We’re please to announce that the fourth National Photography Symposium takes place at and around Somerset House in London, in partnership with World Photo London.

In 2012 the Symposium covers issues around ethics, the press and the environment; the pros and cons of collaboration and co-operation for both individuals and organisations; recent developments in archiving; new patterns and models for employment in photography; and the effects on photography of global economic change. Around 20 speakers, including many top professionals from across photography, will present on these and other subjects.

The main days will be the afternoon of 27 April, and all day 28 April. An informal session will take place on the morning of 29 April.

Full details and tickets very soon!

Almost two weeks have gone by since NPS3 and praise for the weekend event is rolling in. For those of you who missed out or would like to refresh your memory of the speakers and sessions, we’ve collected a few of the reviews here.

Blogs

Karen Strunks, who gave her own talk on the 4AM Project, reviews the weekend here.

Sara T’Rula gives a day by day rundown of NPS3.

Sian Gouldstone talks about the keynote sessions.

Brenda Burrell visually documents John Davis’ photowalk.

Twitter

We encouraged attendees to tweet whilst at the symposium using the hashtag #nps3. Check out NPS3 – A Weekend In Tweets!

Audioboo

All recordings are provided by Documentally:

I’m A Photographer, Not A Terrorist – The Book

Day Three of the National Photography Symposium

Insanity Helps – Photgraphy By Christopher Finch

I haven’t yet got a realized project to talk about, so as well as talking about our plans in Wales I’m going to reflect on how recent developments in visual culture, specifically in contemporary photography, impact on how we conceive of the role and nature of photography centres in the future. I’m going to build my arguments with reference to Ffotogallery’s work and the ongoing efforts to establish a national photography centre in Wales. I will also share some personal views on the conceptual and architectural models that have dominated capital developments in the UK visual arts sector over the last 15 years.

 The story so far in Wales:

 2001 – Vision set out for a new National Centre for Photography in Wales. Ffotogallery, having operated a gallery successfully in Cardiff since 1978, relinquishes its existing lease arrangement and moves to an interim arrangement on split sites: Administration, education and darkrooms at Chapter Arts Centre and a gallery at Turner House, Penarth, a historic building owned by the National Museum of Wales.

 2003 – Arts Council of Wales pledges £2.4m Lottery funding to establish the new centre at Margam Park, near Port Talbot., a place with family connections to Fox Talbot. Fundraising and development planning begins in earnest. Plans include five contemporary exhibition spaces, an interactive gallery, workshop and teaching spaces, library and digital archive facilities

 2005 – Partnership in place between Ffotogallery and Neath Port Talbot Borough Council, who own and manage the Margam Park site as a visitor attraction. Idea to integrate a ‘visitor experience’ of contemporary photography with exploration of the heritage, environment and landscape of Wales.

 2007 –  Project collapses and site lost due to local authority pulling out, despite capital funding being in place. Arts Council holds open its Lottery funding subject to alternative site being identified.

 2008 – no suitable alternative site identified. Ffotogallery Director, Chris Coppock, decides to leave after 19 years and David Drake appointed as successor, starting in March 2009.

 2010 – after year of operating programme and reviewing organisation’s work, new business plan submitted to Arts Council, includes the development of an integrated centre in central Cardiff location. Outline brief for new photography centre developed and discussions opened with City Council over site options. Arts Council of Wales reaffirm commitment to the capital plan, include Ffotogallery in the National Portfolio after Investment Review, and indicate availability of Capital Lottery Funding from 2012.

Let’s briefly consider some arguments for and against dedicated photography centres in the UK:

For:

Photography remains a popular and accessible medium, with high audience interest and engagement in both contemporary and historical work

We can present the exciting UK and international photographic work that doesn’t get adequate exposure or informed critical examination by writers and curators elsewhere.

We can explore in depth specific narratives around contemporary photography and its development. These are under-represented and in some cases woefully unaddressed by the current generation of contemporary art curators and programmers in UK museums and galleries.

There is a loyal and growing artistic constituency that needs a focus for their area of interest: photographic artists continue to make work. The fine art or documentary photography degree courses in the UK remain oversubscribed, despite the challenge of high tuition fees and limited career opportunities.

Photography centres are not just about exhibition of work, they offer opportunities for creative participation, life-long learning, online and print publishing, bookshops, cafes, artist groups, membership for artists etc.

Against:

Digital developments have expanded the field of photography such that it is now inseparable from the wider contemporary visual culture.

Given the massive number of people who enjoy photography online and in print form, why spend a lot of money on gallery exhibitions which only a few people visit?

I believe these two questions can be addressed together by flipping the arguments around.

I would argue that new and existing photography centres should intelligently examine contemporary photographic art in this complex and changing cultural landscape, avoiding doctrinal adherence to an existing ‘canon’ of artists or fetishisation of the photographic image in its traditional form or context. Secondly, I think we need to unpack what we mean by a huge online audience for photography, and focus on those with a specific interest in contemporary photography as art. Although I can’t prove it, my anecdotal evidence is that people with a serious, critically engaged interest in contemporary photography enjoy it online, in print form and in galleries – and visiting galleries in photography centres can provide both a social experience and reflective environment for viewing work quite unlike the other platforms.

In terms of how photography centres embrace the digital opportunity, a few words of caution apply here:

Firstly, a move towards being digital media centres brought about the closure of several dedicated photography galleries in the 1990s – Watershed  and f Stop being two such examples.

Secondly, we should be careful not to confuse or worse still lose our most loyal audiences. Ffotogallery ran a new programme called Vision On in 2009, which looked at data visualization, gaming, sound and vision, social networking etc. Created a participatory ‘anti-gallery’ feel to the space.  We gained some new people, but lost a major share of our regular audience for the duration of the season.

Real or perceived hierarchies in the art world

When I got the job as Director of Ffotogallery, a well known international curator I know questioned why I wanted to work for a medium specific visual arts organisation. His actual words were “No self-respecting photographic artist would turn down an opportunity to exhibit at the Serpentine or Whitechapel in favour of a show at The Photographers Gallery”

My repost was to say that most artists would jump at either or both opportunities, depending on the context in which they wanted their work presented. But I think we have to acknowledge that there is a damaging prejudice against photography in some quarters of the contemporary art world – Paul Graham addressed this issue in a speech at MOMA, New York last year:

Paul Graham ‘The Unreasonable Apple 2010

Whilst acknowledging how the major contemporary art institutions have recognized Robert Frank, Martin Parr, Stephen Shore alongside Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand and Cindy Sherman, Graham states:

“what of those who work today with equal commitment and sincerity, using straight photography in the cacophonous present? I will not name names here, but for these serious photographers the fog of time still obfuscates their efforts, and the blindness j’accuse some of the art world of suffering from, narrows their options. It means their work will almost never be considered for Documenta, or placed alongside other artists in a Biennale, or found for sale in major contemporary art galleries and art fairs’.

Clearly there certain big name artists whose agents and representatives will block approaches and want to position them only in relation to the most powerful and well-resourced visual arts institutions in the UK. However, thankfully I have found no shortage of high calibre, prominent international artists to work with and who see it as a privilege to be invited to exhibit in Wales.

Let’s turn to some ideas about visual art buildings and architecture that have been dominant in the UK over the last 15 years

The most significant Lottery awards have tended to go to ‘Grand Projets’, often with lavish claims about their impact in terms of local regeneration and sold as new visitor attractions, sometimes including an ‘interactive’ technology mediated visitor experience

–       costly conversions of industrial and other buildings (eg. The Baltic, Tate Modern)

–       iconic architectural statements (eg. Rivington Place, London, The Public, West Bromwich)

–       modern extensions to existing museums and galleries (the V & A, Holbourne Museum)

My critique of many of these developments:

Architect’s vision often compromises artistic purpose

Costly to build, costly to sustain

Not very green

Product of Lottery glut

Utilise expensive technologies that almost immediately become redundant or superceded by new platforms

Many have focused on ‘museum paradigm’ – collections and curation in an art historical context

Tendency towards brand name/institutional dominance rather than real quality and innovation

Conservative view of audience needs and growth potential, somewhat risk averse

My ambition for Ffotogallery, and for the new photography centre I hope to establish in Wales

Fleet of foot organisation that is well networked in terms of the evolving cultural agenda

Engaging with new and established artists, at many levels, and emerging artistic practices

Staff who are energetic, enthusiastic and intellectually engaged in their subject

A programming approach that offers effective ‘mediation’ between artists and audiences

An architectural design that makes best use of resources – high quality, versatile spaces for exhibition, production and training, education and social interaction

Ability to programme ‘cross-platform’ – online and physical

Technology that is as ‘future proofed’ as possible.

The right ambience – a rich sensory experience (the smell of coffee and freshly baked muffins, a well stocked bookshop and a bar that is welcoming and a good meeting place for artists and creatives).

Central location with high visibility and good accessibility

A building of a scale and ambition for the development that is sustainable in economic and environmental terms

A business model that strikes the right balance between subsidy and self-generated income

Thank you!

david.drake@ffotogallery.org

www.ffotogallery.org

Twitter: @ffotodavid

Photographer Paul Hill, who talks at the 2011 NPS on photographers and their archives, here explores the growth of British photography in the 1970s.

The 1970s was, in my opinion, photography’s most important decade of the 20^th century. During this period its traditional practices were questioned – even undermined – its profile as a medium of creative self-expression was raised immeasurably, and the teaching of the subject changed beyond recognition.

This is my view – partial and self opinionated – but at least I was there, hopefully providing the researchers of today, who have no particular axe to grind, with primary material to help them analyse this exciting era with critical detachment and insight.

I want to stress the importance of education and dissemination during this period. The products were good and the message worth listening to, so let the wider public, as well as the cognoscenti, know about it. No one will be beat a path to your door until they know your address. Promoting debate, as well as confronting cliché-ridden photography and out-moded custom and practice, was crucial, and via various avenues, including academics, who had up to then viewed the subject as a purely vocational one, photography found a new position on the cultural and artistic map of Britain.

Of course, there is a personal pre-history, and mine is similar to that of many who joined the cause – unusual. I became enamoured of personal photography, as we called it then, through journalism. I was a newspaper reporter before I decided to make one of my hobbies – photography – my career when I became a freelance in 1965. Although news photography was my mainstay, I began to appreciate other sorts of image making, and was particularly influenced by Bill Brandt’s Shadow of Light in 1966. It opened my eyes to exciting new ways to make photographs, and probably changed me more than I realised at the time. When I was working for the Financial Times a year later, I was given a copy of Creative Camera Owner (later Creative Camera ) by the picture editor and started to understand what self expression in photography meant. An FT  reporter friend became features editor of the Telegraph Magazine and invited me to meet their new picture editor, the inestimable and controversial Bill Jay , who had just been sacked as editor of Creative Camera. He gave me a few assignments and lots of anecdotes about my heroes, like W.Eugene Smith and Brandt, and the new kids on the block: Tony Ray-Jones, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand, amongst others.

I also accompanied Bill when he visited the Sir Benjamin Stone archive in the Local Studies section of Birmingham Central Library (I lived in nearby Wolverhampton at the time), and sought him out one or two estimates from printers for his new magazine, the highly regarded Album. I have many stories about Bill, and visits to the magazine’s tiny offices and his friend and advisor, David Hurn’s London flat,that would graphically illustrate the eclectic mix of photographers that emerged from the 1960s. I would characterize most of them as buccaneers and mavericks who wished for photography to be regarded as an art form, although they themselves were largely self taught and had only a sketchy knowledge of the history of photography, let alone art history. The optimism and pizzazz of the sixties had given them self-belief and confidence to challenge the establishment and change the status quo.

But there were other emergent photographers, equally determined to alter things – but politically – who also employed photography – the socialists and militant marxists. They championed socially concerned photography, and thought ‘art photographers’ (a new designation then) were navel-gazing, self indulgent w**kers. It was thought by many that ‘real photographers’ were macho hunters who shot pictures and captured actual life.  Although the agendas were different, the two camps rubbed along together quite well, with occasional ideological skirmishes, as outlets for personally driven work were few and far between, with no specialist galleries and only one or two British photographic magazines (except Creative Camera) prepared to infrequently publish experimental work.

Frustrated by the increasingly trivial photographic content of newspapers in the early 1970s, I decided to try my hand at teaching. After a spell at North Staffordshire Poly in Stoke-on-Trent, I was invited to become a part-time lecturer at Trent Poly in Nottingham. Bill Jay taught there part-time, and he recommended me to the head of photography, Bill Gaskins, who was also to become chairman of the recently established Photography Committee of the Arts Council. Gaskins wanted to start a new kind of photography course that encouraged experimentation and placed the medium in a wider cultural and historical context.

One of our students, Diane Lyons (later of Aperture) went to work for The Photographic Journal and invited me to write a piece for that august RPS monthly magazine. Reflecting my disenchantment with my former career and wanting to wave the flag for photography as art, it was entitled: Photojournalism – The British Obsession[1]. Despite its controversial tone and content, the membership failed to put pen to paper, unlike the response I received to an article I wrote for Camera three years later. British photography seemed to me to be largely in a state of torpor then. But my depression was partially lifted that same year (1973) when I was invited to exhibit in the first major show of contemporary British photography at the Arts Council’s Serpentine Gallery in London. Called Serpentine ’73 and curated by Peter Turner (of Creative Camera) and Sue Grayson, it drew large audiences and many newspaper and magazine reviews, which, predictably, dragged up the then frequently debated question: ‘Is photography art?’ Thankfully, the public loved it and it proved an inspiration to many photographers and students who were delighted to see their medium in the art spotlight at long last.

 Although social documentation and studio practice were in the new Trent Poly course curriculum, making photographs that were artworks in themselves was encouraged more enthusiastically. Creative imagination and chance taking were valuable attributes whether the student wanted to work as a commercial photographer or fine artist. The craft of printmaking was also taught as the collector of fine prints will always want hand made, archivally processed work. This was a new market for photographers and when we submitted our proposal for a diploma course in Creative Photography, in conjunction with Derby College of Higher Education (Gaskins was head of photography there before moving to Trent), we built this component into it. The course was unique, and because of this, it attracted talented students from around the world as well as the UK, and the top names in photography as visiting lecturers.

In 1974 I was made a full-time lecturer and moved to Derbyshire, where I would later set up The Photographers’ Place with my late wife, Angela. That same year Gaskins asked me to organise a summer school, which, I thought, should be primarily aimed at photography lecturers, many of whom were eager to see at first hand what personal photography and art photography were all about. Run in conjunction with the Society for Photographic Education (now defunct), it ran for two weeks in Nottingham and was called a workshop. I invited David Hurn, who had recently started a course in documentary photography in Newport, Gwent, and Peter Schlessinger of Apeiron Workshops in the USA, to lead the teaching, aided by an American member of the Trent staff, Thomas Joshua Cooper. There were contributions from Chris Killip, Gilles Peress, and Raymond Moore, who later joined our photography department at the polytechnic, amongst others.

The Trent/Derby students were soon getting noticed through exhibiting in places like the RPS in London, and via their final diploma shows in Nottingham and Derby. Because their photographs ‘showed a maturity which made it difficult to believe that it was the work of students’[2], the course attracted attention and envy. By now Tom Cooper and I were firm friends, as well as teaching colleagues, so we decided we needed a credo. In the same year as the summer school, we wrote the polemic: Can British Photography Emerge from the Dark Ages? and sent it to The Guardian, together with a selection of our students’ pictures. The arts editor rejected it and sent the article back minus the pictures! Eventually they paid for the lost work, so the students at least got something. Peter Turner heard about this episode and asked if he could put the piece, with new pictures, in Creative Camera[3]. The article and illustrations attracted attention (and more student applications) and writers and reviewers came to Nottingham to see this ‘new’ photography. This was decades before Damien Hirst and his fellow art students at Goldsmiths College in London created a media buzz around their Frieze exhibition. Unfortunately, the students did not get their work back from Creative Camera either. The editor had spilled coffee over it! But sacrifices have to be made if you want people, particularly the media, to take notice. The students were not entirely convinced, but we told them that those  who choose a career in the media – and many did – would at least make sure they valued the work of contributors better than theirs had been.

Outside formal education other exciting initiatives were emerging, like the Real Britain postcard project, Co-optic, and the community orientated Half Moon (later to become Camerawork) and Cockpit workshops in London, and Midland Group Photography in Nottingham. It started the annual Midland Group Open Exhibition in 1972, which attracted photographers from all over the world, including Robert Mapplethorpe, amongst others. Each show was selected by eminent curators, critics, artists and photographers, like John Szarkowski and Ron Kitaj. Earlier in the 1970s, the most important events was probably the opening of The Photographers Gallery in London (1971), to be followed by Impressions in York. One of my proudest moments was having a show at the old PG in 1972. This was somewhat diluted when they left my name off the poster announcing that month’s exhibitions. This omission only served to spur me into sending my own press release to the media, and to make sure that in future I would closely monitor marketing and publicity as well as hanging the work!

Like many others at the beginning of that decade I was pretty ignorant of a great deal of the history of the medium. But through my friendship with recent American graduates who taught at Trent Poly, like Tom and his predecessor, John Mulvaney, I found out an immense amount as they were taught by the best around at the time – Van Deren Coke and Beaumont Newhall – at the University of New Mexico, where Bill Jay became a student after Album and the photography study centre he started at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London folded in 1972. He was followed by Valerie Lloyd, who later became the RPS Curator when the society moved to Bath. I was on the Arts Council Photography Committee in the mid 1970s when the RPS applied for financial help. We all thought that the best thing about the society was its fabulous collection. Van Deren Coke was commissioned to examine it and report to the council. He was scathing, and concluded that the collection should be properly catalogued and conserved as soon as possible as it was in peril. We recommended funds be given to the RPS for 3 years for this to be done, and Val was employed as a cataloguer. But she soon referred to herself as ‘curator’, and job creation funds were found to take on workers – often former photography students – to start the cataloguing, which, I believe, went on for the next 20 years!

My photographic education was further enhanced when Tom and I decided to interview some of the ‘movers and shakers’ of 20^th century photography, from Ansel Adams to Man Ray, Cartier Bresson to Cecil Beaton, between 1974 and 1978. Originally published in the tri-lingual monthly magazine Camera, the 22 interviews were compiled into a book, Dialogue with Photography[4], which has never been out of print. It was extensively reviewed around the world, and New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer thought parts were ‘essential reading’ for those interested in photographic history.5 We mostly funded what turned out to be a complex and lengthy project, through the reproduction fees for each interview we received from Camera. In 1976 the editor, Allan Porter, asked me to write an article on photographic education in Britain6 to accompany portfolios of my photographs and those of Raymond Moore and John Blakemore. All three of us taught on the Trent/Derby course at the time. My piece was deliberately hard-hitting and critical of the educational establishment. Although very similar to the ‘Dark Ages’ and ‘ British Obsession’ polemics7 in tone, this time, two and three years on, there was a reaction, with numerous letters to the editor of the British Journal of Photography and a very trenchant and vitriolic response from the well-known photographer and educator, Walter Nurnberg8.

A benefit of having connections with the Art Council and the Photographers Gallery was being able to know what exhibitions were being planned and what photographers were visiting the UK. In 1976 I learned that New York-based photographer, Ralph Gibson had been commissioned to do some work in England. This gave me the opportunity to ask Ralph, a seasoned workshop leader, if he would do one for me in Derbyshire whilst he was over here. Angela and I had been considering the idea since the Trent summer school 2 years earlier as our rural location was most suitable – if a little cosy – and had been successfully used by my poly students for field trips. He agreed, and The Photographers’ Place, this country’s first residential photography workshop, was born. Teachers, students and helpers who participated over the next 20 years are too numerous to mention, but they included youngsters, like Andy Earl, Tom Sandberg, Debbie Baker, Paul Graham, Greg Lucas, as well as big names, like  Paul Caponigro, Fay Godwin, Thomas Cooper, Raymond Moore, Lewis Baltz, Hamish Fulton, Aaron Siskind, John Blakemore, Cole Weston, Charles Harbutt, Martin Parr, Jo Spence, and many more.

One of the most comprehensive accounts of this period was written by William Messer, whose article The British Obsession: About to Pay Off ?9 took up most of the 1977 issue of  the prestigious U.S. Camera Annual. This indicated that, as well as the rising profile of photography in this country, there was, by the mid 1970s, increasing interest abroad too in what was happening here with our publicly funded support schemes for photographers, the rising number of specialist galleries and community workshops, and our innovative photography courses and publishing ventures. Broadcasters were also taking note. I had been involved with Tom Cooper and David Hurn in a TV piece for Arena, the new BBC 2 arts programme. In conversation with the producer afterwards, I suggested that the BBC should make a series on photography. He asked me to send him some ideas, which, after a few more meetings became Exploring Photography, a six-part series written and presented by an old friend and former newspaper colleague, Bryn Campbell. It was accompanied by an excellent publication10 and the series was often repeated over the next 10 years.

  Another indication of the new enhanced status photography was acquiring within the arts establishment was best illustrated by the Arts Council’s premier gallery, the Hayward on London’s South Bank, agreeing to a major exhibition of contemporary photography on the lines of the gallery’s famous (then) annual art show. At an Arts Council Photography Committee meeting, one member, Victor Burgin suggested the exhibition should reflect different perspectives of British photography. The first (and last) one – Three Perspectives on Photography – was in 1979 and the 3 sections would focus on socialism, feminism and modernism. The curators were John Tagg, Angela Kelly (a former Trent/Derby photography student), and me. I was able, in my selection, to not only articulate and illustrate my ideas (via the catalogue), I was also able to introduce relatively unknown photographers, like Martin Parr, Brian Griffin, Graham Smith, Raymond Moore, Thomas Cooper, and Roger Palmer to a wider non-specialist audience. ‘Compared with John Szarkowski’s Mirrors and Windows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York last year, there was an air of freedom and confidence,’ said one critic11. The exhibition attracted much attention, but there is not enough space here to go into the many interesting and controversial issues that were raised by it.

It was strange to curate an exhibition of British photography in the same building where, at the beginning of the decade, I was marvelling at a major show by Bill Brandt, a person who had influenced me more than anyone else. The South Bank Centre did not organise the 1970 Brandt show themselves, preferring to hire it in from MOMA, New York.

The mounting of Three Perspectives was an indication of how things had moved on in a few short years. Another was the increasing number of auction houses selling vintage prints and commercial  art galleries beginning to hang photographs on their walls. In 1978, the Robert Self Gallery, which had in its stable of artists, Gilbert and George, Boyd Webb, Victor Burgin and Hamish Fulton, gave me a one-man show in their new Covent Garden space. And I actually sold some prints too! But the best moment for me was Bill Brandt spending over an hour going round this show of my new work, looking intently at each piece, and most politely thanking me, in his whispering voice, for inviting him.

What a difference this decade made for photography – and for me.

Paul Hill

(Birmingham Central Library acquired The Photographers’ Place/Paul Hill Archive in 2004 and will mount a major exhibition Paul Hill: His Life in Photography  in the new library building in 2013)

A postscript to the main article on “Imagining the Photography Centre of the Future”.

There’s a history of the Scottish National Photography Centre here. Its former chief executive Graeme Murdoch will talk at the Symposium.

An interesting story has also been mentioned on the difficulty of getting certain work seen in Britain: the exhibition A Ballad of Love and Death investigates the uniquely British phenomenon of Pre–Raphaelite Photography. It is on at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris at the moment, then moves to the US; but it will not be seen in the UK.

The same was true for the show Impressed by Light, on British Calotypes, curated by Roger Taylor of De Montfort University, Leicester. The book won the Kraszna-Krausz Award, and the exhibition showed in New York, Washington and Paris… but not the UK.

PH

Background to the session at The National Photography Symposium 2011

What kind of photography centre would you like to visit? When people who love photography travel, is there an obvious place of photography to visit? And what fills that role in the UK?

When we at Redeye started asking around informally about this topic, we were surprised at what came out. Many photographers had thought about this before, and had clear ideas about what they would like from a centre of photography. Most had fond memories of particular centres, but some felt that existing organisations were not broad enough and that certain areas of photography were under-represented. People wanted to visit a centre that reliably had a continuous wide range of work and activities on.

Of course it’s easy to say what you want, but can such places be sustained, given the increasing volatility of public funding? Should there be more centres within easy travel reach, or bigger centres in the capital cities? Are there better ways of spending money than on a building? Or in fact would the promise of something physically monumental generate more funding? 

Photographers might well have particular needs from centres that are different to the desires of a general audience (if such a thing exists), art professionals and politicians. But photographers tend to be loyal to their medium and have a strong interest in it flourishing. Their voice needs to be a significant part of this discussion. It’s important to know what the broad photography community wants from their centres.

In the UK the specialist centres are relatively small and few in number. Meanwhile much larger general museums run occasional blockbuster shows and also acquire photography for their collections. That’s fine, but can be confusing for outside visitors, as most of them do not have continuous shows of photography. And there’s no institution dedicated to the conservation of photographs.

In the last few years there have been significant attempts to create large new photographic centres in Edinburgh, Cardiff and London, though so far, none has come to fruition. Why not? That’s the starting point for the Symposium discussion.

Compare the UK to the Netherlands, where in the last decade, in response to photography’s massive popularity, four new photography centres have emerged: Foam and Huis Marseille in Amsterdam, Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam and Fotomuseum in The Hague. But can we simply import a European model?

Such a lot has changed in the last ten years that’s likely to affect what a photography centre does. For instance:

• Far more people take photos, which probably means that many people look at work in a more active way, and for a wider range of reasons. When you become a practitioner, you’re likely to be more interested in how work was made, how it came to be shown, and how it’s been edited and presented, as well as its appearance and meaning.

• Many photographers have stopped using labs and suppliers as informal meeting places. So maybe they need a physical place to gather. Or does online social networking mean people are less likely to meet in person?

• One of the roles of the museum has always been to preserve the context of a work, so that in a hundred years people have the best chance of understanding why it was made and what it meant. But for digital works, the internet does that job extremely well. A photograph on a blog or Flickr contains metadata describing the circumstances of its creation; it links to comments by the maker, and others by people who are viewing it, to biographies and reviews. As the semantic web grows, we’ll know ever more about digital works. And the web is an effective way to preserve images indefinitely. Does that mean a museum should concentrate on the physical object, or do museums need to find a different way to deal with digital work?

• The way people enjoy looking at work is changing. A print on the wall or a finely made book is a lovely thing, but so are the latest computer monitors. In Redeye’s 2010 survey the monitor was neck and neck with the print and the book as the preferred way to look at work. The latest digitally printed books don’t smell as good as offset, but they look almost as good, and are far more numerous. A photography book fair such as Offprint in Paris contains a richness and range of work that could take weeks to look through. What does that mean for the traditional gallery show, and for those who choose what gets shown?

What are your thoughts? What’s your favourite photography centre and why do you like it? How do you think those centres need to change in the future? What sort of things are missing at the photography centres you’ve been to? Is the big physical centre really the most cost-effective way of building the health, knowledge and enjoyment of photography, or can flexible organisations, smart collaborations and better marketing achieve the same?

We’ve got a survey open – please take five minutes to complete it and tell us what you would like from your ideal photography centre. We’ll show results at the Symposium. See www.surveymonkey.com/s/photocentres

And please also add your comments below.

Paul Herrmann, Redeye

NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY SYMPOSIUM, LIVERPOOL, 13 to 15 MAY 2011

The NPS presents an up to the minute review of current issues in photography. This programme is in a state of continuous development, so please check back or follow @RedeyeNetwork on Twitter for the latest.

Hashtag: #NPS3

Changes

5.5.11: Added speakers Simon Brown and Pete Jenkins. Nick Dunmur can’t attend unfortunately.

3.5.11: added Restrepo showing; added speakers David Moore, John Stoddart, Karen Strunks, Florian Koempel, Patrick Henry, Dean Chapman and Stephen Snoddy; chairs Paul Lowe and Paul Herrmann; link to Light Night. Small changes to times.

21.4.11: added speakers include John Davies, Clare Grafik, Karin Bareman, Andrew Wiard and Anne McNeill. Some changes to the programme and estimated times added. Hotel details expanded.

Most of the speakers named below and times are now confirmed. Note that occasionally speakers have to cancel. Full biographical details will be published shortly.

The programme will also include an opportunity to visit the new location of Open Eye Gallery, with whom Redeye are working closely on Look11 and other future projects.

In addition there will be plenty of opportunity for networking and socialising. 

Show your work:
Ticket holders are offered the opportunity to show their work in a 15 minute slot. Further details when you book.

Date and time:
Friday 13 May 2011: register from 14:00 for 15:00 start. 17:00 to 22:00: opening of Look11 festival.
Saturday 14 May 2011: register from 9:00 for 9:30 start. Ends 20:00.
Sunday 15 May 2011: register from 10:00 for 10:30 start. The timetabled symposium ends at 12:00, with a walk and film showing till approx 17:00.

Place:
The Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BX, UK

Tickets are on sale now via Eventbrite.

Accommodation: There are a few reduced price rooms for people attending the Symposium at Ibis Liverpool, 27 Wapping, L1 8LY. £79 per room for Friday 13 May; £99 per room for Saturday 14th May. This rate is based on single occupancy and breakfast is included. An extra £5 per person per night for double occupancy. Please call 0151 706 9800 and quote group reference number 136266.

FRIDAY 13 MAY

14:00 onwards: registration

15:00 to 17:00 PANEL 1: Photography, Espionage and The State

This session reveals something about the way in which the British state has used and continues to use photography to protect its interests.

Speakers:

Sara Jayne Parsons “Desert Visions: Gertrude Bell and the framing of Colonial Iraq.” Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was a British diplomat, archaeologist, linguist, photographer, and, some might say, spy. She was instrumental in the political and cartographic formation of modern-day Iraq. Sara will give a brief introduction to Bell’s photographic work and the problems it presents as part of the visual framing of Iraq by colonial interests.

Gary Austin formerly worked for the armed forces supplying the UK intelligence services and is now a photographer investigating surveillance and privacy. He will outline some of the ways in which the intelligence services use photography.

David Hoffman talks about How the Met police Forward Intelligence Team has morphed from photographing football hooligans into a secretive unit running its own hidden database and with its own political agenda.

Chair: Paul Lowe

17:00 Launch of Look11 Festival, Stephen Snoddy, The Bluecoat

17:00 to 22:00 Openings of Look11 Festival, 12 venues around Liverpool. See:

http://www.lightnightliverpool.co.uk/2011/look11-launch-liverpool-international-photography-festival/

SATURDAY 14 MAY

09:00 onwards: registration

09:30 to 10:45

KEYNOTE SESSION 1: Paul Seawright is a leading photographer and artist from Belfast, where his early work was made; he has subsequently worked in Afghanistan and urban Africa. He was the first editor of Source magazine and is Professor of Photography at the University of Ulster. “Photography brings him to places where he can find himself, paradoxically by losing himself. Seawright is good at making himself invisible. Other photographers who travel to places of conflict and poverty often leave the viewer pondering the inescapable question of how they felt as they pressed the shutter. Throughout his career, Seawright has worked towards negating his presence. Often he achieves this so completely that viewers feel they are the only ones witnessing the scene. It’s an expert illusion.” – Christin Leach, Sunday Times

10:45 to 11:15

Coffee/tea break and Presentation 1: John Stoddart, photographer

Once Derek Hatton’s official photographer in Liverpool, now portraitist to the stars in London. See www.johnstoddart.co.uk/

11:15 to 12:45

Either PANEL 2A: The Future is Now: Photographers and their Archives

Over the last 5 years Birmingham Central Library has been involved in acquiring extensive archives relating to the life and work of key British photographers including Paul Hill and John Blakemore. It has also been working alongside Daniel Meadows as he archives his life’s work. These experiences have highlighted the need for greater dialogue between mid to late career photographers and collecting institutions and the need to develop a model of best practice that would enable photographers and institutions to work together to help preserve the nations photographic heritage. This talk will explore some of the early ideas resulting from this work.

Speakers

Pete James, Head of Photographs at Birmingham Central Library, is responsible for one of the UK’s national collections of photography.  He has curated exhibitions of historical and contemporary photography in and beyond the UK and is published internationally.

Paul Hill is a photographer, writer and teacher and and has worked tirelessly to spread the appreciation and understanding of photography through his books such as Dialogue with Photography and Approaching Photography, and his widely admired study centre The Photographer’s Place. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his role in British photography, including a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, a fellowship of the Hasselblad Foundation, and an M.B.E.

Chair: Paul Herrmann

Or PANEL 2B: After Hargreaves: copyright, metadata and orphan works

In November the Prime Minister David Cameron announced an independent review of Intellectual Property, Chaired by Professor Ian Hargreaves, with particular reference to barriers to growth. The review is due to report around the time of the National Photography Symposium and this session will explore some of the findings and implications for photography of the Hargreaves review. Ian Hargreaves has been offered an invitation to speak, but whether he can do so will depend upon the timing of the review publication (expected some time in May).

Speakers: 

Andrew Wiard, board member of the British Press Photographers’ Association, a member of the National Union of Journalists, and a founder member and moderator of the EPUK email list which he represents on the British Photographic Council

Simon Brown (details to follow)

Chair: Paul Lowe

12:45 to 14:00 Lunch break

 Including 12:45 to 13:15 Presentation 2: David Moore

London-based photographer described as “an outsider on the inside”, whose work observes and challenges institutional power. See http://davidmoore.uk.com/

14:00 to 15:45

PANEL 3: Imagining the photography centre of the future

What should or might be the role of a centre of photography? What form should it take? Should it be physical or virtual? Who is it aimed at? This session considers recent attempts in the Scotland, Wales and England to set up centres of photography, and compares this to the experiences of other countries and disciplines.

Speakers: 

Graeme Murdoch of the Scottish National Photography Centre project

David Drake, Ffotogallery

Clare Grafik, The Photographers Gallery

Karin Bareman, Dutch photographer and writer, will discuss the simultaneous establishment and rise of the four photography centres in The Netherlands during the last 10 years, i.e. Foam, Huis Marseille in Amsterdam, Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam and Fotomuseum in The Hague.

Chair: Paul Herrmann

15:45 to 16:15 

Coffee/tea break and Presentation 3: Karen Strunks, the 4am Project

Photographer, blogger, creative director of the global photography project; 4am Project, and a key figure in the social media community. See http://4amproject.org/

16:15 to 17:45

Either Panel 4: The campaigning photographer

Can photography organisations work together better to safeguard ethical and “fair trade” photography and increase the perceived value of high quality professional work? 

Speakers:

Andrew Wiard outlines Pro-imaging’s work on the Artists’ Bill of Rights for Competitions, which aims for the use of fair rules for all photographic competitions.

Florian Koempel, Legal Counsel at UK Music, outlines the campaigns to protect the work of musicians and the lessons that can be learnt in other disciplines.

Pete Jenkins discusses joined-up campaigns between photography and other disciplines.

Chair Paul Lowe

Or Visit 1: The new Open Eye Gallery

A first chance to walk over to see Open Eye Gallery in its new setting of Mann Island on Liverpool’s waterfront. After an introduction by the gallery’s director, Patrick Henry, there’s the chance to talk further about the issues raised in the previous session “Imagining the photography centre of the future” with the panelists.

17:45 to 18:15 break

18:15 to 19:30

 KEYNOTE SESSION 2: Dornith Doherty‘s work is concerned with the relationship between human agency and the natural environment. Her latest project, Archiving Eden, explores the seed banks that act as a botanical backup system in order to allow reintroduction of species should a catastrophic event affect a key ecosystem somewhere in the world. She uses x-ray photography and collage to create exquisite studies of these preserved seeds and plants. Prior to that, Rio Grande: Burnt Water/Agua Quernada explored the life and landscape of the Mexican river with assemblies of natural specimens and cultural artefacts.

Dornith was born in Houston, Texas and received a B.A. from Rice University in Houston and a MFA in Photography from Yale University. She currently resides in Southlake and is a Professor of Photography at the University of North Texas and a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Photographic Education. She is a recipient of grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the United States Department of the Interior, the Indiana Arts Commission, and the Society for Contemporary Photography. Her work has featured in over 60 national and international exhibitions. 

SUNDAY 15 MAY

10:00 Venue opens

10:30 to 12:00

Panel 5: Organisations and the funding landscape

At least six English photography organisations lost their Arts Council funding on 30 March. In this dramatically pared down new landscape, what are the priorities for public funding? How can resources be shared and the knowledge and archives of the threatened organisations be preserved?

Speakers:

Anne McNeill, Director of Impressions Gallery, Bradford

Dean Chapman, curator and photographer working with Side Gallery

12:00 to 15:00 approx

Walk

John Davies, the highly respected landscape photographer, will lead a walk in Liverpool city centre, followed by a short ferry trip, around the locations of his work “Signs of War.”

John is an independent documentary photographer concerned with political and social issues as reflected in our changing urban landscape. He studied photography in Nottingham and after graduating in 1974 he began to explore the rural landscape of the British Isles 1976-1981, published in ‘Mist Mountain Water Wind’ 1986.

In 1981 he first started to document the urbanised landscape from high vantage positions during a one year Research Fellowship at Sheffield School of Art. He then moved to Manchester where he began to photograph key industries and the social landscapes left over from the Industrial Revolution. The photographs from his 1987 book ‘A Green & Pleasant Land’ became one of the Photographers’ Gallery’s, London, most popular touring exhibitions.

In 1984, after his photographs were featured in Creative Camera magazine, he was invited to work in Berlin on the International Bauasstellung architectural exhibition and book project. Since then he has continued to be invited to work on numerous landscape and urbanisation commissions and publications in France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. His early European work was published in ‘Cross Currents’ 1992 with three further monographs commissioned and published in France.

In 2006 a selection of his work was published in the book ‘The British Landscape’, with a major retrospective exhibition launched PhotoEspaña in Madrid. He was short listed for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2008 for this work.

In 2001 Davies moved to Liverpool where he currently lives.

15:30 to 17:10

Film: Restrepo

In honour of the great Liverpool-born photographer Tim Hetherington, killed in Libya in April 2011, we have arranged with Picturehouse at FACT and Look11 a showing of his extraordinary film Restrepo, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance 2010, which chronicles the deployment of a platoon of American soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

** The showing takes place at FACT which is approx 7 minutes walk from The Bluecoat.

Please note that tickets to this film, priced at £8 (£7 concession) should be booked separately, via this link:

http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Picturehouse_At_Fact/film/Restrepo/

We encouraged attendees to tweet with the hastag #nps3 during the symposium. We’ve collected a summary of the event through twitter, a big thank you to everyone who narrated the weekend!

13^th May

@curlythoughts At the Bluecoat, with @Redeyenetwork ready to start… Photography, Espionage and the State. #NPS3 #photography

@brendadada #NPS kicking off with huge pic of the #fit from David Hoffman. It’s going to be an interesting weekend. http://4sq.com/kI7t5d

@chazzoh #nps3 redeye symposium @bluecoat, 1st session state & espionage. never done a photography conference b4

@saratrula Hearing about tactical documentary photography at #nps3

@curlythoughts In our actions as photographers, are we all surveillance officers now? Do we create a searchable and mapped database of our lives? #NPS3

@chazzoh #nps3 social change stifled & disrupted by pre-emptive policing @davidhoffman

@saratrula David Hoffman speaking now at #nps3 “the more the FIT look for something the mire they see it and so the more they look for it and so on”

@brendadada #nps3 David Hoffman “we’re all targets”

@saratrula There is a deliberate and worrying blurring between dissent and terrorism @davidhoffman at #nps3

@photographyuoc # photographer Gary Austin talk on surveillance photography for the intelligence service. No photos as all with MOD! #nose

@chazzoh #nps3 #look11 paul trevor’s beautiful photos of liverpool streets in the 70s in the majestic but still municipal walker gallery

@BusyBetsy hog roast & Brian Biggs dj-ing at The Bluecoat #nps3 #TwitPict http://twitpic.com/4x5fyc

14^th May

@photographyuoc Just seen a man dressed as a banana at breakfast #nps3

@alexhodby Just seen a group off to see the new Open Eye Gallery space, whilst a debate on the campaigning photographer goes on upstairs. #nps3

@emmaphotoworks enjoying look11 and #NPS3 in rainy Liverpool. Beautiful show at open eye curated by Mitch Epstein

@brendadada #nps3 Side Gallery’s incredible archive including John Davies’ and Sirkka’s pictures of my village, emotional morning.

@chazzoh #nps3 #look11 people in the pix here looking at their childhoods exchanging memories with people they’v not seen for 35 years. beautiful

@chazzoh #nps3 paul seawright matter of fact captions describing horrible deaths below beguilingly calm beautiful pics of the scenes. shuddering

@smithgrant Paul Seawright ‘camera allows us to occupy prohibited spaces’ #nps3

@chazzoh #nps3 paul seawright – so many layers of thought and discussion in initially quite simple photos. isn’t photography fantastic?!

@chazzoh #nps3 history so deeply inscribed in the surface of a place – paul seawright on lagos

@photographyuoc Paul Seawright keynote at #nps3 very powerfull #photography and talk

@mazmanian #nps3 paul seawright mixes images about text language territory and contested readings of landscape.metaphors for fragmented narratives

@mazmanian #nps3 paul seawright on monumental spaces,the representation of conflict. places become totemic,concerned with how to distill representation

@mazmanian #nps3 paul herrmann – metadata makes the world go round

@photographyuoc At #nps3 Liverpool looking forward to Karen Strunks talk ‘4am project’ this afternoon then new Open Eye gallery tour

@BusyBetsy Brilliant anecdotes from John Stoddart #nps3

@mazmanian #nps3 paul hill on buildin an archive,record things radio tv keep articles re the relevance of these materials on the history of photography

@curlythoughts Paul Hill: “Since 2006 more photographs have been taken than in the whole history of photography before that.” #NPS3

@mazmanian #nps3 post lunch session on the photographic centre of the future..first up discussion on scottish national photographic centre

@curlythoughts Photographers and their archives: how and what do we archive if we don’t know what the historian of the future will be interested in? #NPS3

@alexhodby Clare Grafik presents thoughts about The Photographers’ Gallery and social media #nps3

@curlythoughts Florian Koempel details how UK Music champions the cause of commercial music in UK. Could such a body do the same for photography? #NPS3

@chazzoh #nps3 we need a new mass observation project, at risk of sounding controversial, more than we need a physical centre

@alexhodby Talking about the photography centre of the future instagr.am/p/EOxKE #nps3

@alexhodby Do we need am edifice for a photography centre? asks Graeme Murdoch. #nps3

@alexhodby #nps3 Karin Bareman informs us about Dutch photography centres – great comparisons & info

@chazzoh #nps3 #4amproject democratic representation in action AND great pics of many different styles

@chazzoh #nps3 #4amproject community is a group if people with shared experiences & common assumptions. even if only humanity & being up at 4am

@curlythoughts Andrew Wiard from pro-imaging stressing the positive work done on, and by, the Artist’s Bill of Rights for competitions. #NPS3

@alexhodby David Drake commenting on power and control in the exhibition of photographs #nps3

@chazzoh #nps3 andrew wiard giving us the low down on artists-bill-of-rights.org. hadn’t realised it was started by godon harrison in wester ross

@brendadada Great scary presentation and pics from @davidhoffmanuk yesterday. #nps3

@curlythoughts Sharpening my pencil for the final session of the afternoon… Keynote speaker Dornith Doherty. #NPS3

@saratrula Dornith Doherty projects her images onto a collected still life from the locations and themes of her photographs #nps3

@saratrula The connection to expeditionary photography, being a “trusted witness” is key to Doherty working. #nps3

@alexhodby Dornith Doherty giving the last keynote of the day #nps3 @ The Bluecoat http://gowal.la/c/4dTqb

@curlythoughts On train from Liverpool. I had a fascinating and stimulating two days. Will blog, there’s just the matter of the #GreatmancRun first! #NPS3

15^th May

@Documentally The story Dean Chapman is sharing about the Arts Councils desicion on funding for Amber Collective & Side Gallery is a horror movie. #nps3

@Documentally Photography is more than just a ‘visual art’. Cuts cause not only a loss to photography but a loss to historical & social documentary #nps3

@photographyuoc #nps3 major success we think best one ever. So much #Photography

@Documentally So many of the concerns/fears the photographic world (art & otherwise) have, seem to mirror that of the world of journalism. #nps3

@gemma_thorpe talk by Dean Chapman & slideshow of Amber collective & Side Gallery’s archive most inspirational so far #nps3 despite being re: funding cuts

@saratrula The talk @karenstrunks gave to #nps3 about the @4amproject was really great. Such a fantastic use of social media to create a unique event

@Documentally Apparently there is a national no photography day (where you are meant to think more) but we don’t have a national photography day. #nps3

@Documentally Maybe skint photographers should put their skills to use & start earning money from the curation of the worlds images. #nps3

@emmaphotoworks Interesting last talk at #NPS3 on funding cuts and does the photography network need an agenda?

@Documentally The temporary closure of large galleries in Amsterdam (for refurbishment) has had a visible economic impact via visitors to the city. #nps3

@Documentally There are suggestions of a mass closure of galleries in protest at arts cuts. #nps3

@BusyBetsy It’s been a very inspiring #nps3 weekend. Thank you to all the wonderful people who took part. It is hard to wind down from it all.

@photographyuoc At #nps3 an outstanding success this weekend. Made loads of new friends and contacts – that’s what it’s all about

A quick recce for a portrait location in the City ends in police detention under s44.