Both Henry Talbot (1800-77) and David Brewster (1781-1868) were involved with photography from its invention until their respective deaths; and because of their friendship and shared involvement in the public arena of the European scientific field of optics, it is worth examining the background of their investigations into the nature of light and colour which formed the firm basis to the astonishing discoveries of the late 1830s [1]. Brewster, of course, is known as the personally difficult but brilliant and eminent scientist based at the University of St Andrews who introduced the Scots to the new art through his correspondence with Talbot in Wiltshire [2]. Talbot, that shy English gentleman, had the wide interests of most men of his class and time, but pursed them all with genuine scholarship, rather than the more predictable butterfly attention of the dilettante [3]. Here, an attempt will be made to place the photographic into the broader context of the optical pursuits of both Brewster and Talbot: firstly, those of Brewster, the Evangelical Scot, the elder of the two, born almost twenty years before the quiet Englishman, Talbot; and subsequently, after the significant events of the 1840s, how their lives continued to mesh optically, photographically and personally.
‘My father’s connexion with photography and photographers might well furnish a chapter of his life in competent hands,’ wrote David Brewster’s first biographer, his daughter Margaret Maria Gordon. She continued: ‘A large correspondence was kept up with Mr Fox Talbot, M. Claudet, Mr Buckle, Paul Pretsch, Messrs Ross and Thomson, and other eminent photographers. He made many experiments in the art, though not able to give sufficient time to master its difficulties … A new photograph was to the last a joy to him, and he was peculiarly pleased with the receipt of a medal from the Photographic Society of Paris in 1865.’ [4]
This retrospective was given by a close member of his family, who expressed the pious wish in her Preface that ‘the scientific memoirs of Sir David Brewster … it is hoped, may soon be undertaken by competent writers.’[5] However, this was not to be, principally because Brewster’s views on the nature of light had not moved since his youth, and he died in 1868 at the advanced age of 86, still a convinced Newtonian, possibly the last survivor clinging to a redundant world-view. History has not been entirely kind to Brewster’s memory, for the raw ingredients for such a scientific biography as expressed by Mrs Gordon, gathered carefully by his relatives and kept at the family home near Kingussie, were destroyed in a fire in 1903, long before interest could be rekindled by a later generation in such a project [6]. Not until 1966 do we find the first historian of science becoming interested in Brewster’s role as a correspondent, or an enabler, and finding that his early scientific work in measuring the optical properties of literally hundreds of substances had laid the foundations for nineteenth-century investigations into the nature of light [7]. This was unglamorous donkey work, it rapidly entered the literature, and it was subsequently forgotten to whom the credit was due. It should not be forgotten, either, that Brewster was himself an historian of science, writing the standard biography of Sir Isaac Newton, which was regarded as a classic and not superseded until the 1980s [8].
Fig. 1. Dr John Adamson, Sir David Brewster, c.1855, albumen print, NMS.T.1942.1.1.192 (C) National Museums Scotland
So, who was David Brewster? (Fig.1 Dr John Adamson, Sir David Brewster, c.1855, albumen print, NMS.T.1942.1.1.192) He was born in Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders, the third child of the Rector of Jedburgh Grammar School in 1781 [9]. He spent his childhood surrounded by intelligent and amusing contemporaries, according to his daughter, and these included the slightly older self-taught astronomer and ploughwright James Veitch, who taught him how to construct reflecting telescopes, and encouraged his astronomical pursuits [10]. In 1793, aged twelve, Brewster went to the University of Edinburgh, and, as was usual in those days, would walk the forty-five miles there within the day. There, he was taught by some of the great teachers of the Scottish Enlightenment, among them John Playfair (mathematics), John Robison (natural philosophy, or what we call physics), and Dugald Stewart (moral philosophy): indeed, Brewster fulfils that old Scots stereotype, ‘the lad o’pairts’. Destined for a career in the established church, Brewster obtained his master’s degree in the arts curriculum (the sole one on offer) in 1800, at the age of nineteen. By this time he was already writing regularly for the Edinburgh Magazine (which subsequently became the Scots Magazine – still going strong today), a periodical then combining science and literature, and in 1800 he became its editor. [11]
Brewster had no independent means and was obliged to find a career to support himself, particularly as he now realised that the Church would not suit him. Although deeply religious, he apparently suffered from nervous faintness when preaching; and of course, such a handicap effectively closed a teaching career as well; despite this, for a few years he supported himself as a private tutor. He was also mooted as a candidate for the Chair in Mathematics at both Edinburgh in 1805 and Aberdeen in 1807, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1808 he became editor of a new venture, the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, seen to be a worthy rival of Britannica (which at this stage was also produced in Edinburgh; indeed, Brewster would contribute a number of articles to the fourth edition of 1810, the fifth edition of 1817, and the sixth edition of 1824). However, his daughter wrote: that ‘it was not until 1809 that he felt himself free to follow the career so manifestly opening before him’: that of scientific journalism [12]. By this time he had already received a number of honorary degrees and had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1810 he married Juliet Macpherson, daughter of the poet James ‘Ossian’ Macpherson, and soon he had to support a growing family which ultimately comprised four sons and a daughter. The first five years of his marriage seem to have been dominated by the affairs of the Encyclopaedia – which was not completed until 1830. ‘The dilatory conduct’ of the contributors, the burdensome correspondence, the rupturing of friendships – all who have been editors will sympathise with Brewster.
His daughter points out that ‘One bright circumstance shines like a sunbeam through the gloom connected with this literary undertaking. A request from Dr Brewster to the Rev Thomas Chalmers of Kilmany, to write the article CHRISTIANITY, turned the mind of the young and careless, though brilliant, divine, to study the truths of which he had then but a superficial knowledge, and ultimately proved the means of leading him to grasp them as a life-reality, with a force and power without which he could not have been the blessing to his country which he proved in after years. This was the beginning of a long and cordial friendship which only terminated with the death of Chalmers in 1847.’ [13] Chalmers became the first Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland after the Disruption in 1843, and as the central figure in D.O. Hill’s painting of that event, played no small part as a subject of early Scottish photographic history. Brewster’s scientific work – as opposed to his scientific journalism – was also being taken notice of in appropriate circles, and in 1813 his first paper ‘On some properties of Light’ was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, the same year that he published his first substantial book, a Treatise on New Philosophical Instruments. This volume is devoted to what today we would call scientific instruments – most of which were optical in their nature – and the determinations of the refractive and dispersive powers of nearly 200 substances made during his attempts to improve achromatic telescopes. News of similar work on the Continent towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars – he was able to visit Paris in 1814 – moved Brewster’s interest back to optical theory, but the improvement of optical instrumentation remained a lifelong fascination. [14]
In 1815, Brewster became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and published a series of papers on the polarisation of light. For the next fifteen to twenty years he energetically pursued four related fields of research in this area. First, he followed the line that successive polarisation by refraction by a pile of glass plates, which he concluded was a constant, ought to allow the investigation not only of the form and structure of crystals, but indeed of the nature of light itself. Second, he searched for a general law of polarisation – the law which now bears his name, Brewster’s Law – finding that the index of refraction of the reflecting medium is the tangent of the angle of polarisation. Third, he studied metallic reflection, concluding that light was elliptically polarised, and deduced laws that predicted quantities and angles of polarisation of light. His fourth research area created the new disciplines of optical mineralogy and photoeleasticity. His experiments in 1813 on the structure of topaz led to the unexpected discovery of its two optical axes, and by 1819 Brewster had classified hundreds of minerals and crystals into their optical categories by painstaking experiment. While undertaking this project, he also discovered that heat and pressure could alter the doubly refracting structures of minerals and crystals, and again he deduced the general laws which enabled these phenomena to be predicted.
Still searching for ways to improve instrumentation, Brewster undertook an extensive investigation of absorption spectroscopy. Adding a further 1600 dark lines to Joseph von Fraunhofer’s 354, these researches led him to reinterpret the colours of the spectrum, disagreeing with Newton’s deductions, yet reaffirming an emission theory of light. He never fully accepted the undulatory theory of light, because he felt that it did not explain all the phenomena.
In the 1830s his intensive and energetic youthful investigations changed direction, and he devoted more research time to applications of optics and the physiology of vision. His experiments on the structure of the eye helped to lay the foundations of modern biophysics, while in his work on subjective visual phenomena he made important discoveries, but these were subsequently overshadowed [15]. Brewster was very much an experimentalist rather than a theorist. He deplored the lack of state patronage in supporting scientific research; but on a number of occasions he successfully persuaded societies and universities to supply him with the equipment with which he could do his work. Because he never fully accepted the wave theory of light and because he outlived most of his scientific contemporaries, Brewster found his ground-breaking experimental work marginalised towards the end of his life. Much of the valuable work he had done was not attributed to him, something he would have found hard to take.
Fig. 2. Telescopic kaleidoscope, designed by David Brewster and retailed by John Ruthven, Edinburgh, c.1820. NMS.T.1985.20 (C) National Museums Scotland
A by-product of this serious work was Brewster’s invention of the kaleidoscope in 1816, and his ineffective patenting of the device the following year. The kaleidoscope (Fig.2 Telescopic kaleidoscope, designed by David Brewster and retailed by John Ruthven, Edinburgh, c.1820. NMS.T.1985.20) is primarily a toy which uses simple principles of reflection noticed by Brewster when experimenting; but it was observed even by his contemporaries that these principles had been known since antiquity. In a manner which was to become something of a pattern, Brewster defended his brain-child in print, then mustered supporters to his aid: a series of articles appeared over the years in encyclopaedias and journals, summarised by the grand Treatise on the Kaleidoscope of 1858. In this case, he had rashly gone to the expense of obtaining a patent for protecting the manufacture of the kaleidoscope, which was negated when the enthusiasm of the London instrument maker to whom he had entrusted the prototype led to the principles of the device becoming known. Instantly, the simply-produced brass tube was copied, and from London he wrote to his wife in Edinburgh: ‘… had I managed my patent rightly, I would have made one hundred thousand pounds by it!’[16] It appears to have been the first instance of a national fashionable craze, and an indication that consumers could create new markets overnight in a newly industrialised society.
‘You can form no conception of the effect which the instrument excited in London’, Brewster continued. ‘All that you have heard falls infinitely short of the reality. No book and no instrument in the memory of man ever produced such a singular effect. They are exhibited publicly on the streets for a penny, and I had the pleasure of paying this sum yesterday; these are about two feet long and a foot wide. Infants are seen carrying them in their hands, the coachmen on their boxes are busy using them, and thousands of poor people make their bread by making and selling them.’ [17]
Fig. 3. John Moffat, William Henry Fox Talbot, 1864, carte-de-visite. NMS.T.1937.93 (C) National Museums Scotland
Meanwhile, in another part of the country – specifically, in Wiltshire – our second protagonist was growing towards maturity. Henry Talbot’s life and upbringing were far removed from that of his future scientific mentor: his mother was an earl’s daughter, and after a somewhat sticky financial start to life, Henry (Fig.3. John Moffat, William Henry Fox Talbot, 1864, carte-de-visite. NMS.T.1937.93) eventually grew into his role of relatively well-off country gentleman, fulfilling with a marked lack of enthusiasm but grittily held sense of duty, his responsibilities as such, to the extent that he took his seat (briefly) in the reforming House of Commons in 1833 as a Liberal. His father had died when the young Henry was five months old, and had left debts of over £30,000, which his relatives had more or less sorted out by the time he came of age. His mother, Lady Elisabeth, had remarried; but she encouraged her son in all his pursuits, and he was clearly devoted to his step-father and half-sisters, and they to him. [18] In his schoolboy and undergraduate letters, there is more of the self-confidence of youth, and none of the diffidence and retiring nature so evident in later years. He wrote to his mother in 1818 from Cambridge: ‘It is ludicrous to see how many people here are making or getting made for themselves Calleidoscopes [sic], as they are pompously denominated. From the profoundest mathematician to his unlettered Jip [college servant], all are eager for them. When I have more leisure, I will make one upon better principles, which shall be so contrived, that the Star may be changed to one with more or fewer points, at pleasure, by only setting an Index. This is very easy. And I will make another, which instead of exhibiting stars shall produce straight patterns like the borders for paper: which I flatter myself will be found of more practical use than the other in supplying with designs of genuine novelty, the paper hanger, to whom nature has too sparingly given the powers of invention.’ [19]
Talbot graduated from Cambridge in 1821 as twelfth wrangler (that is, he was placed twelfth in the first class in the mathematical tripos). His interests after university encompassed mathematics (obviously), oriental languages, botany and poetry. But his great love already appeared to be the various branches of optical science, and by 1826 he had been put in touch with the editor of the Edinburgh Journal of Science by the Secretary of the Royal Society of London, John Herschel. [20] This editor was that selfsame inventor of the ‘pompously denominated’ kaleidoscope, David Brewster. Talbot’s paper was entitled ‘Some experiments on coloured flames’, and was one of his many contributions to the emerging science of spectroscopy. [21] The discovery of the dark lines in the solar spectrum is usually ascribed to the Bavarian optical worker Joseph von Frauhofer, after whom the lines were named. In fact, Fraunhofer was motivated by the practical concern of locating a reference point in the spectrum which could be used for accurately measuring refractive indices in optical prisms. [22] ‘In the work of Brewster, and of W.H. Fox Talbot’, Jim Bennett has written, ‘we see anticipations of a method of chemical analysis.’ [23] Brewster later described ‘the principal object of my enquiries [was] the discovery of a general principle of chemical analysis, in which simple and compound bodies might be characterised by their action on definite parts of the spectrum.’ [24] Meanwhile, Talbot was investigating the analysis of chemicals through flame analysis. [25] Bearing in mind that the spectroscope – the instrument which specifically investigates spectra – was not devised until 1860, Brewster, always short of cash for apparatus, had borrowed all sorts of bits and pieces for these studies, including ‘a fine plate glass prism, executed by Fraunhofer, … which I owe to the kindness of Mr Talbot.’ [26]
Fig. 4. W.H.F. Talbot, Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, c.1845, salt print from a calotype negative. NMS.T.1937.92.15 (C) National Museums Scotland
Further kindness was forthcoming when Brewster first visited Lacock Abbey, (Fig 4. W.H.F. Talbot, Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, c.1845, salt print from a calotype negative. NMS.T.1937.92.15) Talbot’s family home, in 1836, when Talbot invited him to stay along with a number of other intellectuals (including William Whewell, Charles Babbage, Charles Wheatstone, Peter Roget and William Snow Harris) for the nearby annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held that year in Bristol. [27] Talbot’s wife Constance wrote to Lady Elisabeth: ‘You are perfectly right in supposing Sir D.B. to pass his time pleasantly here. He wants nothing beyond the pleasure of conversing with Henry discussing their respective discoveries & various subjects connected with science. I am quite amazed to find that scarcely a momentary pause occurs in their discourse. Henry seems to possess new life … when I see the effect produced in Henry by Sir D.B.’s society I feel most acutely how dull must our ordinary way of life be to a mind like his! And yet he shuts himself up from choice …’. [28]
Fig. 5. Optical photometer designed by W.H.F. Talbot, constructed by W. & S. Jones, London, c.1830. NMS. T.1995.31 (C) National Museums Scotland
Not only had the two minds in common the nascent science of spectroscopy; both men were intensely interested in the nature of light and colour, and work done by Talbot (dated – by my former colleague Dr Allen Simpson – to the mid-1820s but only published in 1834 in the Philosophical Magazine, another journal co-edited by David Brewster) resulted in an extraordinary device, assembled by the London instrument makers W. & S. Jones at the request of an American collector of scientific demonstration apparatus. [29] It is identified along the ivory plaque under the doors as ‘H.F. TALBOT’S Revolving Photometer or MEASURER of the Intensity of LIGHT & COLOUR’, and the hand-turned spiral is identical with one illustrated in the 1834 paper (Fig. 5. Optical photometer designed by W.H.F. Talbot, constructed by W.& S. Jones, c.1830. NMS.T.1995.31). Simpson speculates that this particular device may have been made under Talbot’s direct supervision as the publication was too succinct to allow the detailed construction of such a piece from it. Colour mixing of this nature was later to be investigated by James Clerk Maxwell and Hermann Helmholtz.
Fig. 6. Camera, printing frame, iron and balance, used by W.H.F. Talbot in the calotype process, 1840s. NMS.T.1936.21, .22, (C) National Museums Scotland
Brewster and Talbot were both fascinated by crystals – their formation, and the optical characteristics of individual compounds. Talbot published several important papers in this area during the 1830s, and in 1837 was awarded the Bakerian Prize by the Royal Society of London for this work. [30] He was already using his microscope for crystal examination, and included polarising devices to work out where their optical axes were. He also went on to make calotypes showing this phenomena. Brewster deeply admired the pioneering work that Talbot was doing, both optically and with the microscope, to the extent that his own Treatise on the Microscope of 1837, originally published as an article in the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was dedicated by him to Talbot. [31] Besides some important early photographic equipment (Fig. 6. Camera, printing frame, iron and balance, used by W.H.F. Talbot in the calotype process, 1840s. NMS.T.1936.21, 22, 95 and 96) and images, a number of Talbot’s microscopes, as well as his prisms, have come to the collections of the National Museums of Scotland. Briefly, these are his simple microscope for botanical work (Fig.7. Simple microscope, with a box of simple lenses, made and signed by Andrew Ross, and used by W.H.F. Talbot, c. 1840. NMS.1936.91), made by the eminent London optician, Andrew Ross (he had another, of the same type) [32]; his cutting-edge (technologically-speaking) bespoke reflecting microscope (Fig.8. Reflecting microscope purchased by W.H.F. Talbot, signed and made by Giovanni-Battista Amici, Modena, 1822. [33] NMS.T.1936.114), ordered from the Italian botanist and optician, Giovanni-Battista Amici of Modena in 1822; and both simple and Nicol prisms. [34] Brewster, a poorer man, was forced to rely on less elegant kit. As described by his daughter, ‘Much of his apparatus to unlearned eyes appeared a mass of bits of broken glass, odds and ends of brass, tin, wire, old bottles, burned corks, and broken instruments. Yet it was kaleidoscopic in its nature, and all resulted in effective and beautiful work. Experiments in the midst of this dusty medley formed the chosen and delightful occupation of his life.’ [35]
Fig. 7. Simple microscope, with a box of simple lenses, made and signed by Andrew Ross, and used by W.H.F. Talbot, c.1840. NMS.T.1936.91 (C) National Museums Scotland
Having met, Brewster and Talbot corresponded, although today only Brewster’s replies have survived. By the mid-1830s, Talbot was confiding in Brewster about his new experiments of capturing images on chemically prepared paper, and this has been extensively discussed many times before: I shall trip lightly (even fantastically) over the busy and crucial years of invention, discovery and publication, and the role played by Brewster in introducing the Edinburgh artist D.O. Hill to the young calotypist from St Andrews, Robert Adamson, in May 1843. [36] The previous year, Brewster had again been visiting Lacock, and a negative believed to be of Brewster, taken by Talbot, is inscribed on the reverse ‘July 1842’. The microscope shown on the table belonged to Talbot, and is now in the Fox Talbot Museum; perhaps this is not the best image of Talbot, if it is indeed him, but it is satisfying to think that it was taken by his scientific protégé. [37]
Fig. 8. Reflecting microscope purchased by W.H.F. Talbot, signed and made by Giovanni-Battista Amici, Modena, 1822. NMS.T.1936.114 (C) National Museums Scotland
There appear to be remarkably few photographs of Talbot, and many more of Brewster. However, it is not entirely clear whether Brewster himself actually took photographs, or whether – being too busy – he merely developed prints from negatives made by others. Talbot, one imagines, was not too frequently in front of the camera lens because he was all too often behind it. His apologia, contained in the Introductory remarks to The Pencil of Nature explains that the calotype prints ‘are impressed by Nature’s hand … [and] when we have learnt more, by experience, respecting the formation of such pictures, they will doubtless be brought much nearer perfection.’ Talbot continued to experiment intermittently with photography for the rest of his life.
Fig. 9. W.H.F. Talbot, Wooden bridge over a river, possibly in Scotland, c.1845. NMS.T.1937.91.3 (C) National Museums Scotland
In late 1844 Talbot toured the Scottish Borders, Edinburgh and the Perthshire Trossachs (Fig. 9. W.H.F. Talbot, Wooden bridge over a river, possibly in Scotland, c.1845. NMS.T.1937.91.3), and published the following year his second photographically illustrated book, Sun Pictures in Scotland, which was recognisably a tribute to Sir Walter Scott and his works: indeed, two of Talbot’s three daughters shared the names of Scott heroines. There was then a lull in his practical involvement in taking photographs, although he was remarkably busy in other areas which interested him. As H.J.P. Arnold writes, ‘The pattern of the 1840s and 1850s for the family was [of] … Henry Talbot joining them for very brief periods interspersed with long periods of work in London and at Lacock Abbey as well as occasional trips to Europe. … [By 1855] began the pattern of a decade – several months spent in the Lake District followed by an entire winter in Edinburgh. Talbot as a young man had found Edinburgh a delightful city, and as his contacts with Scotland’s capital city grew so did his regard for Scottish scientists and universities.’ In 1859, Talbot’s youngest daughter Matilda – the only one of his children to marry – announced her engagement to an Edinburgh lawyer named John Gilchrist-Clark.
Talbot’s experiments concerning attempts to turn photographs into practical printing (Fig. 10. W.H.F. Talbot, Fern, photoglyphic engraving, 1852-55. NMS.T.1937.90.6) are not so well covered in the literature of the history of photography, for no readily discernable reason. The significance of Talbot’s work in this later area has been summarised by Eugene Ostroff thus: ‘The system devised by Talbot, linking the negative-positive photographic image to the photomechanical technique (patented by him in 1852 and 1858) inaugurated a vast new field offering rapid, mass visual communication of graphic information … within 25 years various photomechanical approaches began to gain acceptance in the printing industry, eventually proving adaptable to large-scale, high-speed production techniques’. It concluded the vision anticipated by Talbot in his idea of photography, first envisaged at Lake Como and subsequently expressed in The Pencil of Nature. Much of Talbot’s later experimental work in photography was undertaken in Edinburgh.
Fig.10. W.H.F. Talbot, Fern, photoglyphic engraving, 1852-55. NMS.T.1937.90.6 (C) National Museums Scotland
As ever, my thanks go to Dr Sara Stevenson for the ‘conspiracy’ of friendship which keeps those difficult questions coming; to Professor Larry Schaaf, who generously supplies Talbot facts on request; and to the Scottish Society of Photography committee which invited me to give this paper at the 2002 Conference, ‘The Artful Use of Light’, to celebrate the Bicentenary of the birth of D.O. Hill, forcing me to re-evaluate the background to early Scottish photography, thus generating much heat and light.
[1] There is a considerable literature concerning debates over the nature of light and optics during the early nineteenth century, See, in particular, Paul D. Sherman, Colour Vision in the Nineteenth Century: the Young-Helmholtz-Maxwell Theory (Bristol, 1981), and G.N. Cantor, Optics after Newton: Theories of Light in Britain and Ireland 1704-1840 (Manchester, 1983). These were both drawn upon by Alison Morrison-Low and Allen Simpson, ‘A New Dimension: a Context for Photography before 1860’, in Sara Stevenson (ed.), Light from the Dark Room: a Celebration of Scottish Photography, a Scottish-Canadian Collaboration (Edinburgh, 1995), pp.15-28.
[2] For Brewster’s role in early photography, see David Thomas, The First Negatives (London, 1964); A.D. Morrison-Low, ‘Dr John and Robert Adamson: An Early Photographic Partnership’, Photographic Collector, 4 (1983), pp. 199-214, updated as ‘Brewster, Talbot and the Adamsons: the Arrival of Photography in St Andrews’, History of Photography, 25 (2001), pp.130-141; A.D. Morrison-Low, ‘Sir David Brewster and Photography’, Review of Scottish Culture, 4 (1988), pp.63-73; Graham Smith, Disciples of Light: Photographs in the Brewster Album (Malibu, 1990). See also Sara Stevenson and A.D. Morrison-Low, Scottish Photography: the First Thirty Years (Edinburgh, 2015).
[3] Much of the background information concerning Talbot is derived from H.J.P. Arnold, William Henry Fox Talbot: Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science (London, 1977), still an excellent and readable biography despite being more then forty years old. Subsequent work, particularly by Larry Schaaf, especially his Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot and the Invention of Photography (New Haven and London, 1992), contains much invaluable information as does M. Brusius et al. (eds.), William Henry Fox Talbot: Beyond Photography (New Haven and London, 2013).
[4] M.M. Gordon, The Home Life of Sir David Brewster (Edinburgh, 1869), pp.162-163.
[5] Ibid., Preface.
[6] Ibid., p.414; also A.D. Morrison-Low and J.R.R. Christie (eds.), ‘Martyr of Science’: Sir David Brewster 1781-1868 (Edinburgh, 1984), pp.82, 105; John Gifford, Highlands and Islands (The Buildings of Scotland) (Harmondsworth, 1992), p.81; http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB1652 accessed 15 April 2020.
[7] John G. Burke, Origins of the Science of Crystals (Berkeley, 1966), pp. 108, 142-145.
[8] J.R.R. Christie, ‘Sir David Brewster as an Historian of Science’, in Morrison-Low and Christie, op. cit. (6), pp.53-56. The acclaimed 1980s biography was Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Sir Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980).
[9] Much of what follows comes from my entry for Brewster, David, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published 2004; online at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3371 accessed 15 April 2020.
[10] See ‘James Veitch of Inchbonny’ in T.N. Clarke, A.D. Morrison-Low and A.D.C. Simpson, Brass & Glass: Scientific Instrument Making Workshops in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1989), pp.16-24.
[11] See W.H. Brock, ‘Brewster as a Scientific Journalist’, in Morrison-Low and Christie, op. cit. (6), pp.37-42.
[12] Gordon, op. cit. (4), p.67.
[13] Ibid., p.77.
[14] A.D. Morrison-Low, ‘Brewster and Scientific Instruments’ in Morrison-Low and Christie, op. cit. (6), pp.59-65.
[15] George Duncan, ‘Brewster’s Contributions to the Study of the Lens of the Eye: an Experimental Foundation for Modern Biophysics’, in Morrison-Low and Christie, op. cit. (6), pp.101-103; Nicholas Wade (ed.), Brewster and Wheatstone on Vision (London, 1983).
[16] Gordon, op. cit. (4), p.97. See also A.D. Morrison-Low, ‘The Gentle Art of Persuasion: Advertising Instruments during Britain’s Industrial Revolution’, in A.D. Morrison-Low, Sara J. Schechner and Paolo Brenni (eds.), How Scientific Instruments have Changed Hands (Leiden, 2017), pp.43-56.
[17] Gordon, op. cit. (4), p.97.
[18] Arnold, op.cit (3), pp.17-96.
[19] Letter, Henry Talbot to Lady Elisabeth Feilding, 23 April 1818: Talbot Correspondence Project Doc no 795: British Library, London, Manuscripts – Fox Talbot Collection. My thanks to Larry Schaaf for this reference; see http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/letters/transcripts accessed 15 April 2020.
[20] Larry Schaaf tells me that John Herschel and Henry Talbot met each other for the first time in Munich in 1824: my thanks to him for this: and see Larry J. Schaaf, ‘The First Fifty Years of British Photography, 1794-1844’ in Michael Pritchard (ed.), Technology and Art: The Birth and Early Years of Photography (Bath, 1990), p.10.
[21] Henry Talbot, ‘Some experiments on coloured flames’, Edinburgh Journal of Science 5:1 (1826), pp.77-81.
[22] See Myles W. Jackson, Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics (Cambridge, MA, 2000).
[23] J.A. Bennett, The Celebrated Phaenomena of Colours: the Early History of the Spectroscope (Cambridge, 1984), p.3.
[24] David Brewster, ‘Observations on the Lines of the Solar Spectrum …’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 12 (1834), pp.519-30, quote p.519.
[25] See Frank A.J.L. James, ‘The Creation of a Victorian Myth: The Historiography of Spectroscopy’, History of Science 23 (1985), pp.1-24.
[26] Brewster, op.cit. (24), quoted in Bennett, op.cit (23), p.3.
[27] Gordon, op.cit (4), p.161.
[28] Letter, Constance Talbot to Lady Elisabeth Feilding, [‘Monday’] 1836; now in London, The British Library, Archive of William Henry Fox Talbot and the Talbot Family: Add MS 88942/2/188: Letters to Lady Elisabeth Feilding, NTA: 32576. Previously LA38-58, also partly quoted in Arnold, op.cit. (3), p.80. My thanks to Larry Schaaf for this reference.
[29] H.F. Talbot, ‘Experiments on Light’, London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, third series, 5 (1834), pp.321-34. On the collection of Charles N. Bancker, see A.D.C. Simpson, ‘“La plus brilliante collection qui existe au monde”: a Lost American Collection of the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the History of Collections, 7 (1995), pp.187-196; and for the item itself, see Morrison-Low and Simpson, op.cit (1), pp.20-21, and A.D.C. Simpson, ‘Talbot’s Photometer: or, Developments before Photography’, Studies in Photography, 1996, pp.8-10.
[30] Especially for his ‘On the Optical Phenomena of Certain Crystals’, published in the Philosophical Magazine, series 3, 9 (1836), pp.288-291, and subsequently by the Royal Society in their Philosophical Transactions (1837), pp.25-27; see Arnold, op.cit. (3), pp.75-76.
[31] The text of this dedication reads: ‘TO HENRY FOX TALBOT, Esq., F.R.S., &c. MY DEAR SIR, HAVING been requested to draw up a short and Popular Treatise on the MICROSCOPE, for the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, I have endeavoured to give an account of the most important modern improvements upon that valuable instrument, and of the most interesting observations which have been recently made with it. I could have wished to have enriched it with some account of the very curious discoveries which you have made with the Polarizing microscope, and which I had the advantage of seeing when enjoying your hospitality at Lacock Abbey; but as these required to be illustrated with finely coloured drawings, I trust that you will speedily communicate them to the public in a separate form. In placing your name at the head of this little volume, I express very imperfectly the admiration which I feel for your scientific acquirements, and for the zeal with which you devote your fortune and talents to the noblest purposes to which they can be applied. I am, MY DEAR SIR, Ever most faithfully yours, D. BREWSTER, ALLERLY, Nov. 1837.’ My thanks to Dr R.H. Nuttall, who supplied me with this reference. There is, however, more to the history of the polarising microscope; and the role of the pioneering Scottish lapidary, William Nicol, was considerably downplayed by Brewster: see A.D. Morrison-Low, ‘William Nicol, FRSE, c.1771-1851: Lecturer, Scientist and Collector’, Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, new series, 2 (1992), pp.123-31.
[32] NMS.T.1936.90 and NMS.T.1936.91.c
[33] NMS.T.1936.114: discussed in Graham Smith, ‘Talbot and Amici: Early Paper Photography in Florence’, History of Photography, 15 (1991), pp.188-193.
[34] NMS.T.1936.103, 104, 105 (simple prisms); T.1936.106, 107 and 108 (Nicol prisms). The history and fate of much of Talbot’s apparatus is recounted in Larry J. Schaaf, ‘“Do not burn my history”: the physical evidence of Henry Fox Talbot’s creative mind’ in Bernard Finn (ed.), Presenting Pictures (London, 2004), pp.129-145. The provenance of the material now at the National Museums of Scotland (formerly the Royal Scottish Museum) is discussed by A.D. Morrison-Low, ‘Scientific Apparatus associated with Sir David Brewster’ in Morrison-Low and Christie, op. cit. (6), p.87; and A.D. Morrison-Low, Photography: A Victorian Sensation (Edinburgh, 2015), p.5.
[35] Gordon, op.cit. (4), pp.307-308.
[36] There is an extensive literature on the meeting of Hill and Adamson. This includes Thomas, op.cit (2); Morrison-Low, ‘Dr John and Robert Adamson’, op.cit.(2); and Stevenson and Morrison-Low, op.cit (2) pp.45-47. Also Sara Stevenson, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson: Catalogue of their Calotypes taken between 1843 and 1847 in the Collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (Edinburgh, 1981); John Ward and Sara Stevenson, Printed Light: The Scientific Art of William Henry Fox Talbot and David Octavius Hill with Robert Adamson (Edinburgh, 1986); Sara Stevenson, Hill and Adamson: The Fishermen and Women of the Firth of Forth (Edinburgh, 1991); and Sara Stevenson, The Personal Art of D.O. Hill (New Haven and London, 2002).
[37] Text by Larry J. Schaaf, Catalogue Nine Sun Pictures: William Henry Fox Talbot, Friends and Relations [Hans P. Kraus, Jr.] (New York, 1999), pp.30-31; the positive image also reproduced by Andre Jammes, William H. Fox Talbot, Inventor of the Negative-Positive Process (New York, 1973), Plate 26.
[38] As Monica Thorp has pointed out to me, these were also family names, and perhaps I am stretching coincidence too far. For Talbot’s Sun Pictures in Scotland, see Graham Smith, ‘William Henry Fox Talbot’s Calotype Views of Loch Katrine’, Bulletin of the University of Michigan Museum of Art and Archaeology, 7 (1984-85), pp.49-77; Graham Smith, ‘H. Fox Talbot’s “Scotch Views” for Sun Pictures in Scotland (1845)’, in Patritzia di Bello, Colette Wilson and Shamoon Zamir (eds.), The Photobook: From Talbot to Ruscha and Beyond (London, 2012), pp.17-34; Stevenson and Morrison-Low, op.cit. (2), pp.99-100.
[39] Arnold, op.cit.(3), p.245; for Talbot in Edinburgh, see Monica Thorp, ‘William Henry Fox Talbot and the Edinburgh connection, 1855-1872’, Studies in Photography (2005), pp. 24-33.
[40] Her story is told briefly by one of her daughters, Matilda Talbot (formerly Gilchrist-Clark), My Life and Lacock Abbey (London, 1956). Miss Talbot gave large parts of her grandfather’s work – in order to ensure its survival – to the nation in 1936 and 1937: see Roger Taylor and Larry J. Schaaf, ‘The Talbot Collection at Bradford’, in Mike Weaver (ed.), Henry Fox Talbot: selected Texts and Bibliography (Oxford, 1992), pp.131-133; and see (34) above.
[41] Eugene Ostroff, ‘Photography and Photogravure: History of Photomechanical Reproduction’, Journal of Photographic Science, no 17 (1969), pp.101-115, abridged in Weaver, op.cit. (4), pp.125-130. See also Arthur Gill, ‘Fox Talbot’s photoglyphic engraving process’, History of Photography, 2 (1978), p.134; Larry J. Schaaf, Catalogue Twelve Sun Pictures: William Henry Fox Talbot and Photogravure [Hans P. Kraus, Jr.] (New York, 2003); and Larry J. Schaaf, ‘“The Caxton of Photography”: Talbot’s Etchings of Light’, in Brusius et al. (3), pp. 161-189.
[42] Chris Howe, To Photograph Darkness: the History of Underground and Flash Photography (Gloucester, 1989), p.266.
[43] Michael Hallett, ‘Early Magnesium Light Portraits’, History of Photography, 10 (1986), pp.299-301.
[44] Graham Smith, ‘Magnesium Light Portraits’, History of Photography, 12 (1988), pp.88-89; Howes, op.cit. (42), pp.18-47. For Charles Piazzi Smyth and photography, see Larry J. Schaaf, ‘Charles Piazzi Smyth’s 1865 Conquest of the Great Pyramid’, History of Photography, 3 (1979), pp. 331-354; Schaaf, ‘Piazzi Smyth at Tenerife: Part I , The Expedition and the Resulting Book’, ibid., 4 (1980), pp. 290-294; Schaaf, ‘Piazzi Smyth at Tenerife: Part 2 , Photography and the Disciples of Constable and Harding’, ibid., 5 (1981), pp.27-50; H.A. and M.T. Brück, The Peripatetic Astronomer: The Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth (Bristol and Philadelphia, 1988), pp.95-115; Stevenson and Morrison-Low, op.cit.(2), pp.149-151, 216-217, 253-255, 282-287, 301-302; and Sara Stevenson, ‘The Eyes’ Intelligence’, Studies in Photography (Winter 2019), pp.30-39.
[45] I had been particularly bothered by my title, which had come as inspiration months before the conference, when (as usual) a title and abstract were demanded. No dictionary of quotations revealed the source, until after the event, while turning this talk into a publishable text. It comes from no less an authority than John Milton’s L’Allegro:
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity …
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe.
]]>
This article was first published in 1988, and requires some background explanation. The National Galleries of Scotland launched its formal interest in photography as an art form late in the day – in 1984. Julie Lawson and I were then faced with a distinct problem: how to build a collection of Scottish photography without sufficient and authoritative research on the subject – without even knowing who the significant photographers might be. With one or two exceptions, there was no ‘canon’. This was unusual and possibly unprecedented in gallery history – curators are supposed to have clear paths mapped out before them. So we needed to do two things simultaneously – to find the good pictures and to find the evidence on the makers; sometimes we could make these discoveries march together; generally we could not. It should be said that this pursuit was both a privilege and a pleasure, and, when we did line them up, we would have an exhibition and publish the information and pictures, so that we and the subject had ground to stand on for the next stage.
The following piece of research, which dates to this early exploration, was based on an unidentified group of calotypes of Australia and Peru already in the collection. We knew then, and this still holds true, that early photography, whether daguerreotype or calotype, was difficult, and the latter was especially erratic. From these early years there are remarkably few photographs remaining. The works of Talbot and Henneman and Hill and Adamson are the striking exceptions to this rule.
It stands to reason that very few people would successfully take photographs in the 1840s in Australia, which was distant from the sources of photographic materials, and was served by an incompetent merchant navy, in ships which were poorly built and sadly apt to sink (it is worth noting that the navy ship, described so disparagingly in this article, was far better built than most of the commercial ships). In 1848, an angry complaint was signed in the area of Australia, which is shown in the calotypes, Port Phillip, whose ‘Immigration and Anti-Shipwreck Society’ had held a public meeting. The Society was severely concerned about the loss of life and property in the wreck of ships heading their way, and both the damage and the discouragement to migrants[1].
In such circumstances, both the photographers themselves and their materials could easily have been lost to history, and the conditions of the return journey must have seen the destruction of yet more men and photographs. We are used to an idea of shipwreck relating to lost bullion or treasure; we should add the idea of lost daguerreotypes lying glinting on the sea bed and calotypes spreading and curling in the tide.
The survival of the group in the National Galleries collection is a matter of great significance and good fortune.
Fifteen years ago, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s photography collection was divided into the world’s largest collection of calotypes by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson and several boxes, helpfully labelled ‘Miscellaneous’. The Hill and Adamson Collection demanded time and attention, and the other boxes were given only an occasional, slant-eyed, thought.
Sitting in these boxes was an odd group of seventeen calotypes – not particularly picturesque and not especially competent. But two were inscribed ‘Banksia, The Honeysuckle of Colonists’ (fig.13) and ‘Light Wood or Blackwood of Colonists. The wood resembled the Laburnum or Lignum Vitae’. From the authority of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the calotypes were assigned to Australia. From the time, any Australian interested in photography who passed through Edinburgh for her or himself looking at these photographs in confusions and fascination. [1]
Christened by one Australian expert, Alan Davies, the ‘largest collection of Australian calotypes not eaten by the white ants’[2], they were eventually nailed down by another Australian expert through the calotypes of a mine (fig. 15). This proved to be the Burra Burra Copper Mine – a spectacularly successful mine, which attracted Cornish and Scots engineers – and the presence of a particular pump in the photograph dated the photographs to 1849.[3]
Logically, the photographer was a Scots mining engineer.
A second, smaller group of calotypes with similar annotations, looked South American. Recourse to the Encyclopaedia suggested Peru (Fig. 16).
After thirteen years’ acquaintance with these photographs, I was increasingly conscious that my research record was far from perfect. A hypothetical Scots engineer was not enough.
In 1985, there took place in Bradford a meeting of the European Society for the History of Photography which was particularly notable for bitter cold and rain which appeared to be driving at a 45 degree angle up from the pavement. Under the circumstances, the Scottish contingent tended to huddle together for warmth, and various right-minded foreigners, attracted by the kilowatts, the whisky, or the brilliance of the conversation, joined the Scottish Society for the History of Photography. Being responsible for giving a brief talk on the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s collection to the conference, I decided to show a number of the photographs which had eluded our research. In a moment of aberration or good sense, it occurred to me to try out on the frozen, damp audience of considerable experts a method I cannot recommend to students on economic or moral grounds (more important, if you are a student – it takes too long). I put on the screen the Peruvian(?) photograph and offered a bottle of whisky for the correct answer. The answer came with exemplary speed from Hans Christian Adam that it was Peru and the city of Lima, which was, on his advice, later confirmed by the expert on Peruvian photography, Keith McElroy from New Mexico.
John Miller Grey, writing an introduction for Andrew Elliot’s book on Hill and Adamson in the late nineteenth century[4], talked about the 1840 Edinburgh Calotype Club and mentioned an album including calotypes of Peru: ‘One member (of the club) has penetrated to South America, and gives us renderings of the quays and public buildings of Lima’. This album is now missing[5], but the Edinburgh Calotype Club is known to have been an informal association of lawyers – men like Cosmo Innes and George Moir. The Burra Burra Mine was notable for its success and its enormous profits which involved the confusion and wealth attractive to the law.
The photographs were at this point, logically, likely to have been taken either by an engineer (with an encouraging side-bet on a guano miner) or a lawyer, and my colleague, Julie Lawson, followed the lines of research suggested by these theories – pursuing the careers of the Calotype Club lawyers and likely engineers. With no results.
In May of last year, a pleasing letter arrived from Elizabeth Edwards of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, a veteran of the Bradford conference. She enclosed a photocopy of a letter which she had found in Imperial College in London ‘whist looking for something else – having magpie instincts I had a photocopy made’. This letter was the key and the solution to the whole problem.
It was written by a Dr John Thomson of Rankeillor Street in Edinburgh[6] to Thomas Huxley, and was dated 1851. The letter reads:
‘My Dear Huxley
I was glad to hear that you had made short work of your Rheumatic attack. I remember very well how much a former attack interfered with your pleasure when in the bush in Australia…
I have been very busy with my Calotype and have arrived at a considerable proficiency. I have nearly discarded paper as the medium of receiving the negative picture and have adopted glass – two processes I follow and according to the intention I have in view. When I wish to take portraits I cover the face of the glass plate with collodion having in solution a few drops of Iodide of Silver dissolved in a saturated solution of Iodide of Potassium – the hydro of Carbon of Aether seems to play an important part in rendering the surface very sensitive after it has been dipped in a solution of Nitrate of Silver 30grs to [ ] 10 – 30 seconds give a good portrait in diffuse daylight. When my wish is to take scenery I find if the surface is not rendered very sensitive that the minute details of the landscape are more clearly developed. I therefore make use of albumen having mixed in it a little of a very strong solution of Iodide of Potassium to coat the surface of the glass – and when this covering is perfectly dry I dip the glass as formerly in to a solution of Nitrate of Silver 30 grs to [ ]. In both case the pictures are brought out by a mixture of Gallic and Acetic Acid and occasionally are not fully formed until after the lapse of two of three hours…’
At last we had an Edinburgh calotype photographer who had been in Australia.
This Dr John Thomson (fig.17) was a surgeon in the Royal Navy (inevitably neither an engineer nor a lawyer)[7]. He was connected with Thomas Huxley through a scientific survey expedition of the Australian Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait between 1846 and 1850. Dr John Thomson was the surgeon of the HMS Rattlesnake, the young Thomas Huxley was the assistant surgeon. Huxley viewed the ship with little affection: ‘Exploring vessels will be invariably found to be the slowest, clumsiest, and in every respect the most inconvenient shapes which wear the pennant. In accordance with the rule, such was the Rattlesnake, and to carry out of the spirit of the authorities more completely, she was turned out of Plymouth dockyard in such a disgraceful state of unfitness, that her lower deck was continually underwater during the voyage.’[8] While he had no affection for the ship, Huxley was fortunate enough to like the surgeon: ‘My immediate superior, Johnny Thomson, is a long-headed good fellow, without a morsel of humbling about him – man whom I thoroughly respect, both morally and intellectually, I think it will be my fault if we are not fast friends through the commission. One friend on board a ship is as much as anybody has a right to expect.’[9]
In a letter to his sister in October 1846, before the ship set sail, Huxley remarked ‘I have learned the calotype process for the express purpose of managing the calotype apparatus for which Captain Stanley [who was in charge of the expedition] has applied to the Government’[10]. It is, therefor, possible that the calotypes now in Edinburgh were taken by Huxley and given to Thomson, but he never mentions taking photographs in his diary of the expedition or in his letters home. The probability is that the senior officer took charge of the camera.
The notations on the calotype are compatible with Thomson’s handwriting in the 1851 letter, not with Huxley’s writing. The only references Huxley and his Australian fiancee, Miss Heathorn, make to photography refer to John Thomson. In 1850, Miss Heathorn’s diary recorded ‘heard that a Dr Thomson was taking a photographic likeness of Hal (i.e. Huxley) – how delightful to have a correct one’, which she followed later with a peeved note: ‘very indistinct – with the sailor’s cap’[11]. In 1851, when back in Britain, Huxley reacted to a more successful essay in portraiture: ‘Many thanks for the Calotypes – they are certainly as fine as any I have ever seen. Your own is especially sharp and life-like, and wonderfully like. As for your son’s, of course I can’t judge the likeness but I can quite believe it – as he has all that peculiarly sturdy, planted, look – a sort of jolly defiance to the world in general – which I have heard of as his characteristic. A most indubitable chip! – it makes me laugh whenever I look at him.’[12]
A later remark by Huxley suggests that photography was a sufficiently familiar topic between the two men to have become a mild standing joke. ‘Why don’t you exhibit some of your Calotypes [in the Great Exhibition of 1851]? It might do you good when you take to the peripatetic cart we used to talk about.’[13] Presumably they had discussed the possibility of Thomson setting himself up as a travelling photographer. A survey voyage was as uncomfortable an affair as Huxley’s description of the ship suggests. Men like Huxley with particular work to do, other than sailing the ship, and with their own cabins were exceptionally fortunate. The surgeon was kept intermittently active with epidemics – including one sinister enough to be worth writing up for a medical journal. Huxley urged Thomson to do so in 1851: ‘Do you ever intend to publish or make any use for yourself of the notes of our marvellous ‘Dopo’ epidemic? I mean that which began with the death of poor Taylor. I have mentioned the circumstances of that disease to several people of eminence… and they all strongly advise the publication of its details.’[14]
A four-year voyage when an epidemic becomes ‘marvellous’, required a man anxious to keep his sanity and his temper intact to think up a professional hobby and preferably one which would take him ashore. Huxley again described the condition of life on shipboard: ‘Any adventures ashore were mere oases, separated by whole deserts of the most wearisome ennui. For weeks, perhaps, those who were not fortunate enough to be living hard and getting fatigues every day in the boats were yawning away their existence in an atmosphere only comparable to that of an orchid house, a life in view of that of Mariana in the moated grange has its attractions.’[15] Huxley’s cynical view of life in the navy was published in 1854; (it can be safely assumed he was not expecting to take up a second naval appointment.) Huxley’s diary, which is unfortunately not a complete account of the voyage, records the surgeon’s absence in 1847 for some months and it is clear that the ships of the expedition went at times in different directions.
Regrettably the calotypes cannot be related directly to the account Huxley gave of the survey, and there must remain (temporarily, I hope!) a doubt of their being taken by John Thomson. The photographs of the mine are the only certainly identified pictures in the group and Thomson is not on record as having visited the mine, although it is surely probably that a general scientific survey would have sent representatives to look at such a spectacularly successful geological venture. There are however one or two more straws for brick-making that convince me he was the missing Australian calotypist. One photograph of a clapboard bungalow is inscribed ‘Talicum [? a place name] Geo Thomson’ [fig.18] – conceivably a relative of the photographer. John Thomson’s secondary interest in the expedition was the collecting of botanical specimens and the two properly identified photographs in the set are trees. Most important of all, he had the driving interest in photography necessary for this pioneer work.
Huxley’s friendship with John Thomson fives us a good description of this survey expedition. The known facts of his later life are less highly-coloured. The researches he described in his letter to Huxley in 1851 are mentioned in an article by William McCraw attacking another Edinburgh photographer, James Good Tunny, for claiming too much credit in his work on the collodion process. The article said ‘Perhaps it might be said that Mr Tunny is somewhat wanting in generosity in not acknowledging the invaluable serviced he was receiving from a gentleman, whose name I cannot mention without his sanction. This was Mr T., a doctor in the navy who was then enjoying some leisure time in the neighbourhood of Mr Tunny’s studio. The former gentleman devoted days and weeks together in experimenting with the latter, and many a message was sent from home for the errant doctor to come to his dinner.’[16] In much later years, when John Thomson had retired from the navy, he became the Vice-President of the Edinburgh Photographic Society.
Some doubt remains on the authorship of these particular Australian and Peruvian calotypes, but John Thomson certainly took calotypes during the Australian expedition and this fact alone entitles him to admiration. Anyone who has tried taking calotypes in comparatively rational conditions (during heavy rainfall in Edinburgh, for example) is familiar with the dim and incompetent results which are apt to emerge. Conditions on HMS Rattlesnake and the white ants between them make the taking and survival of these few early paper photographs astonishing – aesthetic criticism would be brutal and irrelevant. Within a few days of leaving Plymouth, the crew were so sick in the Bay of Biscay that they mostly lay in their hammocks oblivious of the water swilling around the cabins carrying their possessions with it. Some did not survive. John Thomson must have stayed on his feet and kept a careful eye on his calotype paper and chemicals, in intervals of tending the sick.
Huxley’s account of the later stages of the voyage is a yet more extraordinary description of conditions either for taking or for preserving photographs. In August 1849, he wrote ‘I wonder if it impossible for the mind of a man to conceive of anything more degradingly offensive than the condition of us 150 men shut up in this wooden box, and being watered with hot water… . It rains so hard that we have caught seven tons of hot water in one day… the lower and main decks are utterly unventilated: a sort of solution of man in steam fills them from end to end, and surrounds the lights with a lurid halo… my sole amusement consists in watching the cockroaches, which are in a state of intense excitement and happiness…’[17]
Dr Thomson’s photographs survived the huger of the white ants and the damp affection of happy cockroaches – that in itself justifies at least one small firework in the Bicentennial celebrations.
But this is now 2020. And, after this disconcertingly long period of time, it is clear that I was wrong in my conclusion in 1988. Dr John Thomson was a photographer, who operated in Australia at the time. But he was not the man who took this particular group of pictures.
Research is not a straightforward or linear process – and those of us who have found ourselves watching Hercules Poirot more than is sensible lately, (as a defense against viewing programmes about deep-cleaning the house), will recognise his method. Assemble everyone in the library and accuse everyone in turn until the correct suspect is pounced upon. And everyone is amazed…
So. We need to return to the Edinburgh Calotype Club and reconsider the members.
In 2002, an album of photographs taken by members of the Club turned up at auction in the south of England, and the National Library of Scotland were successful in bidding for it. Amongst these is a calotype, which is a second copy of one in the Portrait Gallery group and is identified as ‘Kitchen hut, Gnarkeet Station, Port Phillip, Australia’. The photograph is initialed ‘R.T.’ From meticulous research by Roddy Simpson, which is available online at the National Library’s site, the story was unlocked. Roddy gives us his biography:
Robert Tennent (1813-1890). In volume 1, the photographs initialled ‘T’ refer to ‘H. and R. Tennent’. Born in Edinburgh in 1813, he was the elder son of Patrick Tennent (1782-1872), Writer to the Signet, and Margaret Rodger Lyon (1794-1867). He was the brother of another member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, Hugh Lyon Tennent. Robert was one of a number of family members who sailed around the Western Isles in July 1838. An account of this cruise is held at the National Library of Scotland, (shelfmark Acc.12071). Robert Tennent arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in June 1839 from Leith and crossed to Port Phillip in October 1839. Along with Charles Hugh Lyon (1825-1905), he held a squatting run of nearly 30,000 acres at Gnarkeet, 100 miles west of Melbourne from 1844 to 1853. Tennent also held 75,000 acres in the Portland Bay district, 20 miles from Gnarkeet, from 1841 to 1848. He married Wilhelmina Meldrum in 1858 at Kincaple, Fife and in his will he left property in Melbourne to his daughters. [1]
Sheriff Hugh Lyon Tennent was known to be a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, but his brother had previously been unknown to photographic history. His absence in Australia makes this reasonable. It now seems likely that the group in the Gallery’s hands is the remainder of a collection similar to the albums, and had belonged to Sheriff Tennent or his brother.
Robert Tennent operated under remarkable difficulties in a hot, dry climate – the cool moisture of Scotland was a definite advantage to photographers. It is especially pleasing that ‘The Kitchen hut’ is annotated as having been taken with a camera constructed out of a cigar box and the lens of a telescope. Allowing that a cigar box was probably a much finer object in the 1840s than it may be now, it was still an achievement. Tennent’s splendid amateurism is a cliché of early photography, and I do not know of any other successful pictures remaining which were indeed taken by this implausible, pioneer method. The other calotypes are evidently taken with, at the least, a better lens. [2]
It is pleasing also to be able to report here that a group of 19 negatives and positives has surfaced, given by Thomson’s son to the Oxford Museum of the History of Science. Though so far, none of these seems to have been taken on the voyage.
It should, however, be added that we have never identified the photographer of the calotypes of Peru with confidence. And that reminds me, that, shamefully, I never organised the bottle of whisky to be sent to Hans Christian Adam – a debt I should honour when it proves to be practical!
First Published Aril 10th 2020
]]>David Buchanan took over SPEM, producing his first edition in September 2012. (Somewhat ironically, in view of recent developments in Inverness, SPEM included: As Inverness College has now gone fully digital Matt Sillars has 3 LPL 6700 colour enlargers (great for B+W with dial in filters) to GIVE AWAY.) He also restarted the Edinburgh portfolio sessions at the end of October.
On the 8th of December 2012, the Northern Cell met in Dingwall. Amongst those attending and showing work: Eileen Fitzpatrick had three books ….. The earliest was made using re-photographed family images…. Her latest was [made] at the Aquarium with photographs taken through the glass tanks where light reflects on the fish. Layering, natural distortion, and the refractions which diffuse the mainly blues and greens have resulted in unexpected beauty and pathos. ….. Keith Price showed … prints which demonstrated his …… interest in experimenting with the border of an image … followed by a set of large format 10×8 pinhole contact prints…. very detailed, printed on warmtone paper, and selenium toned. Gary Williamson … showed the group a small selection of his aerial images which he takes from a paramotor ( a powered paraglider). …. Lucy Telford showed prints from a series titled ‘Flight’. … the images are camera-less photograms ….. The loose concept … is to do with ideas of freedom, escape and how we assimilate childhood dreams of the impossible. Prints from this series will form part of an exhibition in Edinburgh next Spring. Alastair Cochrane had two books – one ….. of 2011 images and the other photographs found in old albums from early 20th century Canada. He also produced … darkroom prints from over 20 years ago
Edinburgh Portfolio Session 15 January 2012. Keith Brame and Graham Barnes both showed pictures from the Outer Hebrides, and David Buchanan showed initial work in his Truncated series.
Edinburgh Portfolio Session 26 March 2013. Ian Watson showed us work from his Dreich series in which he captures Scottish mist – a very elusive subject. Ian will be exhibiting Dreich at FOTOSPACE in August. Graham Barnes showed some black and white prints. Karen Howard had some colour prints. These included her usual enigmatic abstracts and a Martin Parr-like cityscape. David Buchanan showed recent additions to his Snowforms series.
SPEM became Contact Sheet for its May 2013 edition.
In May 2013, Alex Boyd took on the responsibility for NOTES. He envisaged something much grander with a new name. Eventually in December 2013 Solas – New Photography in Scotland was launched at Street Level in Glasgow. It had a glossy A4 format, and contained some excellent material. Unfortunately, it was beset with various problems, not least print quality, and no further editions were published.
We have received the sad news of the death in September 2013, at the age of 86, of Stan Dodd. Regular attenders of the Scottish Photographers Inversnaid weekends will fondly remember Stan who, despite his considerable challenges, was a congenial companion with a pawky sense of humour and always ready to surprise the company with his presentations. It was due to the generosity of Stan, together with Linda and Andre, that Scottish Photographers was able over many years to offer free places to two students of photography. In addition to this there were other times when members of Scottish Photographers had reason to be grateful for his kindness.
Sometime in 2014 the Scottish Photographers website was taken down with the intention of creating a new one with a different domain name. The replacement website never came online.
In April 2014 Alex Boyd indicated that due to pressures of other work, he would have to de-commit from Scottish Photographers.
During summer and autumn of 2014 various meetings were held to discuss the future of Scottish Photographers. However, in essence it was reduced to the very active Northern Cell, a Fife and Tayside group hosted by Alan and Sheila Borthwick, occasional meetings of the Edinburgh and Glasgow sections and Contact Sheet.
Alan Borthwick reports on a FIFE & TAYSIDE Portfolio Meeting in October 2014:
Alan Hillier showed prints from his time as editor of Aberystwyth Uni newspaper c 1970. Julie Close showed her montages. Robert Walker had images of the lead up to the last Kinross Show at Kinross House. David Ogden took us round his micro photographic equipment involving LED torches and had fascinating images of ants and midges, Jenni Gudgeon gave us a talk on her Scolawi project with some of her emulsion scraping images. Margaret Kay had a selection of images taken from above. Aase had a book of unusual signs and Peter had a book of pics taken on his recent ebay purchase of a vintage Paxette camera. They also had a documentary of Levenglen Estate. Finally, Sheila had some pics of Largoward in Fife, a singularly unphotogenic place but on that day had some great light to lift the mundane.
Alan Borthwick reports on the FIFE & TAYSIDE Portfolio Meeting in February 2015:
An interesting selection of prints and books were shown, Jim Mailer and Peter Goldsmith are making their own and Alan Paterson, a new face had a great Blurb book “The Pool”. Really well presented and Sheila found her Blurb book ” The Magic of Polaroid” being circulated. Jim’s books are retrospective images going back to the 1970’s. Phil had interesting images of mossy glass, Alan Hillyer showed some images of a very windy Tentsmuir beach, Aase Goldsmith had a book of her home street and a selection of her signature still life creations. I had a series of images of Mersea Island on the Essex Marshes. Our welcome visitor was Malcolm Thomson who does tuition a Dundee Contemporary Arts. He had a lifetime as a professional photographer but his personal work is always inspirational. Not now enjoying the best of health, he still gets out with his SL66 Rollei but has reluctantly given up on his 5 x 4,
In March 2015 there was an Edinburgh Portfolio Meeting at Stills. We were a select group of three. Douglas May: Manuel de Falla was Spain’s pre eminent 20th Century composer. Yet in his personal life he lived with his sister, in a spartan house surrounded by religious artefacts and works of art. My photographs explore the disconnect between his music and the way he lived.
Douglas McBride:
I was in the centre of Paris the day before the Charlie Hebdo shootings. On hearing the news I was so shocked just like many! I was living in Lille at the time. On the Saturday following I heard clapping in the next street. As we all do, I carry a camera always? I joined a communal outpouring of feelings about the terrible events; recording what transpired. Bringing a camera to the eye is a way of dealing with the world that allows one to disconnect but at the same time take part in experience with a heightened sense of purpose. I made a little book of the resulting pictures that I distributed among friends.
JE SUIS CHARLIE
David Buchanan:
The motivation behind my series Truncated was the thought that in trees which have been cut down (or damaged by nature) there is a beauty that remains (or has been created) and a sense of the beauty that has been lost.
Alan Borthwick reports on a Perth meeting in April 2015:
Steve Evans came along with a range of photobooks covering street photography, abandoned buildings, candids of cigarette smokers and much more, all very thought provoking. Sabrina Willekens showed a photobook in Mono of a visit to New York, not the usual tourist shots, well thought out and produced. Margaret Kay had pics from a visit to Lofoten Islands. Jim Mailer had a book of his rock textures at Ardross Beach and others in Fife. Sheila has been documenting Mersea Island from some recent visits and showed some of her ongoing project. I showed the start of my project on pics of photographers and mobile phone users…
In July 2015 Matt Sillars started a FaceBook ‘group’ called North Photography Contact Notes to cover the North and the Islands in an effort to stimulate interest in independent photography. It will provide links to shows, talks and other things associated with independent work.
In September 2015 Nina Bacos, the initiator of TalkSeePhotography (which runs at CCA in Glasgow every second Monday of the month) expressed an interest in relaunching NOTES.
About this time, Stewart Shaw painstakingly digitised all of the Scottish Photographers printed publications from 2002 up to NOTES 27 – Autumn 2012.
Sadly, the well respected photographer Aase Goldsmith, a very active member of the Fife and Tayside group died on 28th September 2015. A very memorable retrospective “Never Go Forwards Without First Looking Back” was held in FOTOSPACE in Glenrothes in April 2017 and subsequently at Lochgelly Theatre.
Matt Sillars describes a meeting of the Northern Group in May 2016:
We had 12 people presenting work at the last meeting – an eclectic mix of Bromoil, cross-processing, digital on screen and ink jet, with work stretching from conceptual to journalistic.
In July 2016 Nina Bacos reported: Ben Rush, Melanie Letore, Marco Scerri and myself are working hard on the NOTES issue and have high hopes it will be out of our “heids” and into the world mid fall. And indeed, the new NOTES had its launch at the November meeting of TalkSeePhotography, and filled the CCA Cinema to the brim.
In December 2016 from Matt Sillars:
We closed off 2016 with one of the best portfolio meetings we can remember. Inspiring talks and work from a range of old and new members of the group were presented with passion and verve. We were shown documentary work from the west coast, by Adrian Hollister, the art of the ‘sandwich’ prints by the inimitable Keith Price, minimalist and deconstructed landscapes by Roddy McKenzie, recently exhibited work by Paul Campbell exploring the contrails of passing airliners and social documentary images by Eileen Fitzpatrick, to name but a few… It was busy session.
We also had a presentation by Iain Serjeant on his blog “Another Place” which showcases landscape work by photographers both international and local. Iain has recently begun publishing small books of selected work from the blog in limited edition volumes.
Finally, congratulations to Alastair Cochrane, who has recently achieved his Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.
In January 2017, Douglas Thompson announced the recommencement of Glasgow based Scottish Photographers Portfolio Meetings, at Street Level.
Matt Sillars reported on the February 2017 meeting of the Northern group:
13 people attended showing a range of work both finished and in progress from traditional prints to screen based images. The session is split around a casual lunch, much enjoyed.
Douglas Thompson reports on the April 2017 meeting of the Glasgow group:
We reviewed a diverse range of photographic projects. Michael Thomson presented his ‘Indyref 1’ project, a perspective on Glasgow’s engagement in the political ‘Yes/No’ debate as portrayed in street posters, slogans and graffiti. Roger Farnham showed a number of variations of an unfinished photogravure from ca 1998 ……. Douglas Thompson presented a project based on the life, death and memorial of a relative, James Forrester, who died at the Battle of Arras on 24th April, 1917, exactly 100 years to the day, or more poignantly, to the night.
Matt Sillars reports on the May 2017 meeting of the Northern group:
We had a grand day in Inverness on the 6th May with 13 people showing a range of work from digital scans to bromoil prints.
Douglas Thompson reports on the June 2017 meeting of the Glasgow group:
Michael Thomson presented his ‘Sleeping Rough’ project, a series of photographs avoiding the voyeuristic aspects of photographing homeless people. Instead he focused on the transient evidence of their plight in a variety of city and country locations. Carl Radford brought a collection of wet-plate collodion images made at Kirkstone Quarry in the Lake District. Douglas Thompson presented a range of infrared and panoramic landscape work.
The Northern group continues to hold lively meetings four times a year, but sadly, no record is made. Probably, because they are too busy with …….
In September 2017, Matt, together with members of the Northern group and others, organised the first FLOW Photofest. Centred on Inverness it covered locations across the north of Scotland.
This was a remarkable achievement, including work by: RAGNAR AXELSSON, SIGGA ELLA, KIERAN DODDS, ANDREA GJESTVANG, IIU SUSIRAJA, ROBIN GILLANDERS, TOM KIDD ,EVIJA LAIVINA , COLIN MCPHERSON, MAT HAY, work from the ANDREW PATERSON COLLECTION, ROSS GILMORE, the ST ANDREWS SPECIAL COLLECTION – 175 YEARS OF SCOTTISH PHOTOGRAPHY, MARY OVERMEER,TONJE BØE BIRKELAND – BERTHA BOLLETE BOYD, NICKY BIRD, JEREMY SUTTON-HIBBERT, ALEX BOYD, CHRIS FRIEL, KEVIN PERCIVAL and DOMINIQUE GAIS.
In addition to these exhibitions, there were: films, talks & discussions and Portfolio Reviews at Eden Court; Workshops at the Highland Print Studio, Inverness, and at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery; and, an Open Competition on the festival theme of PEOPLE & PLACE. The best photographs were exhibited in Inverness during the Festival. Plus several smaller associated smaller exhibitions.
December 2017 saw the launch of the FLOW Photofest Wall at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness with the exhibition “Postcards from an Imagining” by John Ferguson. Following the highly successful festival, the FLOW Photofest Wall hosts a continuing series of exhibitions showcasing work from local artists as well as photographers across Scotland and further afield.
Reporting on a meeting of Glasgow group in January 2018, Douglas Thompson notes:
We reviewed the work of three photographers. David Buchanan brought along his latest book, ‘A Walk’, depicting a route along the ridge separating Glen Feshie and Glen Einich, starting at dawn and finishing in darkness influenced by the work of Hamish Fulton. Iain McLean presented an on-going development of his ‘Duplicis Series’ and a contrasting commercial project based on the people behind the construction of the new St. Vincent Plaza building in Glasgow. Douglas Thompson brought along a series of toned monochrome landscapes and a book, ‘Faroe 62° North’, images from a recent trip to the Faroe Islands.
Around this time Matt Sillars announced that Eileen Fitzpatrick, who has jointly organised the Northern Meetings of Scottish Photographers with Matt Sillars, is retiring from the group. Eileen is a founder member of Scottish Photographers and has been a stalwart supporter of the portfolio sessions – believing firmly that independent photographers need a space to show work in progress and to bounce ideas and projects around with others. The eclectic mix of photographers in the Northern Group demonstrates her wish to bring together people from all walks of life who share a common mode of expression.
Her experience and knowledge, armed with her Masters in Documentary Photography and working history with Creative Camera, proved invaluable in the early years of the group – which met in her kitchen in Findhorn – and her understanding of how to run and organise portfolio days has its lasting influence in the current sessions – they are deeply convivial, always challenging, refreshing and inspirational events.
Everyone in the Northern Cell wishes her all the best for the future and thanks her for her commitment and contribution to our successes over the years.
Douglas Thompson reports on the March 2018 meeting of the Glasgow group:
Stewart Shaw brought along his recent book – ‘Glasgow on Instagram’, a series of keenly observed black and white cityscapes. This series of images was influenced by the process of 6” x 4” print sharing under taken many years ago by Sandy Sharp and now re-interpreted on as an attractive small scale Blurb book of recently taken photographs. Sarah Mackay brought along her book, ‘Parks in Glasgow’. Michael Thomson has further developed his extensive project, ‘Clyde Estuary – The River Clyde and its docks and shipyards from Broomilaw to Gourock’ David Buchanan has further pursued his ‘Snowforms’ series with a range of exquisite minimalist images of drifting snow and hoarfrost taken in the Lammermuir Hills, France and Norway.
Stewart Shaw reports on the May 2018 meeting of the Glasgow group:
Keith Ingham showed his latest book Along the Road, images from nocturnal journeys in west Glasgow. Stewart Shaw reached back to 1969/70 with a small Blurb book of portraits and candid shots of his early working life in a Dundee office.
Douglas Thompson reports on the July 2018 meeting of the Glasgow group:
David Buchanan brought along ‘Quarries’, his latest book. Douglas Thompson presented a series of prints of north Skye demonstrating that tranquil Skye still exists, even at the height of the tourist season.
Stewart Shaw reports on the Glasgow group in September 2018:
Ian McLean has been recording the progress of Scottish League 2 football team, Albion Rovers, for a number of years. David Dickie presented an ongoing project to document his home town of Irvine. Mike Thomson showed a Becher style collection of flattened drinks cans. Ross Samson brought a series of portraits of European nationals living in the south of Glasgow which was recently exhibited at the Southside Fringe. Ross also showed images of arborglyphs – carving or graffiti on living trees, a series on abandoned shopping trolleys and an idea in development for photograph/text juxtapositions on a single sheet.
Douglas Thompson reports on the Glasgow group meeting in November 2018:
Images from Berlin by Hugh Walker were presented in striking ‘film noir’ contrast… Ross Samson showed a self-published book of ‘Some Scottish Snaps’ and a project structured around the Glasgow Pipe Band championships. Michael Thomson presented a recent exploration of Cabrach, Aberdeenshire, the area he grew up in. Douglas Thompson brought along a collection of recent infrared landscape work taken in North Yorkshire
In January 2019 the super-active Northern Cell (especially Matt Sillars and Rachel Fermi) unveiled THE INVERNESS DARKROOM. This is a community black and white darkroom at WASPS Creative Academy in the centre of Inverness. The darkroom has 9 enlarger bays – Durst, LPL and De Vere – from 35mm to medium and large format. Timers, masking frames, focus scopes, processing trays etc. are all provided. There are three large sinks for processing and print washing in the main darkroom and a separate room for film development.
Douglas Thompson reports on the Glasgow group meeting in January 2019:
Michael Thomson continues his exploration of the Cabrach. Ross Samson returned to his project on discarded urban shopping trolleys. Douglas Thompson brought along a collection of recent platinum/palladium landscape prints.
Douglas Thompson reports on the Glasgow group meeting in March 2019:
Michael Thomson extends his on-going project to document the changing face of the Clyde estuary. Hugh Walker has been working to establish a regular Instagram feed, @hughwalkerphotography and has also focused on aspects of the River Clyde all be it with very different results. Keith Ingham revisited a football based project begun in 1982. Dave Dickie presented an ongoing, thought provoking project from his native Irvine. Dave Dickie, untitled, from a project dealing with suicides in Bourtreehill Park IrvineMichael Thomson, untitled, from his project, “Clyde Estuary – The River Clyde and its docks and shipyards from Broomilaw to Gourock
Stewart Shaw reports on the Glasgow group meeting in May 2019.
Iain McLean brought along a book of his documentary photographs of Albion Rovers, and we were also treated to a preview of his next volume in the series. Some of these pictures will feature in an exhibition at Summerlee Museum (Coatbridge). Robert Burns showed two contrasting monochrome images taken in Kiev underground, and some of his portraits of prominent Glasgow west-end residents plus an affectionate one of his guitarist son. Paul and Sandy Wotton brought work made in Wester Ross. Paul brought monochrome images of Inverewe House and Gardens and of an abandoned cottage. Sandy, working in colour, presented some of her hand-made books combining words and images, and featuring coastal landscapes and trees. Ross Samson explored trees through minimal depth of field and atmospheric natural light effects in woodland close-ups. David Buchanan brought along two of his books; a monochrome one on quarries and a colour one of Easdale Island.
Douglas Thompson reports on the Glasgow group meeting in July 2019:
Michael Thomson further extends his project to document the Cabrach Trust Estate in Aberdeenshire. Paul Wotton brought along two black and white triptychs from Wester Ross, each exploring mindfulness. Nick Wylie has been exploring platinum/palladium prints and cyanotypes some of which have been further stained. Ross Sampson has became increasingly aware of lost and abandoned gloves perched on tree branches and elsewhere. Iain Mclean talked about his current ‘A Game of Two Halves’ exhibition at Summerlee industrial Museum at Coatbridge. Sandy Wotton also brought along two books, one of carefully considered photographs of the Falkirk Kelpies and the other explores the past and present of Sheffield. Douglas Thompson brought infrared landscapes taken on the Cullin mountains of Skye and on the Kintail Estates.
Building on the success of the 2017 festival, the FLOW Photofest team (which consists mainly of members of the Northern Cell) put on FLOW Photofest 2019, establishing it as a biennial event. With a theme of BORDERS, the month long festival again showcased both international and Scottish photography across the North of Scotland. This year the festival mounted the following exhibitions: Jeff J. Mitchell, Days of Night – Nights of Day – Elena Chernyshova, Karczeby – Adam Pańczuk, City Under One Roof – Jen Kinney, Exit Wonderland – Tine Poppe, Frozen – Sarah Riisager, St Kilda – Beka Globe, Traces and Edges – John Farrell, Tales of the Unearthly – Daniel White, Michael Flomen, Waiting – Jana Romanova, Perceiving Identity – Hannah Laycock, Open Competition exhibition, Document Scotland, Impossible Colonies – Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte, Undersong – Linda Lashford, Sexy Peat – Kacper Kowalski, Out of the Ordinary – Iain Sarjeant, Isle – Paul Glazier, Quarries – Post-industrial Sublime – David Buchanan.
Douglas Thompson reports on the Glasgow group meeting in September 2019:
This was an opportunity to congratulate group participants who had work accepted for the Street Level Photoworks Open exhibition; including both Paul and Sandy Wotton, Keith Ingham, Michael Thomson and Iain McLean. Hugh Walker brought along a range of fine silk scarves which incorporate photographic images.
Roger Farnham showed work which utilised a copy based process devised by the Scottish inventor James Watt. Paul Wotton’s black and white images examined the meditative nature of abstract patterns in moving water as a flowing stream entered the sea. Taking inspiration from T. S. Elliot, Keith Ingham explored ‘The Awareness of Pastness’ using a polaroid style phone app to make images of significant objects he associates from different times in his life. Sandy Wotton brought a fold out book of colour images depicting reflections and floating objects on water courses, each infused by changing patterns of light. Ross Samson has been working on the documentation of projects with volunteer groups in his community. David Buchanan currently has an exhibition of his ‘Quarries’ project as part of FLOW Photofest 2019 (in Thurso). The work consists of colour and monochrome images from slate and limestone quarries at Easdale, Ballachulish, Little Langdale and Bibemus.
Douglas Thompson reports on the Glasgow group meeting in November 2019:
Sandy Wotton brought along a beautiful panel of five prints from recent work on Harris. She skilfully linked the soft colour palette of the island’s landscape to the colours being hand woven in the production of Harris tweed. Ross Samson has undertaken a project to photographically portray the subject of mental health. He has a working title, ’Mind the Gap’. John Perivolaris presented some work from a project depicting a local Glasgow character and painter, Frankie Robertson. Robert Burns brought along a range of very fine prints made in a wide variety of alternative processes. John Shanks showed a selection of his architectural work and in contrast, recent abstract work. Paul Wotton presented some black and white prints made on the Isle of Harris, drawing on long established traditional aspects of island life set along side emerging new businesses. David Buchanan presented his book, ‘Loch Ghiubhsachan Outflow’. The images have an abstract quality depicting the gentle flow at the loch outlet. Douglas Thompson brought along salt prints made at a recent Street Level Photoworks masterclass lead by Lithuanian photographer and printer Gintautas Trimakas, and also a range of woodland landscape platinum/palladium images.Sandy Wotton, untitled, from recent work on HarrisJohn Perivolaris, untitled, two pictures from a project depicting Frankie RobertsonJohn Shanks, untitled, one of a series of Abstracts, ©the artistPaul Wotton, untitled, from recent work on Harris, ©the artist
As I write this we are beset by the Covid-19 pandemic, so all Scottish Photographer meetings have been abandoned. However, I’m sure after this period of forced isolation, we will get together again.
“To cultivate and enjoy the creativity of photographers with an independent outlook”
]]>Scottish Photographers produced its first publication in early 2002. This contained two pictures by Stewart Shaw, and announced two Residential Portfolio Weekends: one at Inversnaid, near Loch Lomond, and the other at Quiraing Lodge on Skye. It also stated that a member had offered to host a website.
This was followed by the first Contact Sheet in March 2003 – an informal newsletter (on paper), which listed photographic events of interest such as the Cindy Sherman exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and, most importantly, exhibitions and events of, by, and for Scottish Photographers. These included: Portfolio Afternoons in Inverness, St Andrews and Glasgow; a visit to Little Sparta; and an exhibition by Sandy Sharp.
The Residential Portfolio Weekend at Inversnaid in April 2002 appears to have been a lively event with much discussion of a wide variety of work: Ian Biggar – pictorial landscapes; Matt Sillars – polemical tortured plants; Robert Burns – jazz portraits; Chris Morris – a remarkable body of work of a very personal nature; Alan Aitchison – prints from his professional work; Bill Ellis – jazz photographs; Stewart Shaw – travel and street photography; Ian Fairgrieve – landscapes; Ian King – fine Van Dyke and platinum prints; Douglas May – Japan; Sandy Sharp – Ravenscraig; and finally, Andre Goulaincourt – colour prints of water.
In September 2002, twelve Scottish Photographers spent a September weekend at Quiraing Lodge in Staffin on Skye as the guests of Sam Gardener and his partner Suzy. Keith Price showed portraits of faceless models taken with a pinhole Hasselblad! A series on the ‘seven ages’ was spread on the floor by Eileen Fitzpatrick. Artist’s books of the land and sky in Skye from Caroline Dear were passed from hand to hand. Jim Mailer showed work made on Rannoch Moor ranging from traditional landscapes to almost abstract tree roots. Matt Sillars’ work was thought challenging by those present. Jill Staples showed books of flower pictures on home made paper. Douglas May showed a panel of architectural work and photographs of sculptures made in Sweden. Chris Morris showed some recent conceptual work. Doug Whittaker gave an account of making photographs of mongrel dogs. Sandy Sharp continues to work in Ravenscraig. Alan Aitchison showed a selection from a body of work made in Italy during the summer.
The first edition of NOTES was published in summer 2003 (although the name Scottish Photography Notes had been used for a newsletter in December 2002) to a membership of 60. Contributors to the initial issue included Keith Price, Chris Morris, Russ Young, Stewart Shaw, Alan Aitchison and Veronika Woodroffe. David Williams gave permission for one of his images from his series No Man’s Land to be used as an initial “Icon of Scottish Photography”. Subsequent issues of NOTES celebrated other Icons. (There were also occasional Spotlight articles exemplifying the work of those who had not yet become “Icons”.)
December 2003 saw the publication of NOTES number Two. Contributors included Robert Burns, Alan Aitchison (photographs of dancers), Philip Spain (Abstract), Gordon Croft, Stewart Shaw (diptychs), Bob Colins, John Alexander (icebergs), Alicia Bruce from Napier University (portraits), Jane Fenton from Edinburgh College of Art (Glasgowlandscape) and Douglas Bell from Durham University. From its earliest days, Scottish Photographers sought to involve photography students, and Alicia was an early and particularly enthusiastic member.
At this time there were four active portfolio groups: the East Group, Crawford Centre, St Andrews, is far the most active (at present!) contact Peter Goldsmith; the North Group, Inverness, is the smallest – but the first to form, contact Aileen Fitzpatrick; and the West Group, in Street Level Glasgow, contact Stewart Shaw. A happy spin off from the St Andrews sessions was an exhibition by six photographers in the Lochgelly Centre followed by a solo show, East of the Eden, by Peter Goldsmith.
Peter Goldsmith East of the Eden – Nature Reserves of North East Fife…. a series of projects concerned with the contemporary landscape of North East Fife. Whilst exploring some of the lanes and byways I kept coming across small, almost secret nature reserves. These have over recent years become an integral part of both the conservational and recreational aspects of the countryside.
NOTES June 2004. There were now about ninety Scottish Photographers. Eileen Fitzpatrick describes a meeting of the Northern Cell:
An inspiring and encouraging portfolio meeting …… [Attended by] Anne Thomson, Caroline Dear, Matt Sillars, John Rhodes and Eileen. John showed large black and white prints of wrapped objects, inspired, by the work of Christo…. Caroline showed her commissioned work as a sculptor and photographer working with other artists and children to restore walls and the dyke in Jig Shore Wood in Skye where she lives …… Matt spoke about his Hurt of Flowers exhibition and work in progress …. Anne is a painter as well as a photographer, with a particular interest in the figure ……. exploring glimpses of the figure in the urban landscape. Eileen showed work relating to many projects, some completed, some nascent …
In August 2004 two workshops were organised, in partnership with the RPS, led by John Blakemore, at Mugdock, near Milngavie and in Fife. One of the workshops was on bookmaking, the other for portfolios.
NOTES 4 December 2004 Contributors included: Iain McLean on Albion Rovers; George Logan – thought provoking portraits; Douglas May – After Munch; Frances McCourt (greenlands: exploring rural landscapes) and Nikki Leadbetter (The Beach) are recent graduates from our art schools
Eileen Fitzpatrick describes an Autumn Meeting in the North:
[Attending] Peter and Rosemary Koch-Osborne, Alastair Cochrane, Matt Sillars (who kindly provided the venue, his home in Dingwall), John Rhodes and Eileen Fitzpatrick. Matt showed us how his figurative work-in-progress, close-ups of the facial expressions of his children. Rosemary’s delicate and perceptive view of the sea… Peter’s … pictures of people on the London ‘tube’ … implying many untold stories as he observed individuals waiting, or travelling or going down an escalator. John shared his quiet colour, large format, photographs of shopkeepers and the details of their establishments, revealing character and sense of place. Eileen showed two pleasing simple, ‘concertina’, A5 books which she had made during the recent John Blakemore event.
It was reported that Portfolio Sessions had started at Stills Edinburgh, organised by Douglas May
NOTES 5 – Spring 2005 Contributors included: Fiona Porteus – Sandmarks in Space; Joel Conn – Flower Sequence; Sandy Sharp essay Scottish Landscape Photography.
Inversnaid – April 2005 This year John Rhodes produced the biggest colour prints some of us had ever seen. Tony Gardner …. produced lovely little high key prints of ceramics and fabrics. Roger Farnham projected his Irish farm family history ….. Alina Kisina showed her entire life’s work ….. Sandy had holiday snaps and portraits of shoes. Stan Dodd and Ian Fairgrieve were also present.
May 2005 was book month with two workshops at Street Level. John Blakemore introduced his Black and White Photography Workshop with a substantial illustrated lecture. The following week Tillman Crane, complete with giant 5″ x 12″ format camera, introduced Touchstones to an audience which, surprisingly, was quite different to John’s. Scottish Photographers seem to know what they want. There was a bonus at the end of the month. Alan Aitchison persuaded the legendary George Wylie, of paper boat fame, to let us visit his house in Gourock.
The last paper Contact Sheet – Summer 2005 was produced and Scottish Photographers Email (SPEM) started.
Around this time Roger Farnham organised an event on Photogravure, and Donald Stewart one on books.
NOTES 6 – Autumn 2005 Contributors included: David Gilanders BESPRIZORNIKA – The Neglected Ones – homeless children in the former Soviet Union; and Roger Farnham – All About Barns and Sheds. And an interview with John Blakemore. Patricia Macdonald featured as an Icon of Scottish Photography.
NOTES 7- Winter 2005 Contributions: Roy Robertson – Spirit Stone; Norma-Louise Thallon; Digby Sim – The Nineties in a Circle; Aase Goldsmith – History in the Making.
Portfolio Sessions continued: St Andrews (Donald Stewart), Edinburgh (Douglas May and Alicia Bruce), Inverness (Eileen Fitzpatrick ), and Glasgow (Carl Radford) with the prospect of sessions in Aberdeen.
Both NOTES and Contact Sheet reported on Members’ Exhibitions: Hugh Walker (Edinburgh), Alastair Cochrane (Beauly), Douglas McBride (Edinburgh), Roddy Simpson (Opticians Linlithgow!), Thomas Joshua Cooper (Manchester University), Keith Ingham (Stirling University) and Robin Gillanders (SNPG Edinburgh).
NOTES 8 – Spring 2006 Contributors: Anne Crabbe -The Past is a Foreign Country; James S. Porter – Dissolved Within a Large Measure of Life; A Conversation with Thomas Joshua Cooper; Lenka Sedlackova; Stewart Shaw – A Tale of Two Cities, Dundee and the Third Reich
The last PORTFOLIO SESSION at the Crawford Arts Centre St Andrews was held on Sunday 23rd April.
NOTES 9 – Summer 2006 Contributors included: Tony Gardner – Ceramic Manifestations; Matt Sillars; Susan Baker; Hugh Walker – Mexico; Peter Goldsmith reflects on the Corridor Gallery.
The Inversnaid weekend (April 2006) was as popular and varied as ever. An hour at this fixture quickly dispels any notion of defining a typical Scottish Photographer. Douglas May was master of ceremonies, Keith Ingham presented stunning colour street photography and Bill Ellis again demonstrated his sheer professionalism in the jazz scene. Denis Alishev gave us 3D specs on Saturday night, Alicia Bruce made the skin creep and James Porter challenged our identities. The idea that bodies of work are preferred to greatest hits and technical prowess is growing. We are fortunate to have Inversnaid on our doorstep and are grateful to Andre, Linda and Ian for their hospitality and for again generously sponsoring a new generation Scottish Photographer – Alicia Bruce this year.
NOTES 10 – Winter 2006 Contributors included: SUZY GRAY – Skye bus shelters; IAIN MCLEAN exploring Glasgow Lanes; MICHAEL THOMSON’S pinholes in Macau; KEITH INGHAM at leisure in Shanghai
The Island of Rum residential weekend led by George Logan ran in September 2006. George Logan:
…. while working on the Isle of Rum I realised that the island would make an ideal venue for a low cost photography weekend. Rum is a National Nature Reserve with dramatic landscape and Kinloch Castle is a fascinating Edwardian pile ….. the first evening was enlivened by an unexpected ceilidh in the village hall. The only objective for the weekend that I set out was for each in the group to make around six images that would be suitable for showing on the Scottish Photographers web site …… Everyone managed to make interesting work some abstract, some landscape and some a mixture. Nearly everyone made their images as a linear sequence, considering how images worked together, which was interesting, some decided on a more individual image approach. A good percentage of the work was made during an extended tour of the main part of the castle. One of the biggest joy’s of the weekend was that despite the wide range of experience, amateur to professional and even a senior photography lecturer (the programme leader), everyone got on splendidly.
Attendees: Gordon Cameron; Sheila Borthwick; Alan Borthwick; David Buchanan; Nick Dear; Amy Blackwell; Caroline Dear; Cary Welling; Richard Carrey; Mairi Robertson; Douglas McBride; Doug Mackie; Fiona Porteous; George Logan and Ian Biggar (on his yacht).
PORTFOLIO SESSIONS in 2006/7
GLASGOW: Organised by Carl Radford
DINGWALL: At Matt Sillars house (a shared buffet style meal was, and still is a feature of these events), organised by Eileen.
EDINBURGH: Scottish Photographers Evening, Stills Gallery. Those presenting work included Douglas May, Alicia Bruce and James Porter. Organiser Madeleine Shepherd.
FIFE: Fife contains a good number of experienced and creative Scottish Photographers.
NOTES 11 – Spring 2007 Contributors included: Martin Reekie; Robin Gillanders talks to Scottish Photographers about education and his continuing passion for personal work; Matt Sillars: Trust, Hope and Desire; John Rhodes continues his fascination with corrugated buildings; Douglas May photographs a Poetry Path; and Aase Goldsmith has a way with the fairies – at a beach in St Monans she found links with Norse myths.
JILL STAPLES ATTENDED the Inversnaid weekend (May 2007) and writes:
The weekend was a great pleasure. We saw varied work from twelve members, and we also saw work by two students in their final year at Napier University …. Ariadne from Athens showed work based on the religious symbols of the Greek Orthodox Church and Una from Sweden showed work based on her vision of post global warming.
NOTES 12 – Summer 2007 Contributors included: David Gillanders – Concerned photographer; Douglas McBride – bonaly woods fern sticks; Margaret Diamond – Penthouse Blues; Keith Price – Seeing the Light; Douglas Thomson – Babelplatz Book Burning Berlin; Veronika Woodroffe in India
In September 2007, John Blakemore led workshops organised by Scottish Photographers in Glasgow and Edinburgh. John gave an illustrated lecture in the mornings and showed his work in print and book form. The afternoons were open portfolio advice sessions.
Portfolio Sessions in late 2007 were organised by Peter Goldsmith at Dunshalt Village Hall in Fife, and by Matt Sillars in Dingwall. Sessions also happened at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh and at Street Level in Glasgow.
NOTES 13 – Winter 2007 Contributors included: Robert Burns – The Unicyclist of Podi; Ariadne Xenou – Abject Hagiographies; Jill Staples – Portraits at the Nursery; Chantal Riekel – Natasha Gilmore residency at lOrge Loga.
NOTES 14 – Spring 2008 Contributions included: David Williams talks to Scottish Photographers; Chris Leslie – The Balkans; Ariadne Xenou; Douglas May – Bird Flu.
Another Inversnaid weekend was held in 2008. The students this year were Caroline Douglas and Zoe Gibson from Edinburgh College of Art. Caroline described her project ‘Come Together’ The Photobooth, in which couples were asked to take self-portraits in a specially constructed Photobooth at the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Arts between 2005 and 2007, and showed some of the resultant pictures. How prescient – was this the invention of the selfie! Zoe’s touching ‘Family Portrait’ reflected her family’s close association with books through a series of portraits of books important to them.
NOTES 15 – Autumn 2008 Contributions included: Robin Gillanders – Highland Journey, in the footsteps of Edwin Muir; David Buchanan – Snow Forms; Keith Ingham – Urban Echoes, “Images of not seeing people”; John Kemplay – Street photography from his exhibition in Chipping Campden; Alex Boyd – Sonnets from Scotland.
Around this time, David Buchanan became organiser of the Edinburgh Portfolio sessions.
In September 2008, the Northern Group held a Group Exhibition at Inchmore Gallery, near Beauly. Exhibitors were Anne Thomson, Eileen Fitzpatrick, Caroline Dear, Matt Sillars, Peter Fenton, Martin Elder. Peter writes:
…. individual prints … show … diverse approaches …. although we are connected as a group, we all do quite different things with our photography and support each other to do this. We are looking for integrity not perfection!
NOTES 16 – Winter 2008-9 Contributions included: Alina Kisina – The City of Home; Caroline Douglas and Zoe Gibson – Edinburgh College of Art meets Scottish Photographers; Colin Fraser Wishart – Berlin; Peter Fenton – Cyprus Alterniflora; Douglas Thomson: – A Holga in Florence.
Inversnaid 2009. From Roger Farnham and David Buchanan:
… another full house of Scottish Photographers …. This year we had two final year students from Napier University as our sponsored students. Jacqueline Murray showed us polaroids for her fairy tale themed fashion photography she was about to present as her final year project …. Not only had she made the props, but she had also made the clothes. Jacqueline had also hired a team of huskies to act as wolves in one of the shots: I bet she doesn’t tell all on first dates, fascinating stuff. Jamie McAteer showed us a picture from his final year project. This was one of a number of photo re-constructions exploring events in his life. Carl Radford turned up armed with his collodion aluminatype-making equipment and made some, and gave the rest of us a teach-in on the mysteries of the process. Carl also made the group picture as we struggled to keep still for about 10 seconds.
Scottish Photographers W O R K S H O P June 2009, Glasgow. Anticipating that Inversnaid would be over‐subscribed, Roger Farnham, assisted by Keith Ingham, held this event at his house as a salon de refuses.
NOTES 17 – Summer 2009 Contributions included: Carl Radford – Wet collodion portraits. A modern take on an ancient process; Douglas McBride – Counting Things; Roger Farnham – The bridge at Eglinton Street. A commuter’s everyday view of Glasgow; Alicia Bruce – Artist’s residency at Aberdeen Art Centre; Michael Thomson – Dunnydeer Hill, Aberdeenshire; lain McLean – Albion Rovers revisited.
In August-September 2009, the group exhibition Worlds was shown at the Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie. It was reviewed by Ray McKenzie:
……. the pleasures of the fine print; the expressive power of a well-managed composition; the aesthetic dividends paid by a fastidious attention to framing. These and many other ‘traditional’ virtues are evident in abundance in the first full-scale group show organised by Scottish Photographers under the disarmingly inclusive title: Worlds. The use of the plural is worth noting. From the spacious Skye landscapes of Alex Boyd to the dramatised sequences of intimately knotted flesh in Melanie Sims’ Small Facts, there is confirmation everywhere that good photography is not an objective recording of the world, but a construct borne of sound craftsmanship conjoined with the singularity of a private vision. Between these two extremes we have Chris Leslie’s bittersweet reminders of what was lost with the demise of ‘Paddys [sic] Market’, Stewart Shaw’s witty revelation of a consumerist Utopia that Thomas More would have struggled to recognise, Roger Farnham’s transformation of road markings into powerful semi-abstract designs and much, much more. Kate Mooney, Thomas Cooper and Keith Ingham admire Carl Radford’s wet collodian portraits. Space is limited, so not every contributor can be name-checked. But as a dyed-in-the-wool photo-historian I cannot resist recording my delight in the historical references that made me feel curiously at home: the invocation of Timothy O’Sullivan in Thomas Joshua Cooper’s stupendous triptych (Tom Cooper at the Lillie? Jings, what a scoop!); Carl Radford’s mastery of the wet collodion process; the clear acknowledgment of James Craig Annan in Harry Magee’s ravishing gravure prints of Venetian gondolas and cloud-laden skies over Glasgow. Back in the old days of independent photography people who thought they were clever used to ask ‘independent of what?’ The simple answer proposed by these photographers is: independent of each other. There was not a single presentation here that did not give me real pleasure, but all in totally different ways. Scottish Photographers, take a bow!
Exhibitors: Alex Boyd, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Caroline Douglas, Roger Farnham, Keith Ingham, Chris Leslie, Harry Magee, Douglas McBride, Carl Radford, Stewart Shaw, Melanie Sims, Hugh Walker, Vanessa Wenwiesser
A report from an Edinburgh portfolio session at Stills. Four of us met on the 27th October 2009. Roy Myers showed pictures ranging from the Middle East, to more recent ones taken in East Lothian. Keith Brame’s work consisted of a set of documentary pictures from Bosnia. These covered life both in Sarajevo and in a hill village. “Aloneness” is the provisional title for Karen Howard’s developing series depicting solitude. It will be interesting to see how this work develops. David Buchanan showed images from his Snowforms series.
NOTES 18 – Autumn 2009 Contributions included: Tina Vanderwerf – Window views; Stewart Shaw reports on Glasgow’s ‘Banksy’ as lain Maclean posts his images on the urban landscape; Roddy Simpson revisits a Thomas Annan image; Martin Reekie – Dundee shops; Iseult Timmermanns – The Multi-story project at Red Road Flats; Martin Scott-Powell – Craigmiller people; lain Walker – Homecoming – Scotland for the first time.
NOTES 19 – Winter 2009-10 Contributions included: Steve McQueen – Drawing on photography, the sketch book as camera; Elisabet Thorin – A visit to India and an encounter with X-rays leads to unexpected images; Keith Ingham – Photographs of the photographer’s mother are the introduction to a journey of self discovery; Douglas McBride – Archaeology, a remarkable body of work with a very personal sub text; Douglas Thomson – Mum’s Garden, a personal garden project dedicated to the photographer’s late mother.
In January 2010, Sandy passed the job of organiser on to Carl Radford while still publishing NOTES and SPEM, and Jamie McAteer took over the web site. Roger Farnham continued to run Inversnaid.
January 2010, from David Buchanan:
The session at Stills was enjoyable, but not well attended. There were three of us. Karen Howard and David Third were the other two. David Third showed work from two projects. One is of Glenlivet – a deserted landscape and the other of an old draper’s shop in Keith. I got several apologies for absence, so I’m encouraged to run another session in March or April.
Fife portfolio sessions are now organised by Jenni Gudgeon.
NOTES 20 – Summer 2010 Contributions included: Andy Biggs – An English River; Stefan Serowatka – Northern Grace; John Kemplay – Shop Windows; Colin Gray – In sickness and in Health; Melanie Sims – Memorandum; At Work – The Photographic Work of Jakob Jakobsson
In September 2010 Carl Radford ran a Paul Hill workshop at Street Level. Attendees were: Douglas McBride, Douglas Thompson, Eric Judlin, Paul & Sandy Wooton, Sandy Sharp, Carl Radford and David Buchanan.
NOTES 21 – Autumn 2010 Contributions included: Jennifer Wilcox – Glencoe Project; Maria Falconer – A Body of Dance; lain McLean – Pollok Leaves; Chris Leslie – Remembering Paddy’s Market, One Year On; Hugh Walker: Cambodia.
In May 2011 Carl had to give up being the Organiser due to ill health. Sandy reverted to dealing with the day to day running of Scottish Photographers together with editing SPEM and NOTES.
NOTES 22 – Winter 2010-11 Contributions included: Wojtek Kutyla – In their own way, images of my grandparents; Patricia & Angus Macdonald – The Hebrides. An aerial view of a cultural landscape; Rowan Lear – This is what creates every adventure.
Eileen Fitzpatrick provides a report on a Scottish Photographers Northern ‘Cell’ Meeting Saturday 19th March 2011:
….. We’ve been doing this, twice a year or so, for nearly ten years, so something must be working. ……. Matt showed us three black and white photographs of a boardwalk and bridge over a river, and two detailed images of a filled pothole and a curbstone at the side of a rural road…… Peter had made a book of sensitively taken and well observed records of an emotional journey made in his father’s house immediately following his death. …… Alastair’s books always provide us with a sense of wonder not only at his technical ability, and sheer stamina, but also his own sense of curiosity both at the world around him and contained in images he makes further afield ….. Anne showed us….. pictures both of the changing sea and sky, and partial images of her daughter and sons ….. Keith [showed] one-off, handmade, glued down, scraped off, muted, layered, double exposure pieces [which] combine the personal with the universal….. Eileen….. show[ed] images made in Fochabers Folk Museum …. light reflecting off glass giving a multi-layered effect…. Many thanks to Matt for being our host, to Keith for making the soup, to Alastair’s wife Linda for making the Victoria sponge cake…
Notes 23 – Summer 2011 Contributions included: Alina Kisina – City of Home; David Gillanders – A Wet Plate Portrait of Scotland; Simon Nicholas White – Hidden Microcosms; Donald Stewart – Defence Structures; and, Virginia Khun – Seven Generations
Notes 24 – Autumn 2011 Contributions included: Kevin O’Brien – Making Waves; Frances Murden – Black and White Fairy Tales; Harry Magee – Three Cities. Studies in photopolymer gravure; Alicia Bruce – The Menie; Emma McGregor – Bradford; and, Keith Ingham – The Glesga that I used to know.
On 3rd December 2011, “Images Scottish Photographers” was the FOTOSPACE Gallery’s launch exhibition in Glenrothes, and Scottish Photographers third group exhibition. It was reviewed by Colin Fraser Wishart:
…. Fife Fotospace …… essentially replaces the Corridor Gallery which, curated by the tireless Peter and Aase Goldsmith, for many years offered independent photographers working in Scotland their first opportunity of mounting a personal exhibition. Distilled from work submitted in response to open invitation of the membership of Scottish Photographers, this inaugural exhibition comprises sixty-two works from twenty contributors, clearly selected with care by a panel chaired by Mary Ann Kennedy of Napier University, together with Hannah Hills and Gillian Parsons of “ON at Fife”, to attain a most coherent installation for, at first sight, the overall impression is one of quiet, contemplative, continuity. Indeed, the exhibition might well be subtitled “New Scottish Contemplatives” such is there a perceptible return to timeless values; an aesthetic of innocence only enhanced by sophistication of technique and expressive assurance. There is a complementary stillness within each sequence of images; a lack of discordance offering rhythmic continuity only rarely to be found in group exhibitions. Often, the acute capacity of photography for evoking abandonment pervades this collection in a fragmentary poetry, as may be seen in Gordon Doughty’s colour diptych of upturned boats, or evinced in the dignity and refined tonality gracing Donald Stewart’s quietly-reflective monochrome studies of the late-18th Century Olson House, Maine, in which light gives gentle presence to sparse interiors containing still the silent echo of “Christina’s World” a sanctuary first interpreted, in pencil and watercolour, by the artist Andrew Wyeth. The end wall is dominated by “Promised Land” from Marion Archibald, a subtly forceful, isolate geometry of desolation which, in its vast spare eloquence, is viewed in contradistinction to the intimate scale of most other works on display. Indeed, human presence is glimpsed only here and there, perhaps most appositely in Alex Boyd’s “4 Sonnets” in each of which an inscrutable solitary figure stands within an open vista which seemingly extends an embrace in mnemonic stillness. A gentle balance is inherent to both colour and monochrome work, only given strident punctuation by four intensely vibrant flower studies from Jenni Gudgeon closely-mounted adjacent to Carl Radford’s linear sequence of darkly-haunting portraits amongst which those of architectural photographers Trevor Yerbury and Timothy Soar, in particular, convey lasting impression. Adopting the early wet-collodion process of print-making, Carl Radford prompts expressive affinity to individual conditions of existence in a confrontational manner redolent of the more recent work of the prominent American photographer Sally Mann or, indeed, to the astonishing series of deeply-toned portraits of contemporary architects made by Soar himself which are currently on view in London. Clearly inspired by Oriental minimalism, three eloquently-textured studies from Keith Ingham entitled “As a Chinese Jar” are each gently limned in quiet contrast to Sandy Sharp’s stark encounters with his native Lanarkshire where a grim cultural dyslexia abounds in dark places of abandonment, segregated by high brick walls or barricades; an inhabitance on the edge of nowhere. It is clear that many of the photographs gain coherence from being viewed in sequence, although seen in this context, Jonathan Robertson’s accomplished and dignified portrait of “Graison in His Kuti” together with Marion Archibald’s forbidden territory, are notable exceptions. It is just this continuity, however, that shapes this coherent installation and points optimistically towards a renascence of Scottish contemporary photography which, having become lost in fashionable experimentation with the dynamic of extravagant scale, or confused in exploration of the culture of gender-politics, is now making insistent return to the fascinating stillness of the gaze.
The exhibition ran from 5th December 2011 – 11th January 2012.
Notes 25 – Winter 2011-12 Contributions included: lain Sarjeant – Winter Abstracts; Roddy Simpson – Revisiting South Porch, St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall by John Forbes White; Simon Crofts – Warsaw Ballet; Angus Behm – Passing Places 2004-2007; Rosalind Dallas – Return; Arpita Shah – Ghar; and, Andrea Ingram – Slogging in Boxes and Bellows
In May 2012, portfolio sessions continued at: Rothes Halls (contact Peter Goldsmith) and at Street Level (contact Colin Gray).
Notes 26 – Summer 2012 Contributions included: Michael Thomson – At New York’s Natural History Museum; Donald Stewart – Northern Chile; Colin Gray – Nina goes shopping; James Dyas Davidson – Abandoned communities; Marc de Ridder -: Portrait of a whippet; Phil Rogers – Secret and arcane; and, Colin McLeod – Otstranenie.
On the 12 Aug 2012, Sandy sent us all an email:
Alas the Autumn NOTES will be my last as due to health problems I am no longer able to continue. I am looking for a new team so please spread the word. Likewise SPEM for there seems to be no great enthusiasm for it being banished to the web site. ….. Best wishes from Sandy
NOTES 27 – Autumn 2012 From Sandy:
WELCOME TO THE AUTUMN NOTES, a temporary return to a larger format, to mark the tenth year of NOTES. It will also be my last issue as editor. Annoying health problems mean that I have, reluctantly, to give up the job which has been a pleasant if vicarious creative experience for me. I hope that, unlike the demise of the Dandy, which may be disturbing some of our readers, NOTES will continue in production.
Contributions to NOTES 27: Colin MacLeod – Leisure and recreation; David Peat – The Printer’s Tale. Robert Burns’ tribute to the distinguished Scottish film maker; Simon Robinson – Botanies; Keith Ingham – If It Moves, Shoot It. If It Doesn’t Move, Shoot It Anyway; Chris Leslie – St Mary’s Seminary Cardross; Alex Boyd – Mapping the Edges of Gaeldom. Last light, Dun Briste; and, Douglas Thomson – Venice without a phone.
]]>
Known for her artist’s books, Helen has created an extraordinary range of works over the past 50 years. From her early partnership with Telfer Stokes through to her independent projects, Helen has always sought to create a unique way of presenting photography in the book form.
HD. My first camera was a Brownie 44A which I got around 1965; by 1970 I was using my father’s Leica and finally in September 1973 I received a Pentax for my 21st birthday. I had no formal training in photography, however on a one year foundation course I did make a photographic half-tone silkscreen print. This initiated me into my fascination with the relationship between photograph and print which became relevant to my books. More generally my interest in photography came about in the early 1970s, at university, when I became aware of artists using photography as an integral part of their practice in performance, land art and books – documenting, but also making photographic works to be exhibited and/or published in book form, which interested me very much indeed. Examples of this are the Artist pages in studio International, May 1971, in particular David Dye’s action of turning pages and Richard Long’s book Along a River Bank (Art & Project 1972). Reliant on photography, these works marry the photograph to the page, the sequence of pages and the book form. The works only exist in printed published form.
HD. Yes. I read art journals, visited exhibitions and galleries such as Nigel Greenwood’s where I saw Artist’s Books. On graduating from University where I studied Art History and took a course in Post-Modernism with Charles Harrison (who was assistant editor at Studio International and closely connected with artists and Art & Language), I took up a job at the Demarco Gallery in the summer of 1973. There I was able to experience first-hand the incredible performance and happenings that took place in that summer: Beuys, Marina Abramovic, Paul Neagu, Kantor… plus many more. Demarco was constantly making photographic documentation and I was roped in to develop and print out press copy in the darkroom at the gallery. I learnt on the job and even now look at some of this archival material with some trepidation.
HD. The experience of working at the Demarco Gallery, meeting so many artists deepened my resolve to become an artist and begin making more public work. I began to consider the book as the place where I could make performative work. Soon after publishing Threads (1974) I began to collaborate with Telfer Stokes in London, publishing under the imprint Weproductions. Our first collaboration, Loophole (1975) drew on a performance I had made with a wheelbarrow as part of Demarco’s Edinburgh Arts, 1974. In Loophole the wheelbarrow is wheeled into the book: when the wheel meets the spine another action is triggered, which unfolds in film sequence. For this book we scripted every page-spread and planned each photograph, then created a life-size set to the proportions of the book for the action and narrative to be photographically constructed to the page, spread and book.
This tailoring of the photograph to the page and book form, using sets, is best illustrated by Chinese Whispers. Here the corner cupboard is constructed to the proportions of the open paperback book, its corner fitting to the spine. In the cupboards making the narrative and the photographic pages the book were constructed together. The proportions of each photograph were those of the page, and the open spread. The choreography of the camera itself moving into the cupboard and looping out from the bottom to middle to top shelf in the form of a spiral was part of the narrative thread.
The book narrative explores the spiral of nature: under, on and above ground. All is hinged on the spine: an earthcake is sliced, a pea pod sprung open and a butterfly takes flight. The photographic page spread is integral to the book and its performative reading. This book was exhibited at Garage Gallery in London in December 1975 and following on at the Demarco Gallery in January 1976. Other books were shown in the early exhibitions of Artist’s Books: Arists’ Bookworks: British Council Travelling Exhibition (1975) and Artists’ Books: The Arts Council of Great Britain (1976).
Much Later Real Fiction (1987), published in the US, returned to this use of sets. However, for this book the sets were small: the installation photograph from the retrospective of Weproductions books which I organised at Printed Matter, Inc., NY in 2018 shows the way a photographic backdrop of factories was combined with cut-out figures of workmen. These men then fictionally constructed the physical, building of an interior in miniature. In this way we again made photographs as pages as sequence, as book.
HD. Originally we used commercial offset printers. That was the thinking: distinctly not fine press. Then when we moved to Scotland for economic reasons we established our own workshop, and acquired a small second hand Multilith Offset Press, as well as a Process Repromaster camera for doing all the repro pre-press work in film – halftone and line. This meant with everything in-house we were able to work with photographic images and the book in a new way: both in the preparation of photographic artwork for printing and in the printing itself. A different print aesthetic came into the books.
For instance with our own press and smaller sheet size we were able to work with many more papers, and to explore the textural relationship between photographic image, print and surface. With the book Mim, an exploration of mimicry in surface pattern and texture of clothing and architecture, we used different textured papers including wallpapers, throughout as an integral part of the visual and tactile reading of the book. We spliced photographic images together at the film stage to build the pages of the book. Flip-flopping images between positive and negative, we were able to drop tone, gain contrast and create negative backing for positive text. This was also possible with Water on the Border (1994), a book made in Scotland and China where line drawings by children were butted up next to photographic images of water and reflections. The latter were screened with a mezzotint half-tone screen which gave a beautiful velvety touch to the image and stroked the paper. The scaffolding armature of horizontals and verticals was made from offcuts of exposed film. Our artwork for the book was no longer layouts of continuous tone bromides but layouts of half-tone film.
In one book Spin Off (1985) each page spread was built up with photographic print overlay: some spreads passing through the press five times. With the advent of the digital this way of working with photographs, process film and the press ended.
HD. Gradually. I saw the potential of the computer and photoshop for working with colour photography and the book by 1998. At that point I scanned analogue photographs and then used photoshop to work them to the page. It was a sea change as to what was possible creatively. Cut and paste, overlay, stripping in/out etc. could be done on screen. Of course something physical was lost but other things were gained. I could work and manipulate photographs to make narrative in full colour, and relying on four-colour separation for printing I returned to working with commercial printers. It was exciting and challenging. My books Wild Wood (1999) Unravelling the Ripple (2001) and Illiers Combray (2004) were all digitally made and had to be worked economically in format and signature to the printers’ B1 sheet.
Illiers Combray was the first book made using a small digital camera, an Olympus Camedia. I was struck by its versatility in taking images, its focus and small detailed pixilation 4M pixels. I used the latter as photographic pointillism to make an almost miniaturist book, which suited my subject of exploring the Combray of Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time. The concertina format was suggested by Zöe Irvine the sound artist, who initiated the collaboration, with her making the soundscape and myself the visual book. Digitally it was possible to seamlessly stitch photographic images together to create one long visual sentence, front and back, into which I could splice vignettes.
HD. No, in 1978 Telfer and I made Clinkscale a visual play on the accordion. I had always been interested in the concertina format, the way it opens the image out in pages of two, four, six and so on: its strong links with the Eastern tradition of book and the flow of imagery across the extended page. The visual phrasing that the concertina enables is different from the codex, and engages not only the hands, but arm-breadths in the reading. This phrasing underpins the way I was originating the photographic sequences of narrative across the floor in my studio in many of my codex books too.
Between the Two (1997) and Unravelling the Ripple are both examples of this. By the early 2000s I began to realise the potential for printing in scroll format with my own Epson printer, as a means of honouring this visual phrasing. The exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery entitled Flow Across the Page (Feb 2019) explored this particular aspect of my books.
With the Epson Photo Stylus I also saw the potential for being able to bring some of my production back in-house, to produce small limited editions with archival inks. In this way I was able to continue developing the exploration of the photographic image with paper, page and book, that had previously been possible in our workshop on the offer press. I began using very fine 30gsm Chinese Xuan paper: the inkjet saturated the paper, image and paper became one. The bleed into the paper gave a painterly quality to the rendered image which can be seen in the scroll The Pond at Deuchar (2011). Using this fine semi-transparent paper I have also been able to build the photographic image from one page to the next as a physical layering in Meadow (2017).
For me the only drawback of this studio approach to making editions was that the books and scrolls I was producing were not reaching out to a wide public in the way that the offset books printed in editions of 1000 or 600 had done. I was uneasy about this, having always adhered to the published book as a democratic art form. Therefore when I gave a presentation entitled Transforming the Medium, as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) – funded project Transforming Artist Books directed by Tate, V&A and University of the Arts London (UAL), I asked as part of the project that my hand-scroll The Pond at Deuchar be put onto an iPad. Indeed, when I had originally conceived this work I had measured an iPad with this idea in mind. I worked with Tate and Armadillo Systems to achieve this: the same photographic files that I had used for the printing of the hand-scroll were fed into the iPad with code made by Armadillo Systems, and the prototype escroll App was made (2013). It had an introductory title page with Tate as publisher and included a postscript by Clive Phillpot. Unfortunately the App Store rejected this escroll which was a shock, but it was eventually published in a slightly different form on onlineculture.com. As a prototype it was exhibited at Yale Centre for British Art however within the year Apple whisked the prototype from my iPad. This experience was salutary and reconfirmed my commitment to independent publishing and the physical book as the place for my art. Of course since the early 2000s with the advent of digital so much has changed for me.
HD. Well for a number of years there was a real threat to the printed book. Many printers and binders went under, including those I used. I found this very unsettling. Now things have stabilised, some offset litho has survived, although press size has reduced. It is now also possible to work with commercial digital printers to realise economic editions of 250 or less.
The digital ebook also shifted public perception of the physical book in general and the artist book in particular, emphasising the physical, tactile and visual qualities. This has led to a blossoming in the field of Artist’s Books and also of Photobooks. The two genres, while distinct, have many crossovers, and my books which were totally reliant on the camera are now also collected and reviewed within the latter.
Whatever genre, my interest is to be out with the camera looking and finding and bringing this to the book form as sequence. It might be a sustained lengthy narrative or something more pared-down, capturing an essence. Leaves Passing (2015), captures that moment of leaves floating down the dark river in beautiful constellations. This is not just about photographs: the landscape format of the book gives breadth and ease to this flow. The white borders enhance the movement and the black cover edge reinforces the sombre title announcing something passing. Insects and Grasses (2018) on the other hand highlights the verticality of the grasses. The grasses zip the white of the page and play with its fore edge: the slim green margin of the cover emphasising and playing with the vertical stalks. In the central spread the thread of the stitched book mimics the antennae of the may fly). To achieve this clarity of expression, I went out into the eld with camera and this book concept to see what I would find. I placed an A4 sheet of white paper behind each stalk and insect: the sheet in effect a set backdrop. I work with camera and think book. This book was produced by Indigo printers in New York to coincide with my exhibition of Weproductions in 2018 at Printed Matter, Inc.
HD. Yes. The exhibition at Printed Matter was an in depth survey of Weproductions Books from 1972 – 2018. It included a lot of archival material to show process as well as the books made over the four decades, and was devised like a large layout. Printed Matter was established in 1976 and I have had a relationship with this bookshop and organisation since that time. In the second exhibition, Flow Across the Page at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, one aspect of the New York show was taken up by Elizabeth McLean and Iain Morrison, following a proposal by Beth Williamson. The display spanned, in four tiers, the full length of the top gallery end wall, in order to emphasise the musical phrasing and metering of these books. I was happy with both exhibitions and very pleased to be able to exhibit my work to the public in this way.
Of course the book is its own exhibition space and from the 1970s onwards, that has been part of its appeal. However an actual exhibition gives another focus to the book and my work as an artist. There is a lack of parity for an artist book with other artworks within museums and galleries. That is what is so wonderful about the Roland Penrose and Gabrielle Keiller collections with their prominent display of books as part of collections within the National Gallery of Scotland’s SGMA 2. However this is rare. My books are in many museum library collections but they are not usually accessioned as artworks, which I have always conceived them to be. When however they were exhibited in MOMA’s Eye on Europe: Prints, Books and Multiples 1960 to Now (2006), and acquired by their print department they were given this status. As a result I was made a life member of the museum, giving affirmation of my work in book. I’m sure photographers have in the past had something of this same experience. With the printed book and photography such an integral part of 20th and 21st century artistic movements and visual thinking, things will change and indeed, are changing.
]]>
French contemporary photographer Chrystel Lebas is best known for her landscapes. Her work is typically developed over periods of months and yeas. In this extract from the Winter 2017 edition of Studies in Photography she speaks to Anne Lyden about her most extensive project to date: the five-year engagement with the Sir Edward James Salisbury Archive at the Natural History Museum, London.
First discovered as an anonymous collection in 2008, the archive consists of approximately 1400 gelatin dry plate negatives and contact prints. Through the investigative work of Lebas, it was discovered to belong to the former director of Kew Gardens, Sir Edward James Salisbury, the botanist and ecologist who, in the 1920s and 1930s had documented plant life in various locations around the British Isles. Some ninety years later, Lebas revisited the original sites and the resulting images formed the project The Sir Edward James Salisbury Archive Re-visited: observing environmental change in British landscape.
AL: How did you learn of the Salisbury Archive?
CL: Bergit Arends, who at the time was curator of contemporary art at the NHM was aware of my landscape work and wanted me to see the Archive, but it was about three years before I finally saw it in 2011. The boxes were moved down from the attic of the Museum, although at first we didn’t know whose archive it was. I spent three months of looking at the original glass plates; for me it was the first time working with a collection like that—not yet printing, just looking, creating lists, etc. When realising the nature of the collection I was at first disappointed by the fact that the collection wasn’t that orphaned, as Salisbury was the author, now I see how great it was to have located the author’s name. When I found an inscription for E J Salisbury, it became quite interesting and Dr Mark Spencer, senior botanist at NHM, got excited at the discovery. I put the idea to Mark to go back and see the environmental change; right from the start I saw potential for this.
I did a considerable amount of research before photographing; I matched up some of Salisbury’s images in October 2011 when I made my first trip to Scotland and visited the Cairngorms.
AL: Among those pairings was Pinus sylvestris, made on the Rothiemurchus Estate in the Cairngorms National Park, which you discuss in the book as a key moment in your collaboration with the NHM and the scientists based there.
CL: Yes, the first pairing of photographs was key to my collaboration with Mark. My understanding of the landscape ecology that Salisbury photographed ninety years previously was enhanced by his explanation. My photograph shows more trees than Salisbury’s black and white glass plate. Mark explained that these could have been growing throughout the last ninety years surrounding the older tree seen in the centre of the image. It showed me that in order to understand the habitat one must understand its history.
AL: This was the first of many trips to Scotland and elsewhere around the UK, but you were also continuing your research of the archive and attempting to understand its history.
CL: Yes. Kew Gardens kept all of Salisbury’s archive from his time there, so I went to visit to get more information for my questions. I spent a year searching thirty boxes containing his research, but didn’t find anything photographic—all the information was on ecology. I met with the geographer, Dr Charles Warren (Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews) who has written on the Scottish landscape as a manufactured landscape in his book Managing Scotland’s Environment (2009). I also interviewed and talked with park rangers and staff at the Forest Enterprise Scotland, Moray & Aberdeenshire Forest District.
AL: It strikes me that this level of research in many ways harkens back to your earlier portrait work in Poland ‘to find the right truth’ and also what you said about ‘you regain your memory from someone else’s memory’. With regard to the Salisbury Archive, what was the experience of revisiting someone else’s work?
CL: It made me understand what ecology is; maybe now I’m not walking the landscape as a wanderer, I am more aware that it has a history that has been influenced by man, animals, and climate.
The work is more than retracing Salisbury’s steps, certainly it was the beginning thread of the project, but my own artistic input was critical. I did question what my role was as an artist. I was a bit scared of losing myself, not knowing where it would take me…there is so much content, so many layers; how do you channel them visually? All this questioning was challenging. Yet very early on I had a vision of what I wanted the pictures to be. I realised that Salisbury had a range of pictures: landscape overviews, plant pictures, and close up studies organised in groups from the same location. I began to use the same strategies in order to frame the Natural World.
AL: You use two cameras for your work, a Mamiya and a panoramic camera, which in many ways replicate the format of the work found in the Archive.
CL: Yes, and I was aware that Salisbury was using a half-plate camera, which creates a restricted view, whereas Francis Wall Oliver, his friend and teacher at University College London used a panoramic camera to create topographic views showing the land. Even though Salisbury could have used modern gelatin roll films he chose glass plates—much in the way that I still choose to work with film and large format. He photographed the view first, then the close up, but I was doing this already as far back as my Croatian work, exploring this idea of inwards/outwards.
AL: However, unlike Salisbury you favour working at twilight…
CL: Twilight is transitional, literally and figuratively. Twilight brings a sense of uncertainty to the image that makes us question what we are looking at, and prompt the question: I wonder what we will find in these places in one hundred years’ time?
AL: Climate change has become a highly political subject of late—from those who deny there is such a thing to President Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement—would you say the work itself is political?
CL: Absolutely, the photographs have a layer of political meaning—it is very important in my work. I find the complexity of the landscape and what people want from it intriguing. For example in Culbin (the Culbin Forest, Scotland) the decisions that are made in and about the landscape depend on who is at the top, in terms of power, and their ego. In the 1930s the afforestation of the sand dunes was to stop them wandering, but now they want to bring back moving dunes and it has something to do with Trump golf courses—Trump destroyed a valuable site, so now there is interest in bringing back ‘what was’ before.
Salisbury was part of an ecological group studying environmental change and the elements. There is an interest in native flora/alien flora – when does one become the other? How do you become part of the landscape? At what point are you naturalised? ‘Naturalised’ is a potent word, it means belong to the land—you are accepted, you are rooted, there are lots of analogies that make the work very political. Text is also a very important part of the work as image—the text places a scientific aspect into the work.
AL: Each work is made up of three components—the text, the reprinting from Salisbury’s original negative and then your own response to the same site. It is quite a strong conceptual arrangement, were you concerned how it would translate to the printed page of the book and the exhibition space?
CL: I knew that I wanted to take people on a journey, walk through the landscape. I had the walk in my head that defined how the exhibition would be at Huis Marseille; each room had a distinct geographic content, so as to create dialogue with different bodies of work. From my background in staging I could sense space and if something was going to work. In the exhibition there is also a film component to the work, four screen presentations of the landscape at Culbin with a voice over, Allen Campbell, Environmental manager at Culbin, narrating the story. It was the first time of showing the film that way, really challenging people’s interaction with it. We are an actor in the landscape. In the exhibition you are also a participant.
With regard to the book design, at first I was concerned with the notion of the gatefold pages—the panoramic unfolding—as I was scared people wouldn’t open up the pages. The concept almost requires more looking, but I realised that this is exactly what you do in the landscape. Stop and study, something the book does.
Annie Lyden is the International Photography Curator, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Chrystel Lebas was born in France and currently lives and works in London. Her works are held in several private and public collections including the National Galleries of Scotland, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Bibliothèque Nationale Paris, The Collection and Usher Gallery, The Citigroup Private Bank and The Wilson Center for Photography.
Field Studies by Chrystel Lebas is the winner of the 2018 Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Book Award.
]]>Iain Sarjeant is a photographer based in the Scottish Highlands. Margaret Mitchell recently caught up with him to talk about his work from his ongoing series Out of the Ordinary as well as his publishing and curating activities.
M.M. Can we start by you telling us a bit about your practice and what draws you to the subjects you photograph.
I.S. My interest has always been in landscape or ‘place’ in the widest sense, and how people interact with their surroundings. This can be anything from remote communities in the Highlands to the centre of major cities. But of course any photograph is a combination of document and personal response, and my work also explores my own relationship with the landscape.
My approach varies depending on the project – sometimes researching a subject or location and planning specific images, and sometimes exploring in a much looser way…wandering and reacting. I tend to work on more than one project at once – developing long-term projects while also reacting to smaller, more spontaneous ideas.
M.M. How long have you been working on your series Out of the Ordinary – can you tell us how it began originally and what keeps you working on it? Has there been any change in your photographic approach or thinking for example?
I.S. I started working on Out of the Ordinary about 5 years ago, at a time when most of my personal photography explored natural landscapes around my home in the Highlands. I wanted to challenge myself to work on something different, so decided to turn my eye to places where the natural and human interact, and seek to find visual interest in the commonplace or overlooked. I didn’t know at that stage where the idea was going, but I quickly started seeking out similar places around the country and from there an ongoing ‘journey’ through everyday Scotland developed.
On previous projects I had tended to work in a slower, more reflective way, but Out of the Ordinary has seen me adopt a more spontaneous, instinctive approach, often moving through places reacting quickly to elements within the landscape – in many ways more like street photography than landscape photography.
M.M. Can you share your thoughts of the process of working on an extended and ongoing piece of work?
I.S. I think the beauty of working on one project over an extended period is that it allows you to constantly reflect on the subject you are seeking to explore and also your approach to it. I have found both change as you refine your ideas. With Out of the Ordinary, as the project developed I became aware that it was important for me that the work didn’t just reflect people’s interaction with the landscape, but that it explored everyday places. I was drawn to the fact these landscapes were commonplace, experienced by most people on a daily basis, but were often overlooked. Long-term projects also give you time to ‘live with’ the images produced, constantly reviewing and editing the work – for me an important part of the process.
M.M. You recently brought out the series in book form. Do you see this as a finished project now or does it remain an ongoing piece of work?
I.S. The series is very much still ongoing – the recent book is Volume 1, with a second book planned for 2017. However, I do see it as drawing to a close. My hope over the next 12 months is to visit areas of Scotland that are not represented – I certainly don’t feel the need to visit and photograph every corner of the country, but I would like to broadly cover most areas. I’m not long back from a trip to photograph Kintyre and Cowal, and hope to visit Shetland next year – which will hopefully see me close to completing the project.
M.M. In looking at Out of the Ordinary many of the images have a sense of ambiguity – is that something you consciously set out to do in your image-making or does it occur in a more fluid manner?
I.S. I suppose the truth is a bit of both – it’s definitely something I aim to add to the work, but quite often it happens naturally at the time of photographing, rather than being thought through. For me the strongest images are the ones that leave the viewer asking questions.
M.M. People have featured in some recent photographs from the series. Can you tell us about this element in your images?
I.S. My main interest with Out of the Ordinary is in everyday places, the sort of landscapes that surround us but which we maybe never consciously look at in detail. People are part of that landscape, and occasionally I do include them where they add to the feel or balance of an image. The very first image in the series, which set me off on this ‘journey’, was of men painting the outside of a building in Inverness. This element continues to be an important part of the series, but it’s true to say that many of the locations I photograph for Out of the Ordinary are quite quiet, with few people walking about and this is reflected in the images I produce.
M.M. Out of the Ordinary features images throughout Scotland but you are based in the Highlands. Do you think location influences your work, both professional and personal?
I.S. I don’t think my location really influences my personal work. I suppose in the early days I concentrated on exploring natural landscapes, and being based in the Highlands certainly gave me plenty of opportunity for this. But over the years my main interest has become the interaction between people and place, how we change the landscape, and this can be explored in any part of the country.
Out of the Ordinary covers the whole of Scotland and I have travelled extensively to work on the project. So, for this particular project I don’t think my location matters so much – it would always involve a fair amount of time on the road!
In terms of commercial photography work – it’s definitely true to say there are far fewer opportunities in the Highlands, and this presents challenges in terms of earning a living without spending a lot of time away from home. But it’s also true to say that there are far fewer competing photographers based in these parts.
M.M. You are a supporter of other people’s work both through your publishing arm and website. What are your thoughts on this area of your work and how it ties in with being a photographer?
I.S. I have long had a keen interest in contemporary landscape photography (in the widest sense), and in 2014 I set up Another Place as an online space to share work which explores themes of landscape and place.
My aim was to help give exposure to some of the many excellent projects out there, and also provide those with a similar interest to me a place to discover new work. The idea was/is very much to feature a mix of more established photographers and those just starting out – a chance for everyone’s work to be seen. As the project was very much developed in my spare time I kept the format simple with photographers introducing their work by way of a very short statement.
From the start I had dreamed of extending the project into publishing in print as well – I have a background in graphic design (and a love of photobooks!) and it seemed a natural progression. The incredible interest the site received over the first year led me to start Another Place Press earlier this year. The project is primarily driven by a passion for interesting and exciting photography, but of course with the time it takes up now it also has to cover it’s costs.
In terms of how it ties in with my own photography – I think the process of preparing any body of work for print reinforces how important the editing stage of a project is. In truth it’s as critical as actually producing the work, in terms of how well the final series works. I really enjoy the editing process and working with photographers through Another Place Press to produce small books has definitely helped me develop my skills with this element of my own projects.
Websites
Book
Another Place Press
www.anotherplacepress.bigcartel.com
Margaret Mitchell is a photographer based in Glasgow
]]>ALA: You trained as a painter; do you still consider yourself a painter to some extent?
WMcM: I think that my early training – essentially five years spent looking closely at historical painting, modernist and then post-modernist practice – really taught me how to both understand and construct an image. It wasn’t until much later, however – when I discovered the potential of photography – I really felt I had found the right tools to explore the themes that interested me. I began to work with photographs when it was possible (thanks to the computer) to work with images in a very new way. I think it was this coming together, of my ideas and new technological tools, which really informed my work at that time.
ALA: Your initial work explores how the digital universe has transformed children’s play and will change how they behave as adults. Where did this curiosity about the effect of computers on children’s development emerge?
WMcM: In the early 90s I had become very interested in the writings of people like Sandy Stone, Donna Haraway and Jonathan Crary – all of who were writing at that time on the potential impact of the emerging techno-sphere. Their ideas really excited me and I wanted to explore similar themes through photography. One of these emerging themes was the impact of the rapid growth of the web, so I began to think about this idea. It made sense to work with the image of the child at this point, as it was children, after all, who were to be the first to be affected by these changes, almost from the earliest stages of their development.
ALA: Yes, I am interested in how your work reflects Lacan’s ‘mirror-stage’ theory that suggests children embed unconscious perceptions about their identity at a very early stage in their lives when first encountering their reflections in a mirror. Do you suppose photography adds to the complexity of this notion?
WMcM: In Return of the Real, Hal Foster (who I was lucky enough to be taught by at Pratt) talked about how both art and psychoanalytic theory ‘relate repetition and the real to visuality and the gaze’. This theory of repetition – that its use represents both the traumatic and our complex relationship with the real – was very important to me as I was beginning to work with early experiments in the digital world. With In a Shaded Place, I began to use the theme of mirroring to express the complex issues at play in the act of looking (and being looked at) in the late 20th century. Later – with The Skater project – I wanted again to consider the theme of mirroring and mimesis but seen now through the prism of computation. How had mirror theories, for example, changed since the introduction of computation? Where do we find our reflection now? Where do we look for the real?
ALA: Could you explain how significant Freud’s notions of the uncanny are to your work?
WMcM: Freud’s theories on the Unheimliche were one of the most common reference points for the In a Shaded Place project. Although, when I was making this work, I focused as much on the motif of the double, as it is embedded in the history of photography, as on the theme of the doppelgänger, as embedded in psychoanalytic culture. However, it seemed to me that the theme of the double or the ‘perfect’ copy had new resonance at the beginning of the digital age, so it seemed a good point to revisit this particular theme for a new digital paradigm. In an interview with Sheila Lawson for Creative Camera in 1995, I discussed the idea of the unheimlich, or the ‘unhomely’, as being a key interest in my work. It was after making In a Shaded Place, that Freud’s text became important, for I was trying to understand exactly why the images worked in the way they did.
I remember there were quite a few shows – and certainly lots of writing on photography – at that time, which referred specifically to the notion of the uncanny. This interest seemed to reveal itself in various ways: either as a preoccupation with the supernatural (I took part in an exhibition in Birmingham at the Ikon Gallery in 1999 called ‘ESP’, where Susan Hiller also showed PSi Girls, and in ‘Unheimlich’ curated by Urs Stahel for the Foto Museum, in Winterthur near Zurich, in the same year). There was also as a renewed interest in spirit photography (in 2005, there was a large survey show called The Perfect Medium at the Metropolitan Museum, NY). It was this interest in photography’s ability (or inability?) to conjure up the invisible, which acknowledged the significance of the new, and then largely unknowable, space being opened up by computation and the arrival of algorithmic photography.
ALA: I have tended to view photography as a schizophrenic medium; both truth teller and liar. I wondered how strongly you felt this and how you tease this peculiarity out in your current work?
WMcM: I think it is clear that photography now bears little relation to what photography was 25 years ago. Certainly, much contemporary photographic practice bears little resemblance to that which went before it, pre-computer. A new generation of photographers is choosing to work in a way that often excludes the use, for example, of photochemical processes. Many of these artists work in an abstract way, some use the darkroom as a laboratory, others employ software to create images whose source is often ambiguous rather than clearly defined.
As a technological medium, photography makes visible our changing relationship to the ‘real’ and also to the world around us. This – for me – is one of the most exciting things about this medium. In a recent essay called ‘How the real world finally became an image’ theorist Daniel Rubenstein described photography as ‘the visual figuration of a new layer of consciousness – in which new relationships to space and time and therefore new categories of thought, play, art, and agency are emerging’. So the potential for the medium now is huge, and in many ways photography has been reinvented or at the least, reinvigorated by these new relationships.
ALA: This is true, and makes me think of Geoff Dyer’s concept of a photograph being an ‘on-going moment’. He looks at repetition to theorize how photographs extend moments into narratives that can play on perception. This makes me think of your project The Loop. What is your goal with The Loop?
WMcM: The Loop (co-directed with Paul Holmes) was my first short film and part of a larger project called The Skater, where I wanted to explore the influence of digital play on older children. Certainly for adolescents, technology clearly played a large part in identity formation. Engagement with digital games, with the Internet and with mimetic systems in general, encouraged a particular type of play – play that involved an extended and often unseen set of players where the self was often ‘decentred’.
For The Skater, I had photographed a group of young figure skaters who’d provided the motion capture data needed to produce avatars of their skating selves. In The Loop I wanted to use dual screen moving image to explore the relationship of a young girl to her skating avatar.
ALA: What projects are you working on now?
WMcM: Now, I am working with objects – toys and playthings from early childhood – looking at the shift from the physical object (the toy) as a site of fantasy and projection to the more disembodied, phantasmagoric play that characterizes the web. As children migrate to the Internet as a major source of game and then role-playing, they enter an all pervasive and potentially ‘always on’ world of make-believe, where the boundaries between reality and fantasy are often blurred. I’m trying to photograph real objects and imbue them with the sense of dislocation that I see presented in digital play, with all of the interesting associations and questions that this throws up for children’s identity formation in this digital age.
See more: Wendy McMurdo website
]]>SSHoP is featuring photo-essays by a selection of the artists included in ACTINIC: Takashi Arai, whose daguerreotypes, shown at Stills, record his encounters with the survivors, and surviving landscapes, of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident; S. Gayle Stevens’ wet collodion prints depicting dead bees and flower heads in stark silhouette; Anne Campbell’s Scottish landscapes, often lith prints with mordançage, built up over days of developing and redeveloping; and Scarlett Platel’s vividly colourful works, that draw on spiritual and psychoanalytic thought.
ACTINIC Festival’s rich offering was brought to Scotland by APS founder Brittonie Fletcher. Brittonie, who recently moved to Scotland, is a photographer with a background in other arts, whose work ranges from 35mm to large format. Often combining hand applied chemistry and digital process, she often favours ‘failed’ materials like broken lenses or expired film. Brittonie exhibits and publishes internationally in addition to providing photography tutorials at Stills, Edinburgh; Streetlevel, Glasgow; and various London darkrooms.
SSHoP asked Brittonie about the impetus behind APS, the genesis of Actinic Festival and her hopes for its future.
I wouldn’t say I’m “settled”, but I’m here for the time being. I moved here in 2010 to complete my MFA. After finishing my degree I had enough projects, ideas and opportunities overlapping here to make me want to stick around, besides I haven’t visited the Highlands and Islands yet! I went for an MFA as it is a required qualification in the States for teaching higher education. Once I finished I was still looking for teaching experience, and happily found myself with a class at Stills Centre for Photography (which I adore); things have snowballed from there.
APS happened due to a number of things falling into place. When I moved to Scotland I saw a lot of opportunity for people working in alternative and historic processes – one of my main areas of expertise. Initially, I was having a hard time finding chemistry and places to make the work – at the time, my university did not have the health and safety information in place. I was on a mission, though, and ended up supplying our photography technician with some documents containing a lot of the information needed to get the facilities and permissions up and running – which, I’m happy to say, it now is!
I think a lot about material when making – this stems from a freshman course I took in sculpture, which has bled into the way I think about making photographs, in terms of printing and presenting them. I ended up going to the length of building a darkroom in the basement of the bar I was working in! I made collodion portraits of people within the folk pub culture.
While I was (and still am) very grateful for that experience and opportunity- which I may not have pursued if I hadn’t needed to be creative with where I might actually make art – I still felt it would be great if more people had access to the rewarding and exciting realm of chemical photography: I’m very stubborn and like a challenge (and if it sounds complicated and dangerous, then I’m in!) but not everyone is like that. I’m a firm believer in education, community and access, the more I can do to help further those things, the happier I am!
I know that there is already a wide range of people working in a lot of photographic methods across Scotland/the UK, but I really wanted to try and connect with people more – provide a platform for people who are working in these technical and at times difficult processes to communicate and share knowledge with each other; also to share with those who aren’t currently doing it, but might be interested for one reason or another.
ACTINIC Festival was created in the wake of the Alt-Photo Festival 2013 – which was organised by Kenny Bean, who had previously held a pinhole festival in 2012. For a number of reasons, there was no festival in 2014, and I was devastated – there wasn’t anything like it happening in Scotland and there was so much potential.
In 2013, Edinburgh College of Art was involved as well, and held a symposium which was really exciting! After a year of nothing happening, I decided to take action. Initially I struggled to reach Kenny via email, but felt strongly an Alternative Photography Festival should happen. I decided to extend the remit of the festival to include works which featured any analogue photographic elements in some part of the production – this way we could include more artists. I contacted the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh first, as they have a history of supporting photography exhibitions and have an amazing archive of historic photography.
After RBGE agreed to be involved, I pitched the idea to Edinburgh Printmakers through their marketing manager Vilma Kirvelaite. From my perspective there is a major intersection with printmaking and photography which is sometimes neglected – and in this post-postmodern art world, where media intersects, we need to reconnect. Vilma loved the idea and discussed it with their gallery and studio co-ordinators; we excitedly agreed to give it a go.
At this point I spoke to people at Stills – I teach there, so I didn’t want to propose it right off the bat as a vague idea, but as something concrete – which they could get involved with. It was helpful that I already knew who I wanted to exhibit there – Takashi Arai, who I’ve known for just over 6 years and very much admire his work.
Sheila Masson (a friend who was introduced to me a couple years ago by Alex Boyd, more on whom later) was putting together her Victorian Britain and the Tin Type Photograph exhibition; I thought it fit well with what we were wanting to do and asked if she wanted to get involved in the festival. She did, which was great! She’s got a fantastic collection and a wealth of knowledge (as well as being a great photographer). I’d also been speaking to Summerhall about exhibition potentials for a while, as well as the Traverse, so once all these things fell into place it didn’t take much time before we had those excellent venues locked down.
We had an international call for art as a way to spread the word and bring in artists from further afield, especially new and emerging artists. We did have to charge a fee – we needed to help fund the project and hope to eliminate the need for fees in the future. In the end, we had almost 70 submissions! I think the judges had their hands full! It seemed the best way to get a solid and well rounded edit from such a diverse range of artists was to have 3 different judges: John McNaught from Highland Print Studio, Karen Harvey from Shutter Hub (who sponsored prizes for the juried call) and well-known photographer Alex Boyd.
Alex has been a major help from the beginning. We initially met when showing together at the RBGE Alt Photo Fest 13, and he’s offered a massive amount advice – from the conception of ACTINIC right through to the staging of the festival itself. Alex has introduced me to a number of artists and professionals working in the photography and has quietly been putting in a lot of behind the scenes help spreading the word and being hugely supportive.
ACTINIC Festival is here to connect people with photographic arts in a manner that reaches beyond commercial, facebook, or straightforward photography. Specifically, we want to promote the craft of analogue-related photographic processes. We wanted to remind people about art and photography – the potential to expand the artistic horizons of the media and to celebrate those who are pushing the envelope. We want to include as many people as possible in this mission and to help teach people more about it – from technical aspects to theory and criticism. Of course, a huge central aim is to help connect the communities of artists working in interesting ways. It’s really the ethos behind APS in general.
I think photography is going through a new renaissance where new genres or movements are coming together. There’s definitely a growing interest in tactile photographs, with emphasis on unique and hand applied process. I see photography, and our understanding of what the term encompasses, as an ever changing and expanding universe. I hope that alternative photography as a term doesn’t get stuck meaning hand-applied or historic process, as much as I love them. My thinking is that “alternative” means non-mainstream, and in my perspective, mainstream photography is straight and mainly digital. I think people are experimenting more, and that is always a good thing.
The future is uncertain but positive! APS plans to continue with promoting alternative photography in Scotland as well as sharing things we find interesting outside of Scotland. We’ve been invited to represent at a couple upcoming festivals and exhibitions within the year, which is really exciting. We’d like to programme more activities and help other projects in any way we can, as well as working toward making tighter connections within the Scottish photography community. We’d really like to get involved in places outside of Edinburgh and Glasgow. As for ACTINIC Festival – we’ve had an amazing response and feedback this year and a lot of people asking about next year; so while nothing has been set in stone, the outlook is good!
]]>