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Dominic Winter Auctions is to offer the only known example of a near full-face portrait of a Southwold fisherman dating from c.1886. The 34 x 29cm portrait is an albumen print rather than the platinum more usually associated with Emerson's work and is inscribed on the back by Emerson 'An Old Sea-Dog - Taken Direct, Negative untouched, by P.H. Emerson BA MB, (Copyright)'. It is estimated at £1000-1500.

The catalogue entry notes:  A completely full-face portrait of the same fisherman, titled 'Old Fisherman' is reproduced on p. 153 of Nancy Newhall's book, P. H. Emerson - The Fight for Photography as Fine Art (1975). On page 155 is another photograph of the same fisherman, who there appears standing between two seated fishermen in front of a shed with the sign 'Nyl-Ghau' above the door. Both are platinum prints and belong to Emerson's Southwold series of c.1886, copies of which are held by George Eastman House, New York.

The identity of the sitter remains elusive, but this particular 'old sea dog' clearly captured Emerson's imagination, as he very rarely took close-up portraits such as this. The light here falls beautifully on the subject's hair, eyes and facial features, giving the fisherman a well-lived, contemplative and poetic expression. In the known photograph, which Emerson typically produced as a platinum print, the sitter's gaze is directly at the viewer, rather than into the distance over the viewer's shoulder, as here. It is very unlikely that the negative exists and this print is quite possibly unique.

Photographs, Posters & Postcards, Autographs, Documents & Ephemera
Dominic Winter Auctions
20 May, 2026, live and online
See: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Details/photo26a-photographs-posters--postcards-autographs-documents--ephemera/?au=892

In 1974, photographers Terry Dennett and Jo Spence made repeated visits to 'illegal' Gypsy and Traveller sites in and around London. They got to know the people who lived there, documenting their lives in sound and image. The results of their project never formed a dedicated exhibition or a comprehensive publication, either then or since. Our Studio Was The World makes this powerful and still strikingly relevant work accessible to a new audience, with over 280 newly scanned (and in some cases newly discovered) images and previously unpublished texts. 

As Dennett commented, Gypsies and Travellers were 'persecuted terribly... talk about the Nazis!' Today, they remain socially marginalised, over-policed and discriminated against.

Together and individually, Terry Dennett and Jo Spence are among the most influential figures in radical British photography, with their impact extending far beyond image-making - into publishing, exhibiting, teaching and shaping photographic theory. Our Studio Was The World is the first in a ground-breaking trilogy of books - alongside Terry Dennett: The Crisis Project and Jo Spence: The Unknown Recordings - which explores their unpublished work, ideas and committed socialist perspective.

Our Studio Was The World
Terry Dennett & Jo Spence
MuseumsEtc, 2026
£35 (print) or eBook £25
Details:https://museumsetc.com/products/our-studio-was-the-world?variant=42460921757777

To coincide with the publication of the publication of Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth by Sara Stevenson, a strictly limited series of museum-quality modern prints has been created. Curated by Sara Stevenson and Michael Gray, five images have been selected to represent the depth and humanity of Hill & Adamson’s work. Each print is drawn from a limited edition of just 50, produced to the highest archival standards, and presented within a signed portfolio These prints are not reproductions in the ordinary sense—they are contemporary objects of craftsmanship, extending the life of the original images into the present.

The Fishermen & Women of the Firth of Forth (1843-1847)
Limited edition of 50. Archival pigment print on Awagami Bamboo paper.
Printed by A and M, Edinburgh and published by Studies in Photography 2026.
Individual print: £185
Complete boxed set (five prints): £750
See more here

Hill & Adamson Exhibition
until Saturday 20 June 2026
Studies in Photography Lower Gallery
See more here

To order the book see here

Image:  Hill & Adamson. Newhaven Harbour from The Fishermen & Women of the Firth of Forth Portfolio. Limited edition of 50. Archival pigment print on Awagami Bamboo paper. Printed by A and M, Edinburgh and published by Studies in Photography 2026.
Image size: 158 x 213 mm. Paper size: 400 x 277 mm

This exhibition restages ‘art – photography – therapy’, an exhibition of Jo Spence’s photography curated by Terry Dennett in 2008, for an international photo therapy conference in Turku, Finland. Discovered in a battered portfolio in the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive, the original exhibition’s 41 panels include some of Spence’s best known and impactful work, from the series Remodelling Photo History (1981-1982) and The Picture of Health? (1982-1986) to various photo therapy collaborations with Rosy Martin and others, ending with the Final Project she made while coming to terms with a terminal diagnosis. 

The Project Remains Incomplete considers the role of Dennett in nurturing the educational and artistic legacy of Spence, after her death from leukaemia. Dennett, a lifelong collaborator of Spence’s, dedicated his life to stewarding her archive and making it available to students and the public. The title of the exhibition comes from Dennett’s own reflections about Spence’s unfinished Final Project.

This restaging also brings together archival material and voices that were not present in Dennett’s original curation in Finland. In so doing, The Project Remains Incomplete invites reflections on the role of curators and archivists in activating the past for use in the present, and in shaping artistic afterlives and reputations. Spence’s work continues to speak to current concerns with women’s self-representation, agency and the female gaze, as well as the therapeutic and political uses of photography. 

Led by Patrizia Di Bello, Professor of History and Theory of Photography at Birkbeck, the curatorial team includes Talia Ulrich, Olga Murphy, Kerry Hart, Julian Ehsan, Farzad Fazilat, and Chloe Griffiths. 

‘The Project Remains Incomplete’: Jo Spence, Curated by Terry Dennett
22 May – 10 July 2026
Peltz Gallery, 43 Gordon Square London WC1H 0PD
Free admission, Monday to Friday, 10AM to 8PM. Closed on weekends

Image credit: Jo Spence with Terry Dennett and David Robert, ‘Return to Nature’, from Final Project, 1991-92. Laminated plastic panel made by Terry Dennett circa 2008, 405 by 500 mm. All Jo Spence’s work © Image Centre, Toronto

The archive, both historic and personal with questions of authorship and authenticity, dominates the themes of the longlisted titles for the 2026 edition of the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards, the UK’s leading prize celebrating excellence in photography and moving image publishing. In addition, deeply personal approaches to race, representation, identity, and sexuality; notions of ‘the other’; and the preservation and transformation of the past feature. Selected books are those which make original and lasting educational, professional, historical and cultural contributions to the field.

The longlisted publications will be showcased by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation at this year’s Photo London (13-17 May 2026 - Booth P20, Publishers’ Section, National Hall, Level 1, Kensington Olympia, London) and POST, Brighton (3-5 July 2026). Following the longlist announcement, shortlisted publications will be announced in early June 2026. The winner of each category, sharing a £10,000 prize fund, will be announced at the end of June 2026. Events celebrating the 2026 Awards and the winners will take place in autumn 2026 in London at the Barbican and the V&A, South Kensington.

For the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards two winning titles are selected annually, with prize money of £10,000 divided equally between the winning title in the Photography category and the winning title in the Moving Image category. Since 1985 the Awards have recognised individuals who have made an outstanding original or lasting educational, professional, historical and cultural contribution to literature concerning photography or the moving image (including film, television, video, and new media). Sir Brian Pomeroy CBE, Chair of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation, says of the 2026 longlists, “It is a huge pleasure to be announcing such outstanding works in our two sets of long-listed books this year, evidence that the production of excellent books on photography and the moving image is alive and well.”

Since their inception in 1985, the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards have reflected the changing landscape of photobook and moving image publishing. Past winners include leading figures from the worlds of photography and film including artists and writers such as Isaac Julien; Sunil Gupta; LaToya Ruby Frazier; Zanele Muholi; Edward Burtynsky; Susan Meiselas; Martin Parr; Larry J Schaaf; Mark Haworth-Booth; Griselda Pollock; David Campany and Simon Callow.

The Longlisted Titles for the 2026 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award are:

• A Reprise by David Alekhuogie (Aperture)
• Black Chronicles: Photography, Race and Difference in Victorian Britain, edited by Renée Mussai (Thames & Hudson/ Autograph)
• Index²⁰²⁵ by Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa (Roma Publications)
• It’s Hard To Stop Rebels That Time Travel by Raymond Thompson Jr (Void)
• MAN by Erik Kessels and Karel De Mulder (RVB Books)
• Red Horse by Sasha Kurmaz (Éditions Images Vevey)
• Sound the Sirens by Bryan Anselm (Overlapse)
• Swan Moon’s Swan Moon by Swan Moon (TBW Books)
• The Fold by Hoda Afshar (Loose Joints)
• The Ramble NYC 1969 by Arthur Tress (Stanley / Barker)
• The Weight of the Word by Piero Martinello and Piero Casentini (Fw:Books)
• Too Many Products Too Much Pressure by Janet Delaney (Deadbeat Club)

The Longlisted Titles for the 2026 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award are:

• Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, & Male Sex Appeal by Mark Gallagher (University of Texas Press)
• Hollywood's Others: Love and Limitation in the Star System by Katherine Fusco (Columbia University Press)
• June Givanni: The Making of a Pan-African Cinema Archive by Onyeka Igwe (Lawrence Wishart)
• Out There in the Dark by Katharine Coldiron (Autofocus Books)
• Read Frame Type Film: Or, Written on the Screen by Enrico Camporesi, Catherine de Smet, and Philippe Millot (MUBI Editions)
• Shaping Global Cultures Through Screenwriting: Women Who Write Our Worlds edited by Rose Ferrell and Rosanne Welch (Intellect)
• The Animist Imagination in East Asian Cinema by Pao-chen Tang (Amsterdam University Press/ Routledge)
• Toward a More Perfect Rebellion: Multiracial Media Activism Made in L.A. by Josslyn Jeanine Luckett (University of California Press)
• Transnational Cinema Solidarity: Chilean Exile Film and Video after 1973 by José Miguel Palacios (University of California Press)
• Understanding Video Activism on Social Media by Jens Eder; Britta Hartmann; and Chris Tedjasukmana (Intellect)

Fiona Rogers, the V&A Parasol Foundation Curator of Women in Photography and Judge of the 2026 Photography Book Award, said of the experience, “We were extremely impressed by the originality of the books submitted for this year’s KK book awards. The selection exemplifies the expansive nature of contemporary photographic practice and represents how visual culture impacts us all. It is inspiring to see so many varied approaches to portraiture, documentary, and the use of historical documents and archives as artistic, reparative interventions.”

David Martin-Jones, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Glasgow, and Judge of the 2026 Moving Image Book Award, explained, “The longlist expresses the great variety of books submitted. Both in terms of the different writing styles and approaches to the moving image, and, the great diversity of films currently being explored. The longlist celebrates works exploring filmmaking from all around the world, including dedicated works on African, Asian and Latin American cinemas; larger and smaller screens; more canonical films and those passed over or at risk of being “forgotten” by the canon; and most of all, the timeliness of so much scholarship on the audiovisual for our complex era. What the longlist shows, in a nutshell, is how important moving images are for how we process our relationship with the world.”

The call for the 2027 Awards will be issued in November 2026.

Image: from Black Chronicles: Photography, Race and Difference in Victorian Britain, edited by Renée Mussai (Thames & Hudson/ Autograph)

I have recently acquired these two lenses which look like book ends. They are very heavy as the supports are cast iron; the inserts are brass with one of the lenses being made to unscrew which I presume means a different one can be inserted. I believe both are of the convex type. They are extremely well made. 

When I obtained them I was hoping that an image could be formed when the two lenses were placed close together and this proved correct as shown in the attached images. My question is could they have been used in experimental photography or are they earlier than that? The image formed I believe is too small to be used for sketching purposes and it would be difficult to do that anyway. Maybe there is another purpose - Excuse the pun, but if anyone can throw light on their use I would be gratelful. If one lens is used on its own the image is larger but not distinct and has many abberations.

Thanks,

Mike Deane
oldphoto@cwgsy.net
www.deanephotos.com 

Studies in Photography is publishing the latest scholarship from Sara Stevenson Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth. This new volume brings together many previously unpublished photographs by the pioneering Scottish photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, created in collaboration with Jessie Mann. Across 160 beautifully produced pages, the book reintroduces one of the most important bodies of work in the history of photography.

Focusing on the fishing communities of the Firth of Forth—especially the village of Newhaven—these images are widely regarded as the world’s first social documentary photographs. At their heart are the fisherwomen: strong, resilient, and central to the life and economy of their community. Their presence, alongside the fishermen, is captured with extraordinary sensitivity through the calotype process, whose soft tonalities give these portraits a timeless immediacy.

This publication restores balance to the historical narrative and invites a fresh encounter with images that continue to shape our understanding of photography today.

Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth 
Sara Stevenson
£25. Studies in Photography, 2026
Available on pre-order, publication 11 May 2026
Details and order: https://studiesinphotography.com/collections/books/products/pre-order-hill-adamsons-fisherwomen-and-men-of-the-firth-of-forth