From the Director: goodbye (for now)

28 Jan 2019: Has it been forty years or four? The first partially formed steps of the Catalogue Raisonné were undertaken decades ago when I was trying to make sense of the masses of Talbot archive material. The attic and cupboards at Lacock Abbey were daunting enough but I soon realized that their generous bounty was only part …

Henry’s pursuit of Ariadne on a panther

29 Jun 2018: This week’s guest author is Ann Compton, who has published extensively on sculpture and British art. Her idea, to develop and deliver an online resource dedicated to British sculpture, resulted in the wonderful ‘Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951’. Ann has been incredibly helpful in regard to many of …

Sgraffito of the Mind / Capturing the Soul

21 Jun 2018: I generally try to avoid talking about myself but one or three of you have noticed that I have been AWOL for some weeks now – Richard hinted at this in a recent note. I also try to avoid meetings, but the one in Oxford on the 15th May about our new backend software, Django, …

Doing the Django – and Finding Talbot’s Calotype School in 1843 Paris

18 May 2018: Our Parisian Research Affiliate Édouard de Saint-Ours has made two contributions so far of some of the fascinating results of his close study of Talbot’s photographs of his home town. Today he more closely examines the role of the Marquis de Bassano. We have touched on the mysterious Marquis before. But first some exciting project …

A Tale of Two Photo Londons – Resurrection & Rebirth

11 May 2018: It is certainly confusing that there is a photoLondon and a Photo London. Although one died recently, Lazarus-like it has just been resuscitated. The second is a relative youngster, but is alive and well and is hosting a fascinating Talbot reincarnation next week. But first, on this day in 1792, John Frederick William Herschel was …

Mayday – Shifting Walls, Ephemeral Gates

4 May 2018: Here in Baltimore this week, the near-frost conditions of the last day of April have miraculously morphed into the warmth of May. We should celebrate that with some of Henry Talbot’s photographs. But first, two of our Research Affiliates have filled our pages the past three weeks with fascinating studies of their respective home towns …

WHFT in Oxford: Time Past, Time Present

27 Apr 2018: In the last couple of posts, our Research Affiliate Édouard de Saint-Ours has been wandering the streets of his native Paris, giving us new insights into the photographs that Talbot took there in 1843. However, outside of Lacock Abbey, the City of Oxford was the place that Henry Talbot photographed the most. We are fortunate …

Historical value in Talbot’s 1843 Paris Boulevards

20 Apr 2018: Last week, our Research Affiliate Édouard de Saint-Ours contributed some of the fascinating results of his close study of Talbot’s 1843 photographs of his home town, Paris. There was so much new insight that I couldn’t bear to cut much and he set the record for the longest blog that we have ever published. I …

Panoramas & urban observatories: photographic experiments from a Parisian hotel

13 Apr 2018: Thanks to the suggestion of Bertrand Lavédrine, Édouard became one of our Research Affiliates and today brings us some insights into his native city of Paris. A PhD student at the universities of St Andrews (Scotland) and Le Havre (France), Édouard specializes in the history of 19th c. photography. His research interests are unusually diverse, …

This Week of April

6 Apr 2018: With the coming of spring and brighter weather, Henry Talbot was inspired to turn to his cameras. What was he up to during these April days? (yes, I confess that this is really just an excuse to look at some rarely seen photographs) You could consider them to be Easter eggs, if you wish. 2 …

The Guppy and the Priest

30 Mar 2018: Near the end of the last century, I visited the Cambridge home of the late Nicholas Guppy. He and his wife Anna were most accommodating, especially since their cottage was filled to the brim with extensive collections. Nicholas was descended from Amelia Elizabeth Guppy (1808-1886), a wonderfully mercurial early photographer, notorious as much for her …