The National Photographic Record Association was established in 1897 to create a record of English life, towns and landscapes. It emerged as part of the Photographic Record and Survey Movement which sought to record a range of objects and phenomena of social and physical landscapes undergoing rapid change, and as a result of the expansion of photography as a pastime in the nineteenth century. [1]
The National Photographic Record Association (NPRA) was first proposed in 1889 by William Jerome Harrison [2] and presented to the Royal Photographic Society in his 1892 paper A National Photographic Record and Survey. [3] Although the society rejected his idea, five years later, in September 1897, John Benjamin Stone adopted Harrison's ideas and established the NPRA for "a photographic survey of the three kingdoms, not forgetting the principality". [3] The Association's aim was to create a record of historical interest for the future, forming a national memory bank in order to foster "a national pride in the historical associations of the country, or neighbourhood, in family traditions, or in personal associations." [4]
During its thirteen years of operation, 5,883 prints were collected by photographers including Benjamin Stone, Edgar Scamell and many others. [5] All contributions were made on a voluntary basis. Initially many of the prints were donated to the British Museum. Their collection has now been handed to the Victoria and Albert Museum. [6]
In May 1910, with a growing concentration of survey work at a local level, it was announced that the NPRA had done its work, and that the time had arrived when it could retire and leave the work to be carried on by local societies. [5]
Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph as a means of creating an image rather than simply recording it. Typically, a pictorial photograph appears to lack a sharp focus, is printed in one or more colors other than black-and-white and may have visible brush strokes or other manipulation of the surface. For the pictorialist, a photograph, like a painting, drawing or engraving, was a way of projecting an emotional intent into the viewer's realm of imagination.
The National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the largest collections of archives, portraits, maps, and photographic images in Wales. The Library is also home to the national collection of Welsh manuscripts, the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, and the most comprehensive collection of paintings and topographical prints in Wales. As the primary research library and archive in Wales and one of the largest research libraries in the United Kingdom, the National Library is a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL).
Roger Fenton was a British photographer, noted as one of the first war photographers.
Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.
Frances Benjamin Johnston was an American photographer and photojournalist whose career lasted for almost half a century. She is most known for her portraits, images of southern architecture, and various photographic series featuring African Americans and Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the art and science of photography, and in 1853 received royal patronage from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Post-mortem photography is the practice of photographing the recently deceased. Various cultures use and have used this practice, though the best-studied area of post-mortem photography is that of Europe and America. There can be considerable dispute as to whether individual early photographs actually show a dead person or not, often sharpened by commercial considerations. The form continued the tradition of earlier painted mourning portraits. Today post-mortem photography is most common in the contexts of police and pathology work.
Events from the year 1897 in the United Kingdom. This year was the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
Sir John Benjamin Stone was a British Conservative politician and photographer.
Benjamin West Kilburn was an American photographer and stereoscopic view publisher famous for his landscape images of the nascent American and Canadian state, provincial, and national parks and his visual record of the great migrations at the end of the nineteenth century. Kilburn was a legislator in the New Hampshire General Court. A patent was granted for his gun-style camera.
Mark Haworth-Booth is a British academic and historian of photography. He was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 1970 to 2004.
The Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, is a former scientific institution in South Africa. Founded by the British Board of Longitude in 1820, its main building is now the headquarters building of the South African Astronomical Observatory.
William Jay was a photographer, writer on and advocate of photography, curator, magazine and picture editor, lecturer, public speaker and mentor. He was the first editor of "the immensely influential magazine" Creative Camera (1968–1969); and founder and editor of Album (1970–1971). He is the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography, and roughly 400 essays, lectures and articles. His own photographs have been widely published, including a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He is known for his portrait photographs of photographers.
John McCosh or John MacCosh or James McCosh was a Scottish army surgeon who made documentary photographs whilst serving in India and Burma. His photographs during the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848–1849) of people and places associated with the British rule in India, and of the Second Burmese War (1852–1853), count as sufficient grounds, some historians maintain, to recognise him as the first war photographer known by name. McCosh wrote a number of books on medicine and photography, as well as books of poetry. John McCosh took the earliest known photographs of Sikhs and their ruler, Duleep Singh.
Peter E. Palmquist was an autodidact photography historian and independent researcher/writer.
William Jerome Harrison FGS, was a British geologist, science writer, and amateur photographer who wrote several textbooks on chemistry, physics, photography, and geology, including the first geological book illustrated with photographs. Born in Hemsworth, Yorkshire, he was educated at Westminster Training College, and afterwards for two years at Cheltenham College. For many years he was curator of the Leicester Town Museum. In 1880 he moved to Birmingham, where he was appointed Chief Science Master under the Birmingham School Board. His books include A History of Photography, The Chemistry of Photography, and Geology of the Counties of England and of North and South Wales. Harrison is also credited with being the founder of the National Photographic Record and Survey Movement which led to the formation of the National Photographic Record Association in 1897.
Elizabeth Edwards, is a British visual and historical anthropologist.
Kim Timby is a photography historian based in Paris who teaches at the École du Louvre and works as a curator for a private collection specialising in international nineteenth-century photography. From her research and teaching, Timby writes on the cultural history of photography as a technology.
Roger Taylor, MVO born 1940, is a curator, photographic historian, and educator specialising in nineteenth century British photography and its social and cultural history. He is Professor Emeritus of Photographic History at De Montfort University.
John Moran was a pioneering American photographer and artist. Moran was a prominent landscape, architectural, astronomical and expedition photographer whose career began in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area during the 1860s.