Category Archives: Archives
More Mobile Photography
There's been a lot of response to my last blog post about mobile photography projects so here's another batch of them. Daniel Meadows had cited Sir Benjamin Stone as an inspiration and thought he might have worked on similar lines … Continue reading
New Wave 1: Photobookshow
For the first audio interview in our New Wave season we go to Brighton. One recent development in photography has been the growth in interest in photobooks and self publishing. Photobookshow, an organisation that exhibits independently made photobooks, epitomises this trend. … Continue reading
Anthropology and Photography
The Royal Anthropological Institute began its life as the Aborigines' Protection Society in 1837, its inception neatly coinciding with the birth of photography. We went to visit the Institute to speak to its archivist Sarah Walpole and the anthropologist Chris … Continue reading
Endangered Archives
Small amounts of public funding can make an enormous difference to a photographer. But there are some objectives like, for example, ‘safeguarding the documentary heritage of humankind’ that require more substantial backing. The Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library … Continue reading
Conserving the Archive
A photographic archive serves to preserve collections of photographs. Inevitably one of its responsibilities is therefore to conserve those pictures. In 2001 Elizabeth Martin and Martin Barnes of the V&A wrote an article for Source about the underlying conservation challenges that face … Continue reading
The National Photographic Archive
Elizabeth Kirwan is the current curator of the National Photographic Archive which opened in 1998. When it opened the Archive consisted of a new building – designed by O'Donnell and Tuomy – into which the existing collection of the National … Continue reading
A Technical Matter
On Sunday I was at Photo Fest Ireland the annual get-together of those searching for the latest cameras, printing papers, albums or framing options with an emphasis on technical solutions to photographic problems. I had been at the Source stand … Continue reading
The Jo Spence Memorial Archive
Jo Spence is one of the most important and well known figures in post-war British photography yet is strangely neglected in the UK. This position in the culture is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the Jo Spence Memorial Archive … Continue reading
The Largest Photo Archive in the World
Getty Images is well known, with Corbis, as one of the dominant commercial picture libraries. Most people would encounter it through its website but behind the website is a physical archive in North London. I went to meet their curator … Continue reading