| Jul 14, 2010 | Earliest War Photographs (UPDATED) | | | |
Thanks to the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas additional and improved quality scans of the Daguerreotypes of the Mexican-American War arrived through today. These have been added into the "Earliest War Photographs" online exhibition.
I am still seeking photographs of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution.
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Exhibition: Earliest War Photographs
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| | Jul 14, 2010 | Stefano Nicolini: Swimming Pool | | | |
From the Introduction to the new online exhibition Swimming Pool (Piscine) by photographer Stefano Nicolini:
In Swimming pools, accomplished during the last 2009 FINA World Championships in Rome, I therefore passed from photographing the gesture of the nature to photographing the nature of the gesture. Before getting into the relevant considerations, however, I do want to point out the only photograph exhibited which reproduces a swimming pool void of people. It was impossible not to photograph it because, on the contrary of other sport stadiums, which when deserted only communicate events concerning the past, a swimming pool full of water is always a pulsing vital body. The weaves of the water or the lanes are ready at all times to transform themselves into lines on which one can write another page of exhilarating emotions, magnetic perceptions, seducing visions. They change to my eyesight according to the temporal viewpoint from which I observe them with my camera.
Editorial note: The exhibition includes the thoughts of the photographer on some of the key images and provides insights into his motivations, techniques and philosophical reflections.
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Exhibition: Stefano Nicolini: Swimming Pool (Piscine)
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| | Jul 14, 2010 | Felice Beato - His artists | | | |
At times I see images that have considerable significance and here is an example kindly provided by Olaf of a Felice Beato (1832 – 1909) carte de visite. The card shows the Japanese artists who worked for Beato adding colour to prints. Japan had a long tradition of finely painted artworks and the skills of these artists were perfectly matched to the detailed work on albumen prints and Japan produced many of the finest quality coloured prints of the 19th century. The back of the card simply says "My Artists" on the pasted on label. Another point of interest here are the pencil notes and codes from the collector added to the back of the card.
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| | Jul 14, 2010 | Carte de visite proofs | | | |
This is a specialist area of photography that had I had missed until Olaf, a private collector, sent me a number of examples. During the carte de visite period some photographers provided copies of their work as proofs so the customer could make a selection or order additional prints. These photographs were distinguished in several ways:
- A wet stamp on the front or reverse of the photograph
- A handwritten note indicating that the photograph is a "Proof"
- The photograph is mounted on a specially printed card saying it is a proof
I'd be interested in further examples so we can build up a reference set for the benefit of all.
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| | Jul 12, 2010 | Niepce in England Conference (Oct 13-14, 2010) | | | |
Niepce in England - Conference
October 13–14, 2010
National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
An international conference on recent advancements in scientific, art historical, and conservation research relating to the photographs which Joseph Nicéphore Niépce brought to England in 1827.
Conference Objective and Goals
This two-day conference will present the results of new, unpublished research and scientific investigations, which have been undertaken during the NMeM and GCI Collaborative Research Project.
In the Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum are three plates by Niépce. The conference will address the research and conservation of these photographic treasures, and will discuss future conservation measures that would provide for their long-term protection and preservation. The reason why Niépce brought these plates to England, and their subsequent history, will also be outlined more fully than previously published.
Speakers
- Philippa Wright, Curator of Photographs, National Media Museum
- Larry Schaaf, Independent Photo historian
- Pamela Roberts, Independent Photo Historian
- Grant Romer, Independent Photo Historian
- Art Kaplan, Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute
- Dr, Dusan Stulik, Senior Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute
- Colin Harding, Curator of Photographic Technology, National Media Museum
- Philip Gilhooley, Independent Fingerprint Consultant and Lecturer in Forensic Science, Liverpool John Moores University
- Peter Bower, Forensic Paper Historian
- Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator of Photography, Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas
- Barbara Brown, Head of Photograph Conservation, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas
- Isabella Kocum, Frame Conservator, National Gallery
- Susie Clark, Independent Photographic and Paper Conservator
For the most recent details
Niepce in England
(The Conference website)
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| | Jul 11, 2010 | 19th Century Photographic Studios: Marketing | | | |
The purpose of this exhibition is to provide a starting point for the understanding of how photographers and studios marketed themselves in the nineteenth century. The exhibition includes both images and texts to assist in this and a preliminary classification, which will be improved over time, is included to aid discussion. Your ideas for improvement are always welcome.
Curatorial comment
This exhibition includes mostly English language material as that is largely the content I have access to. I'd welcome collaborations with collectors and collections from any part of the world and in any language to ensure that this exhibition is as inclusive as possible.
A preliminary classification of marketing approaches for 19th century photographic studios.
| Locational awareness |
- Exterior signage (Enamelled signs, wooden signs, painting on walls)
- Exterior banners
- External displays (outside location)
- Posters in the street (highlighting location)
- Handbills
- Business cards
- Newspaper and magazine adverts
- Press coverage (e.g. hot air balloons, eclipses)
- City directories
- Adverts in trade catalogues
- Coverage in books on photography
- Studios specifically mentioned in contemporary travel guides (e.g. guides by Appleton, John Murray, Karl Baedeker)
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Brand awareness on products
carte de visite, cabinet cards, mounts, prints and cases |
- Signatures on the negative
- Handwritten signatures (on mount or reverse of print)
- Studio labels
- Printed addresses
- Printed addresses with graphics
- Embossed address stamps
- Handwritten notes
- Rubber stamps
- Product catalogues
- List of views
- Albums
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| Services offered |
- Negatives kept
- Copying photographs
- Enlargements
- Coloring
- Specialities (e.g. photographing groups, children, cricket and tennis matches, or the dead)
- Providing instruction
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| Photographic products sold |
- Cameras
- Stereoscopes
- Albums
- Cases
- Lockets, pins and jewelry
- Views and portraits
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| Promoting quality |
- Address location (e.g. Niagara Falls, Mt. Vernon and tourist locations)
- Displays of completed work
- Using the latest technologies (e.g. an elevator, electric light)
- Patronage (Royalty, celebrities and characters of the age)
- Medals and awards
- Inventions and patents
- Links with the arts - painters, colorists
- Quality of props, backgrounds, equipment
- Novelty of subjects (Fenton, Gardner, Brady - wars...)
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| Encouraging return |
- Special offers
- Negatives kept
- Premiums
- Quality of product
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| Professional connections |
- Publishing photography books (e.g. Thomas Sutton)
- Publishing photographic magazines or writing for them
- Establishing and attending photographic societies
- Attending conferences
- Providing photographs for exhibitions
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Exhibition: 19th Century Photographic Studios: Marketing
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| | Jul 10, 2010 | Modernism | | | |
The painterly effects of hand-worked gum and bromoil prints and the moody soft focus photogravures of Pictorialism so dominant in the society and exhibition photography from the 1890s through to World War I declined in popularity as more enlightened photographers experimented with the possibilities of reality and abstraction. The sculpture and paintings of the period questioned the nature of composition just as abstraction, symbolism, impressionism and angularity challenged the choice of subjects and ways of seeing in "traditional" art. Photographers such as Paul Strand (1890-1976), Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966), Pierre Dubreuil (1872-1944), the ever-influential Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), and Edward Weston (1886-1958) all created bodies of work that show the transition between Pictorialism and Modernism.
A viewing of the body of photographs in the annuals of the Wiener Photographische Blätter: Herausgegeben Vom Camera-Club In Wien, Die Kunst in der Photographie, the exhibitions of the The Photo-Club de Paris, Camera Notes or Camera Work and innumerable publications such as the A Record of the Photographic Salon of 1895 or the Kodak Portfolio: Souvenir of the Eastman Photographic Exhibition 1897 show the best, and worst, of Pictorialism. At their best the photogravures, portfolios and prints were sublime. But by far the majority were simplistic, sentimental and trite.
When Paul Strand photographed "Still Life with Pear and Bowls, Twin Lakes, Connecticut" (1916) or "Abstraction, Twin Lakes, Connecticut" (1916) the photographs had stylistic elements of Pictorialism and abstraction - this was a radical change and immediately appreciated by people such as Alfred Stieglitz and the few contempories with a deeper grasp of cultural and artistic trends. The horrors of the First World War questioned sentimentality as a generation died in battle and photographs that could grace a candy box were not what was required. The majority of amateur camera clubs carried on in a sentimental vein but the few photographers who understood the cultural changes moved on. Modernism and the schools and movements of the Bauhaus, New Objectivity and F64 were born out of this.
Diverse viewpoints such looking up or down, close-ups, complex patterns of reality, abstraction, photo-montage, blending typography with photographs, use of shadows and industrial forms in photography mirrored what was happening in an increasingly complex contemporary art world in the early part of the twentieth century. This was the period of Constructivism, Vorticism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Symbolism, Abstraction, De Stijl, the Bauhaus and a host of other isms. There was an intellectual exchange between painting, sculpture and photography that can be seen in the different and fragmenting art movements of the time.
Modernism in photography was a part of this rich questioning of artistic traditions.
Alan Griffiths (July 2010)
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Exhibition: Modernism
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| | Jul 9, 2010 | Portraits of photographers by Chris Felver | | | |
The other day I was talking with filmmaker and photographer Chris Felver (www.chrisfelver.com) who has taken a vast number of portraits over the years and when I asked if I could use his portraits of photographers on his website he replied "Use whatever you need". It makes such a difference when folks help out so thanks to Chris - one of the good guys.
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| | Jul 9, 2010 | Scientific: 19th century Archaeology | | | |
This online exhibition shows a range of the application of photography to archaeology.
- Archaeology sites - ancient world (e.g Dr. Cabot’s work with Stephens & Catherwood, Captain Charles Wilson and the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem, Francis Frith, John Beasley Greene, Maxime Du Camp, Désiré Charnay, Calvert Richard Jones, Charles Piazzi Smyth, John Thomson, Félix Teynard, Linneaus Tripe and the host of photographers in India, and those who recorded sites for Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours and his Excursions daguerriennes : vues et monuments les plus remarquables du globe (1841-1842).
- Archaeological finds - studies of implements, pottery, museum layouts etc. (Roger Fenton at the British Museum, Giorgio Sommer at the museum in Napoli, Délié & Béchard at the Musée Boulaq which is now the Cairo Museum)
- Archaeological record - views of now destroyed or lost monuments and artefacts (e.g. the sequence by Daguerreotypist Thomas Easterly on the St. Louis mounds)
- Archaeological excavations - significant views of sections, work in progress (e.g. Dr Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon, Auguste Salzmann, and the photograph of the St Acheul section that forever changed the world by giving us a past.)
I am short on the last of these particularly 19th century photographs of archaeological sections or sectional drawings that were definitely made from photographs. If anybody has scans of the title page and some examples from General Pitt-Rivers photographs taken at the Cranborne Chase excavations I'd be interested. I'm still seeking early magnesium light photographs of cave excavations and catacombs and aerial views taken from balloons of archaeological sites.
Key 19th century source documents and examples are also be included and suggestions are always welcome. alan@luminous-lint.com.
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Exhibition: Scientific: 19th Century Archaeology
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| | Jul 8, 2010 | A Rue named Daguerre... | | | |
In the XIVth Arrondissement of Paris there is "Rue Daguerre" which commemorates Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851). Steven Evans when he was recently in Paris went on a mad dash to record businesses that remember Daguerre in the same locality.
If you have photographs of locations and businesses that commemerate great photographers send them through and we'll prepare an online exhibition!
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