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Photo London has announced that it will be celebrating French photography with an exhibition The Magic Art of French Calotype. Paper Negative Photography 1846–1860, curated by Robert Hershkowitz. Its title references Francis Wey’s pronouncement in 1851 that “Photography has attained a magic feeling that neither painting nor drawing could have reached.”

Hershkowitz explains the appeal of these early images: “When the pursuit and acquisition of fine photographs became the common passion of a very mixed group of art savvy individuals and American and Canadian museums in the late 1970s, early French paper negative photography was considered the most desirable, the images the most intriguing intellectually, the prints the most delectable. This exhibition introduces this body of photographic work to a British audience; it is almost non-existent in British institutions with perhaps a few dozen examples buried among hundreds of thousands of British ones, and these never exhibited.”

The exhibition will be on show duering Photo London which will show at Somerset House, London from 16-19 May 2024

Details: https://photolondon.org/photo-london-2024-details-revealed/

Image: Charles Nègre, Street Vendor, c.1852. Courtesy of Robert Hershkowitz Ltd. 

The work presented here is the result of a collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery and Disruptive Print, then part of the Centre for Print Research at the University of the West of England. The National Portrait Gallery approached us when they were looking for someone who could help them to print colour images taken by Madame Yevonde in the 30s of the last century. Madame Yevonde was the most famous user of the VIVEX process, the photomechanical reproduction process for colour photographs before the second world war in the UK. The VIVEX process was a commercial method and therefore only ill documented. What we know is that the images were taken through red, green, and blue filters on black and white film and then printed by layering pigmented gelatine layers in cyan, magenta, and yellow in top of each other, but how exactly is lost. We will discuss the registration of the three negatives and possible printing methods.

Designed by the Société française de photographie and supported by the Ministry of Culture (Department of Photography/Delegation for Visual Arts/Directorate General for Artistic Creation), ICONOS PHOTO is a portal dedicated to research in French photographic collections and archives. Accessible to all free of charge, ICONOS PHOTO is designed as a work and exchange tool for researchers, photography professionals, curators, independent curators, restorers, students and any public interested in the medium. Through this sharing of data and knowledge, it aims to unite a community around the question of photographic heritage, to offer a showcase to the collections, and to stimulate research into the history of photography.

It was opened in December 2023 and the ICONOS PHOTO directory is a search engine for photographic collections, funds and archives preserved by French heritage institutions. Designed as a referral tool, its objective is to share data in a single tool that allows users to find their way through the funds and be directed to the right institutions for their research. It cross-references information generated by institutions in the form of descriptions of their funds.

The project gives access to the collections of the Société française de photographie, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, and Archives départementales de la Mayenne.

Details: https://iconos-photo.fr/

Spanning eight weeks, this course introduces and explores key themes concerning the photographic sector now. From topics such as curatorial strategies, working with young people and the impact of digital, each session goes behind the scenes at The Photographers’ Gallery to consider what it means to present and work with photography in the 21st century.

Together we will think through the opportunities and obstacles of engaging with diverse photographic practices to push the boundaries of how we interpret the image. Taking place weekly at the Gallery, sessions include a blend of lectures, visits to the Gallery, group discussions and presentations. Each week will feature guest contributions from TPG staff, photographers and artists.

Inside Out: The Workings of a Photographic Gallery (2024)
In person, 1 February-28 March 2024
London: The photographers' Gallery
Led by Dr Sara Dominici
Book: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/inside-out-workings-photographic-gallery-2024

There have always been unacknowledged or under-acknowledged forces that operate around photography. Some of them are human, like family members, camera assistants, darkroom personnel, curators, editors and the like. Others are non-human, like algorithms, chemicals, equipment of various sorts and transportation. The explosion of AI has pushed the field of photography studies to once again consider the practices surrounding photographs, but has at the same time neglected existing assistants like the skills force, the editors, image technicians, programmers, curators, and historians that enable and narrate photographic making. In the face of so many assistants, the primacy of the photographer as a central person through whom we understand photography recedes.

For this conference we would like speakers to consider the role and agency of human and non-human assistants in the making, collecting and dissemination of photographs. We look for papers from diverse methodological perspectives that not only enlarge the notion of the photographic assistant, but also consider the role of those assistants (or that assistance) in the formation of photographic practices, images, archives and histories.

We welcome 15-minute papers on topics that address themes like (but not limited to):

• Technological, physical or chemical photographic assistants
• Catalysts like War and Conflict, the Environment, and Race as assistants to photographic practices
• Non-human assistants and AI
• Senses as photographic assistants
• History of assistants and their changing roles
• Agency of the Assistant
• Issues of authorship
• Practice as a collaborative endeavour
• Supply lines and transportation

Please send paper proposals to phrc@dmu.ac.uk by Friday the 2^nd of February 2024, embedding in the document your name, contact details, up to 5 keywords and institutional affiliation (when applicable).

Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University
Conference: 17-18 June 2024
Hybrid event, Online and at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Details: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/annual-conference-2024/

This new exhibition will explore the evolution of royal portrait photography from the 1920s to the present day.

Examining the relationship between the sitter and the photographer, as well as the change in status of both the photographer and photography itself, the display will feature over 150 stunning portraits of the Royal Family.

More details to follow when available

Royal Portraits: A century of photography
17 May-6 October 2024
London: King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
See: https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/royal-portraits-a-century-of-photography/the-queens-gallery-buckingham

Sometime off, but worth making a diary note for is this forthcoming exhibition from Tate Britain. Travel back to the 1980s in the UK through an exhibition spotlighting photographers, collectives, and publications that responded boldly to the tumultuous Thatcher era. Amidst race uprisings, miners' strikes, section 28, the AIDS pandemic, and gentrification, witness the power of photography as a catalyst for social change and artistic experimentation.

The images capture the essence of protest and societal shifts, amplifying voices of marginalised communities such as the Black arts movement, queer experience, South Asian diaspora, and women. Delve into the influential photography journals like Ten 8 and Cameraworks and explore the impact of collectives like Autograph ABP, Half Moon Photography Workshop, and Hackney Flashers.

Photographing 80s Britain: A Critical Decade
Tate Britain, London
21 November 2024 - 5 May 2025
https://www.artfund.org/explore/exhibitions/2024/11/21/photographing-80s-britain

Image:  © Paul Trevor, Outside police station, Bethnal Green Road, London E2, 17 July 1978