Summer Pleasures: In and Around Bath

10 Aug 2018: This week’s contribution is courtesy of guest author, Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS, and comes from his home, the beautiful city of Bath in the south-west of England. As Michael shows us, Bath is a special place with many Talbot connections. We are especially pleased to welcome Michael’s post, as regular followers of the blog will …

Summer Pleasures: A cabinet of botanical curiosities

3 Aug 2018: This summer’s flowers and leaves are fleeting and will fade in time. For that reason it’s strange to think that we can still see those flowers and leaves Talbot used many seasons ago to create his photogenic drawings of botanical specimens, sometimes rendered in incredible photographic detail. This week sees the welcome return of Dr. …

Summer Pleasures: Musical scales

27 Jul 2018: Until now, Thaddeus Lipinski is a name you would not have been aware of when you visit the Talbot catalogue raisonné and read the weekly blogs. Thaddeus has been instrumental in the initial appearance of the website, as well as helping to deliver the blog posts since the project launched three years ago (just think …

Summer Pleasures: Sundial, symmetry and Simmons

20 Jul 2018: Guest post by Simon Murison-Bowie In 1658 Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723) — ‘the only All Souls genius’ according to John Simmons (of whom more in a minute) — designed a sundial which was installed centrally on the five-bay south-facing façade of All Souls college chapel. Accurate to the minute, it was used up until the …

Summer Pleasures: Victorian taste for Pineapples

13 Jul 2018: Guest post by Jaanika Vider To continue with the fruity theme started in last week’s Summer Pleasures, I will turn my attention to a more tropical species. For some weeks now, pineapples, which are native to South America, have piqued my interest. The initial fascination was triggered by a wonderful course taught at the Ashmolean …

Summer Pleasures: Cherry Ripe

6 Jul 2018: Summer is here, which means the days lengthen while the Talbot project blogs shorten. This, the first of the season’s “Summer Pleasures” has fallen to me, and I don’t mind telling you, the shorter format can be a bitter sweet experience for the author. Which Talbot photograph to write about this time, and what has …

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, …

No way to treat a lady

15 Jun 2018: Guest post by Brian Liddy Last week my colleague, Jaanika, asked me if I had any ideas for a new Talbot blog post and suggested writing about Schaaf number 3710 as she had recently added an image making it one of the records on the project website with all its records complete and fully illustrated …

Observing by Polarisation

8 Jun 2018: Guest Post by Dr Kelley Wilder Last week was half-term in many places around the UK, and I suspect that many of us were hiking for at least part of the time if the weather held. If we had been more like the 21-year-old Henry Talbot, we might have embarked as he did on a …

Sun Pictures Then and Now: Talbot and His Legacy Today

31 May 2018: guest post by Brian Liddy This week’s offering is a counterpoint to Larry’s previous blog, A Tale of Two Photo Londons. Larry’s blog alerted us to an exhibition curated by Hans P. Kraus Jr. which was soon to be unveiled at this year’s Photo London (not to be confused, of course, with the other photoLondon …