22nd February 2022
Yet another very unusual evening last Tuesday - the two halves although very different, each had an historical perspective. Geoff Wood started with his subject Soundscape - and took us through some of his exploration of how sound affects our seeing - as he phrases it “augmenting the visual". Using first of all Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows” painting, Geoff then using his own imagery of water ran an AV (audio visual) of the Sound of Water. This was absorbing, as each image - there must have been at least 20 of them showed a different type of water and a different sound.
The main part of his talk though was an AV about the Crimea War using Roger Fenton’s photographs taken March - June 1865. Geoff was inspired by the concept of the momentum of power and wanted to impart that. The AV had a sound accompaniment of Philip Glass’s ”Anthem" which really completed the picture as we were taken through various camps and candid shots. There were no combat scenes, corpses or devastation in Fenton’s images - a complete contrast to contemporary war photographers.
One image, canon balls on a road, has been historically contentious and has led to discussions about whether it had been constructed or not and we had our own debate around that.
There was much discussion about how stills allow an emotion factor, when because of the speed a movie does not - music also enhances emotion in Geoff's AV.
In the second half Martin Horton presented a fascinating account of Fox Talbot’s court cases when he contested the use of his patented images.
In 1833 at 33 years old frustrated with drawing, Fox Talbot played with Camera Lucida (images projected onto paper) and then being frustrated with that in 1834 moved onto Camera Obscura and began experimenting with light sensitive chemicals. In the January of 1839 Louis Daguerre in France (later known for his huge panoramas) had a break through of his own and in the February of that year Fox Talbot asserts his claim. In September 1840 Fox Talbot had another breakthrough with the positive/negative process and in 1841 the Calotype PhotoGenic Drawing process is patented. He then publishes "Pencil of Nature" 1844-46 describing his images as "sun pictures created only by light".
In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer created a completely new method using the Collodian Wet Plate process and Talbot declared that Collodian was covered by his patent. He decides to pursue it legally and in 1854 he takes on 2 specific and significant cases - Martin Laroche (supported by the RPS) and Henderson. He was after a patent infringement fee: he had been charging people for licences to use his images (the equivalent of £35,000 for a professional person and £460 for an amateur). The counter argument to his was one of suggesting that as Fox Talbot did not invent photography he could not patent his idea and therefore could not charge. He must have been furious. He got professional help to defend his case (David Brewster and John Herschel) which turned into a 3 day hearing and his claim to be the Inventor of Photography was upheld, but he lost the licensing case -the consequence of which was a massive spurt in professional portrait photography.
Martin shared some little titbits of information about Fox Talbot one of which is that he was a polymath, as was Brewster (one of the professionals helping him with his case) he was also not surprisingly very wealthy. In his later years he was MP for Chippenham 1832-1835 and then High Sheriff for Wiltshire 1840. He received various medals and awards, one of which was awarded in 1842 "Medal for Photography".
Fox Talbot wrote 10,000 letters in his life! Busy man.
Yet another very unusual evening last Tuesday - the two halves although very different, each had an historical perspective. Geoff Wood started with his subject Soundscape - and took us through some of his exploration of how sound affects our seeing - as he phrases it “augmenting the visual". Using first of all Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows” painting, Geoff then using his own imagery of water ran an AV (audio visual) of the Sound of Water. This was absorbing, as each image - there must have been at least 20 of them showed a different type of water and a different sound.
The main part of his talk though was an AV about the Crimea War using Roger Fenton’s photographs taken March - June 1865. Geoff was inspired by the concept of the momentum of power and wanted to impart that. The AV had a sound accompaniment of Philip Glass’s ”Anthem" which really completed the picture as we were taken through various camps and candid shots. There were no combat scenes, corpses or devastation in Fenton’s images - a complete contrast to contemporary war photographers.
One image, canon balls on a road, has been historically contentious and has led to discussions about whether it had been constructed or not and we had our own debate around that.
There was much discussion about how stills allow an emotion factor, when because of the speed a movie does not - music also enhances emotion in Geoff's AV.
In the second half Martin Horton presented a fascinating account of Fox Talbot’s court cases when he contested the use of his patented images.
In 1833 at 33 years old frustrated with drawing, Fox Talbot played with Camera Lucida (images projected onto paper) and then being frustrated with that in 1834 moved onto Camera Obscura and began experimenting with light sensitive chemicals. In the January of 1839 Louis Daguerre in France (later known for his huge panoramas) had a break through of his own and in the February of that year Fox Talbot asserts his claim. In September 1840 Fox Talbot had another breakthrough with the positive/negative process and in 1841 the Calotype PhotoGenic Drawing process is patented. He then publishes "Pencil of Nature" 1844-46 describing his images as "sun pictures created only by light".
In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer created a completely new method using the Collodian Wet Plate process and Talbot declared that Collodian was covered by his patent. He decides to pursue it legally and in 1854 he takes on 2 specific and significant cases - Martin Laroche (supported by the RPS) and Henderson. He was after a patent infringement fee: he had been charging people for licences to use his images (the equivalent of £35,000 for a professional person and £460 for an amateur). The counter argument to his was one of suggesting that as Fox Talbot did not invent photography he could not patent his idea and therefore could not charge. He must have been furious. He got professional help to defend his case (David Brewster and John Herschel) which turned into a 3 day hearing and his claim to be the Inventor of Photography was upheld, but he lost the licensing case -the consequence of which was a massive spurt in professional portrait photography.
Martin shared some little titbits of information about Fox Talbot one of which is that he was a polymath, as was Brewster (one of the professionals helping him with his case) he was also not surprisingly very wealthy. In his later years he was MP for Chippenham 1832-1835 and then High Sheriff for Wiltshire 1840. He received various medals and awards, one of which was awarded in 1842 "Medal for Photography".
Fox Talbot wrote 10,000 letters in his life! Busy man.