Lacock Abbey

25 Nov 2016: Guest post by Brian Liddy The most beautiful building in the world? The most important architectural building in the country? The grandest property owned by the National Trust? Lacock Abbey may be none of the above, but even those who have never visited Talbot’s home might recongise it from its star role in many major …

A Sister’s Fern Makes Nineteen

18 Nov 2016: Recently we talked about a ‘newly-discovered’ Talbot that had turned up unexpectedly in a German auction of the estate of a camera collector. Upon further scrutiny it proved to be a previously known example that had dropped out of sight years ago – it was critically linked to Charles Babbage and remains an important re-discovery. …

Copied by the Sun: Photography Invades Art History

11 Nov 2016: Guest post by Hilary Macartney Today’s guest editor was the mover and shaker not only behind an extended research program on early photographic illustration but also for a lovingly re-created facsimile of the first book on art history ever to be illustrated with photographs. Sir William Stirling Maxwell’s 1847 volume of Talbotype Illustrations to the …

Virtual and Virtuous Reality

4 Nov 2016: This past week I was honored (and pleasantly surprised) to be included on the menu of the 2016 Stereo & Immersive Media conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Even though my daily grasp on reality often seems so tenuous that venturing into virtual reality was intimidating, it was a fascinating and richly rewarding experience for me. My …