Victoria and Albert – A passion for photography

Royal Albert Memorial Museum Lunchtime Lecture, 21 March 2012

Sophie Gordon, senior curator of photographs at the Royal Collection 'explored how the royal family formed a bond with pioneering British photographers, commissioning and collecting work that survives today in Windsor Castle' quote from the RAMM booklet. Sophia indicated that in the royal collection there were over 450,000 negatives slides and prints from 1842 to the present day.

This hour long talk was a real gem. After the previous two lunchtime lectures that I had attended which had proved to be so disappointing Sophie Gordon was a breath of fresh air. Her whole demeanour was that of a person who enjoyed her work and it came across in her talk. No notes, no hesitation, she talked spontaneously about the images that she projected on the screen and brought them so vividly to life, even including the ones that showed Prince Albert and Queen Victoria on their death beds (separately, of course).

Whilst Queen Victoria liked to collect early private family pictures and portraits of the royal family, Prince Albert focussed his interests on scientific and fine art pictures. The first known image in the collection was one of Prince Albert as a daguerreotype image. The disadvantage of these was that there was only ever one image and it was impossible to copy or duplicate it. Queen Victoria amassed over 20,000 images, negatives and boxes of glass slides, and items are still being unearthed in the cellars of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle where Sophie Gordon is based.

After the disappointing previous talks, this was a real gem and I was glad that I made the effort to attend. Well done RAMM for engaging this excellent speaker who knew her subject thoroughly and who was able to put over her enthusiasm for her subject. Hopefully RAMM will continue the theme of Victorian photography in their next series of lunchtime lectures when the new programme is released shortly.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted on this blog, but things have been a bit quiet in the town recently. One thing that I have done is visit the Exeter Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) to listen to a couple of lunchtime lectures.

The first one was on Modernism and given by Dr Carol Brand who would 'focus on the exhibitions, art critics, debates and events in the art world as more avant-garde forms of modernism emerged around 1910 in England', quoted from the RAMM catalogue. The reason I wanted to listen to this hour long lecture was to try to gain an insight into modernism, post-modernism and onward in the art world as I felt that I was sadly lacking in this area.

I went with my friend who had studied the history of art whilst studying on an Access to Education course and we both felt that this short lecture fell well short of an attention grabbing talk. We were both, independently of each other, disappointed that the lecturer read for the whole of the 50 minutes from her notes in a fairly flat monotone. It wasn't until the last 10 minutes, when Carol answered questions from the audience, that she spoke spontaneously and, for me, this was the only highlight of a dull lunchtime.

The second lecture was by Professor John Plunkett from the University of Exeter who would explore Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's interest in photography as collectors. This lecture would also 'show them as subjects of the photography industry which was fast becoming a commercial and popular media for disseminating the images of distinguished people and celebrities'.

John introduced his lunch-time lecture by saying that it would be in 2 parts, that of the way that royalty had used the media to show themselves and parts of their photographic images which they had collected. The disappointment was that he ran out of time to show any pictures that Victoria and Albert had collected but once again the whole session was spoiled by the delivery. This eminent professor, who should have known his subject inside out, read his notes for 80% of the time he spoke. He was quite able to talk 'outside the box' as the saying goes and when he did he was enthusiastic and interesting but all the while, when he read his notes, it come over in a monotone and flat tone.

There is a final lunchtime lecture on Wednesday, March 21st, and I am looking forward to this as its entitled 'Victoria and Albert, a passion for photography. Sophie Gordon, senior curator of Photographs at the Royal Collection, will explore how the royal family formed a bond with pioneering British photographers including Roger Fenton and Francis Bedford, commissioning and collecting work that survives today in Windsor Castle -direct quote from the RAMM programme booklet. I have my fingers crossed for a lively and stimulating debate, hope I'm not disappointed. Watch this space.

Photographs not taken

I've been following a recent thread in the OCA Photography, Film & Digital Media forum entitled 'Photographs Not Taken: what makes a photographer freeze?' This links up with The Guardian website which ran an article on the subject and gave several instances when a photographer missed the opportunity to take a stunning image or wouldn’t take it on ethical grounds.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/mar/15/photographs-not-taken-photographer-freeze

I've been photographing for 25+ years now and the one area I find difficult to photograph is when people are distressed in any way. Years ago I was photographing a company football match and one player ended up with a badly broken leg. The ambulance was called and whilst we waited its arrival, my colleague tried to goad me into taking a picture of this poor man in agony. It was something I couldn't and wouldn't do and the moment passed. I'm still glad that I didn't record this man's suffering. What does it make me, an idiot for missing the opportunity or a better person for having passed it up?