relationships between art, artists and audiences outside the gallery. Projects vary enormously in scale, duration and location, challenging expectations of where art can be seen and by whom. Education is at the heart of Ikon’s activities; through a variety of talks, tours, workshops and seminars, the Learning team aims to build a meaningful relationship with Ikon’s audience that enables visitors to engage with, discuss and reflect on contemporary art. Being based in Birmingham, a super-diverse and young city, Ikon’s partnership working and equality diversity and inclusion is central within all the organisation does, from the Board of Trustees throughout the whole organisation. Ikon’s commitment to the city is to continue to show diverse exhibitions from around the world, and reflect these locally, while working with children and young people and diverse communities who are currently underserved within the region.

Ikon’s long-standing Director, Jonathan Watkins, is stepping down from the role after an impactful twenty-three years with the Gallery and the organisation is now seeking candidates who can lead Ikon into the next chapter of its history. The Director will drive the development of Ikon through effective strategic and operational leadership and deliver the artistic and organisational vision for Ikon whilst also furthering the gallery’s reputation as a major centre for the presentation and promotion of contemporary visual art. Candidates will bring a knowledge of visual and contemporary art and a passion for working with artists. They will have a track record of working with diverse artists and audiences and a commitment to inclusion, relevance and diversity in all aspects of the organisation. The Director will need to be a compelling communicator, able to engage a range of stakeholders, funders (including Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council) and partners.

See more here: https://www.artsjobsonline.com/jobs/ikon-gallery-director/

The V&A is planning a photography exhibition for the spring of 2024 drawing from the Sir Elton John Collection. It will be a spectacular presentation showcasing highlights from the collection and attracting a large and diverse audience. The exhibition will stage work by major photographers and give an insight into the collecting passions of one of the world’s great performing artists.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication and a wide variety of other events. It will be managed between the Exhibition Department and the Photography Section of the Art, Architecture, and Design Department.

The post holder will coordinate research and other activities associated with the project, supporting the creative vision set out by the Head of Photography, and to help develop and deliver the exhibition and accompanying publication.

This vacancy is available as either a secondment or fixed term contract and is open to internal applicants only.

Closing date for receipt of applications is Monday 21 February at 09:00.

See more here. 

I devised a method of scanning full plate glass negatives. The photographer is unknown but appears to have been from a commercial studio as two of the negatives are numbered on the plate.

One view of the bridge is from the same location as plate 36 reproduced in the book 'J. W Lindt - Master Photographer', by Shar Jones publ: 1985. The plate is captioned 'View of Melbourne from Studley Park'. (Victoria, Australia) C1876-1894.

The Imperial War Museum is building new art, film and photography galleries at IWM London, opening to the public in late 2023.The new galleries have been made possible with support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Like previous developments at IWM London, the Galleries will be free to enter. 

The Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will explore how artists, photographers and filmmakers together bear witness to, document and tell the story of conflict, and demonstrate how artistic interpretation can uniquely shape our understanding of war.

New acquisitions will be exhibited alongside renowned works from IWM’s existing collection, including Gassed by John Singer Sargent, They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson and Steve McQueen’s Queen and Country.   

The development of these Galleries is the third phase in the dynamic transformation of IWM London and will enable IWM to share works from its exceptional art collection, one of the most important representations of twentieth century British art in the world. They will also showcase some of IWM’s vast and era-defining film and photography collections, which include over 23,000 hours of footage and over 11 million photographs.  

Read more and see highlights from the photography collections here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london/blavatnik-art-film-photography-galleries

Henry Brooks and his family are hardly remembered these days, yet they lived in High Street, Salisbury, for nearly a century. Henry was in turn a wood turner, a carver and gilder, a picture restorer, a frame maker and a painter. He was also one of the earliest Salisbury photographers, opening his studio around 1855, and his business was carried on by his sons well into the twentieth century.

Photo historians Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe, from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, will bring the Brooks family back to life for this evening.

Henry Brooks & Sons, Salisbury Artists and Photographers
Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe
Thursday, 17 March 2022 @ 1930 (GMT)
The Salisbury Museum, 65 The Close, Salisbury SP1 2EN
£9 (members) and £12 (non-members)
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-henry-brooks-sons-salisbury-artists-and-photographers-tickets-242248982227

19,  a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary study in the long nineteenth century and based at Birkbeck, University of London, has published a paper by Helen Trompeteler titled Queen Victoria and the Photographic Expression of Widowhood. 

The abstract reads: After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Queen Victoria began an extended period of mourning that remains indelibly linked to perceptions of her identity and visual representation. This article firstly addresses the place of photography in the construction of family memory and examines how Victoria used photography to articulate her private grief and to remember Albert in the context of both her immediate and extended family. Secondly, I seek to establish the ways in which this private image is made public and is circulated by Victoria to generate popular empathy and support for political ends. Lastly, I touch on the global reach of this, and question how mourning and widowhood are implicated in international royal networks and imperial power. Thus, the article reveals the photograph of the mourning widow as more than just an illustration of Victoria and her grief; rather, it shows how the medium shapes that grief and makes it useful for monarchy and empire.

Trompeteler, H., (2022) “Queen Victoria and the Photographic Expression of Widowhood”, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 2022(33).
doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.4717

The online journal is open access and the paper can be read here: https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/4717/

Image: John Jabez Edwin Mayall, Group Portrait with a Bust of Prince Albert, April 1863, albumen print, Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022.

This paper will explore relationships between ecology, sexuality, and decolonisation in the portrayal of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) by queer Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt and queer British anti-imperialist filmmaker Basil Wright, who collaborated together in the 1930s prior to the country’s independence in 1948. In the nineteenth century British colonisers outlawed homosexuality as ‘against the order of nature’ and shifted the island’s economy to mass plantations. At a time when homosexuality was also illegal in the UK, Wendt and Wright’s collaboration reveals how imperial control over desire and the landscape were challenged by photography and film.

Dr Edwin Coomasaru is a historian of modern and contemporary art. He has been awarded Postdoctoral and Research Fellowships at Edinburgh University (2022), the Paul Mellon Centre (2020-22), and the Courtauld Institute of Art (2018-19) — where he earned his PhD in 2018 and co-convenes the Gender & Sexuality Research Group. In 2021 he also worked as a Freelance Research Assistant on an anti-racist and decolonial resource portal for the Association of Art History. He has contributed to Third Text, British Art Studies, Oxford Art Journal, The Irish Times, Irish Studies Review, The Irish Review, Photoworks Annual, Burlington Contemporary, Architectural Review, Source Magazine, and the Barbican’s Masculinities (2020) exhibition catalogue. History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)

History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)
University of Edinburgh / Edinburgh College of Art
30 March 2022 at 1330-1430
Online. Open to all
Details here: https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/event/history-art-research-seminar-series-sri-lankas-queer-tropics-lionel-wendts-ceylon-1950-and
For enquiries, contact Malene Nafisi, malene.nafisi@ed.ac.uk

This intensive two-day workshop offers a much-needed forum for cross-disciplinary dialogue and inter-disciplinary experimentation in the area of recreative practices - including photography and photographic history.

Recreative practice – the process of re-making an object - is widespread in the arts and humanities. Frequently employed in art, photography and design as a technique for retrieving haptic and tacit forms of knowledge and lost technologies, re-makes are also present throughout contemporary art and the museum world. Yet practices vary widely not only in their very appellation – recreative practice, reproduction, experimental archaeology, remaking, replication - but also in the nature and degree of their theoretical grounding. The fields of art history and curatorship, dress, and photography are particularly well-grounded theoretically and heavily engaged with questions of replication, copying and the simulacrum. In other disciplines, scholars rely on positivist materials science, yet other fields see living traditions embodied by contemporary craftspeople as critical mediators of past practice. In both cases, there are opportunities for greater criticism of the underlying assumptions these approaches entail and engagement with theoretical developments in other fields. Notwithstanding these many differences, a common set of questions and problems are readily apparent across media and disciplines. This workshop invites researchers in recreative practices to share their experiences and dialogue around these questions in a unique multi-disciplinary forum.

CALL FOR PAPERS - DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL MONDAY 14TH MARCH, MIDNIGHT (GMT)

CALL FOR PAPERS for Workshop on Recreative Practices in the Art and Humanities (15-16 June 2022)

Co-hosted by the School of Fashion, Textiles and the Photographic History Research Center, De Montfort University, Leicester (UK)

The Call for Papers is available here: https://sites.google.com/my.westminster.ac.uk/amateurdarkroompractices/research-notes-events

Deadline for proposals: Monday 28 February 2022 17.00 (GMT).

This year's McKenzie Lecture will explore the intersection between book history and the history of photography, and will look at the possibilities of such a combined view of the photographic book from 1843 to now.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, has published widely on the history of collecting and the history of photography since 2014. He is the author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack (2020) and of John Thomson (1837–1921): Photographer (1997), a major study of the Scottish photographer.

Photography and the Book
Richard Ovenden OBE
17 February 2022 at 1700-1800 (GMT)
Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty, St Cross Building, Oxford
Live and streamed live, free
Register: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/feb22/photography-and-the-book