NB: EVENT NOW CANCELLED - This event will not take place although the related event in London is still set to go ahead.

Photography is often perceived as a solitary practice; one eye fixed on the world. This series of talks will explore an alternative history of photography as a shared activity. RPS members, Redeye members and students receive a discounted ticket rate of £15.

Roger Hargreaves - Photo sharing
Roger will explore eight narratives on photography through eight different collective contexts. These include the Photographic society, the artists’ group, the art school, the Government agency, the public museum, the press agency, the University and the internet. Each has been selected to represent a pivotal moment in which the medium was advanced through shared ideas and practices. It examines both creative dialogue and occasional discord and considers the effect this has had on shaping the photography that emerged. Artists viewed through this lens will include Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, László Moholy-Nagy, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Bernd and Hilla Becher and Joachim Schmid.

Colin Harding will look at the work of groups such as The Photographic Exchange Club in the 1850s as well as later manifestations of print circulating societies such as The Postal Photographic Club in the 1890s.

Patrizia di Bello - Sharing photographs in albums and jewellery
This talk considers the significance and connotations of the act of sharing portrait photographs in albums and jewellery, through personal as well as more public or even remote connections. From the precious one-off daguerreotype, to the mass-distributed carte-de-visite, photographs were valued as personal memento and, at the same time, a visual currency for exchange and display in fashionable Society and celebrity culture.

Michael Pritchard will explore the origins and aims of photographic societies in the nineteenth century. He'll look at how societies and camera clubs changed with the rapid growth of amateur photography from the later 1880s. Using the Photographic Society of London (later the Royal Photographic Society) as a case study the talk will look at the member and how they shared photographs alongside new ideas and techniques.

Some of the images and artefacts referred to during the day will be on show in the KK room and can be viewed at lunchtime or at the end of the day.

The second set of talks Photography in a Connected Age will be held at the University of Westminster on the 23rd November.

To obtain your discount as a Redeye member, pay the ticket fee then you will have £5 returned to your card account.