National Media Museum on Tumblr
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A tourist stops to get directions from a cop in New Mexico.Photograph by Luis Marden, National Geographic
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Thornton Wilder, age 23, 1920, from his Yale graduation photograph. This author and playwright was introduced to his close friend and supposed...
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Vendors and pedestrians along a steep staircase in Hong Kong, November 1934.Photograph by W. Robert Moore, National Geographic
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We’re very excited to welcome National Geographic to Tumblr and already anticipate hours spent on their new Found page!
These boys (in the photo...
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Niagara Suspension Bridge, 1859
Albumen silver print, 9 1/2 x 11 1/2” (24.1 x 29.2 cm)
Julia Jackson, 1867
Albumen print, 27.6 x 22.0 cm
Julia Margaret Cameron began photographing at age 48, when her daughter and son-in-law gave her a camera for her amusement. She soon made a name for herself with large-format, often allegorical compositions and portraits that defied the conventions of Victorian photography. A typical commercial portrait of the time presented a small standing figure, sharply focused and evenly lit. By contrast, Cameron’s photograph of her niece Julia Jackson concentrates on the subject’s head, showing clearly only limited planes of her face and leaving half of it shrouded in shadow. Known as a great beauty, Jackson was a favorite subject for Cameron, who made dozens of photographs of her. In April 1867, a month before Jackson’s wedding to her first husband, Herbert Duckworth, Cameron photographed the young bride-to-be. With her hair down and eyes wide, she is unsentimental, looking forward with purpose to her own personal and social transformation.
Baker’s boy, c. 1860, National Media Museum Collection
When is an ambrotype not an ambrotype? When it’s a collodion positive.
Most people call collodion positives ‘ambrotypes’, which is technically incorrect. The ambrotype process (patented by an American photographer, James Ambrose Cutting in 1854) was a particular variant of the process which used Canada balsam to seal the collodion plate to the cover glass. These are most commonly found in America.
Colin Harding shows you how to spot a collodion positive on our blog.
From the inimitable Pop Chart Lab — who have previously charted the varieties of coffee, the history of Apple, America’s bike lanes, the composition of classic cocktails, the wonders of serif fonts, Gotham’s villains, and the 64 guitars that defined rock history — a visual compendium of cameras.
Complement with the story of how Polaroid redefined visual culture and 100 ideas that changed photography.
Three friends, c. 1860, National Media Museum Collection
Another one from our blog post about how to spot a collodion positive among your old family photographs. This time, three serious looking chaps. Notice their slightly pink cheeks? This was done by hand-colouring, and cost extra in the Victorian photography studios.
On the inevitable loss of film history, and the importance of film as artefact
Tom Vincent considers the death of film as a distribution format, and why it’s more important than ever to keep film history alive.
Paul Salveson is the winner of this year’s First Book Award
Of his work Salveson says:
“Often my photographic process unfolds like a private performance in an empty house, or after everyone falls asleep. My engagement emerges from a perspective that precedes familiarity, disregarding the functions and cultural associations that objects are assigned. I try to process my surroundings with an alien mind.”
Babbitt’s view of Niagra, c. 1860, Platt D. Babbitt, National Media Museum Collection
Platt D. Babbitt set up a pavilion in front of Point View, later Prospect Point, on the American side of Niagara Falls. From here he photographed tourists taking in the view, without their knowledge, from the 1850s to the 1870s. He would then offer the photographs for sale, providing a lucrative business for himself and giving tourists a chance to own a souvenir of their trip.
Ever wondered how to go about dating your old family photographs? Our Curator of Photographs and Photographic Technology, Colin Harding, shows you how to identify a collodion positive (aka ambrotype) which was the predominant process used in commercial studios from the early 1850s to the 1880s.
‘Jabez Hogg and Mr. Johnson’, 1843, Richard Beard, National Media Museum Collection
A daguerreotype from 1843 which is thought to be the first photograph showing a photographer at work. The image depicts Jabez Hogg photographing W.S. Johnson in the studio of Richard Beard.
Learn how to spot a daguerreotype (1840s - 1850s) with just a few simple clues.
‘The Jewish community in Britain celebrate Passover’, 1939, Harold Tomlin, Daily Herald Archive, National Media Museum / SSPL
Today is the last day of Jewish Passover, or Pesach. Looking through our archives I spotted this photograph, taken during Passover in 1939 at the Home for Aged Jews on Nightingale Lane in London.
Irene Atherton with spaghetti at a Heinz factory, near Wigan, 2 April 1957, Spencer, Daily Herald Archive, National Media Museum / SSPL
A photograph of Mrs Irene Atherton holding lengths of spaghetti prior to canning at a Heinz factory in Standish.
Not quite ‘on this day’ but the Daily Herald were following up on a nationwide spaghetti story. The day before this photograph was taken, the BBC broadcast a classic April Fool item concerning spaghetti ‘harvesting’, including shots of spaghetti apparently growing on trees.
