Q&A with Colin Harding
The National Media Museum curator on what makes a great photograph
Colin Harding is the curator of photographic technology at the National Media Museum in Bradford, part of the Science Museum Group.
He has curated permanent galleries on the history of photography and numerous temporary exhibitions including Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, which opens on 20 March (until 21 June) and showcases highlights from the museum’s Royal Photographic Society archive.
Harding has also written books and articles on the history of photography and cinematography, and in 2004 received the Royal Photographic Society's John Dudley Johnston Award for his contributions to photographic history.
What’s so special about the Royal Photographic Society archive?
The Royal Photographic Society Collection is one of the largest and most important photographic collections in the world. It contains about 250,000 images and 10,000 pieces of photographic equipment as well as books, ephemera and manuscripts.
What is so special about the collection is that it was assembled over many years (initially at the suggestion of Prince Albert, who was a keen advocate of photography) by photographers who acquired the work of other photographers.
The other aspect is that it’s not a closed collection – we’re adding to it all the time. The collection ranges from some of the earliest photographs ever taken in the 1820s, right up to the present day.
Drawn by Light has already been on display in London – how does the Science Museum Group work to share exhibitions?
Media Space in London, which is a collaboration between the Science Museum and the National Media Museum, displayed Drawn By Light for three months prior to it showing at the National Media Museum.
The space runs a programme of temporary photography-based exhibitions throughout the year, which draw from the National Photography Collection, held here in Bradford, and the Science Museum Group’s wider collections, with staff based at both locations working together and organising the shows.
Drawn By Light, Only in England, Stranger Than Fiction and the upcoming Revelations: Experiments in Photography have all opened at Media Space before moving to the National Media Museum.
In some cases they may then tour to other organisations – for example, Only in England, which features photographs by Martin Parr and Tony Ray-Jones, is currently on show at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and has just received funding from Arts Council England to tour further in the UK.
What do you think it is about photography that makes it so popular with audiences?
Photography is one of the most accessible forms of media, now more than ever before. It is an incredibly powerful and rich medium that has so many forms and applications.
A photograph can be many things: a work of art, historical document, piece of evidence, memento mori, sometimes simultaneously. Today’s ubiquity of photography has done nothing to lessen its power.
You’re running some special events to launch the exhibition, including a photographers’ question time on what makes a good photograph – how would you answer this question?
The launch event on 21 March will feature lots of information and opinions about what makes great photography, from gallery tours looking at some of the world’s best examples, to the photographers’ question time.
My take is that there are technical details to think about when considering the quality of a photograph, such as sharpness, correct exposure, balanced composition, but the joy of photography is that “greatness” can transcend the merely technical. For example, Julia Margaret Cameron was a poor technician but a great photographer.
The key criteria of quality is that a photograph should have some resonance with the viewer – be that aesthetic, emotional or indeed, technical.
He has curated permanent galleries on the history of photography and numerous temporary exhibitions including Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, which opens on 20 March (until 21 June) and showcases highlights from the museum’s Royal Photographic Society archive.
Harding has also written books and articles on the history of photography and cinematography, and in 2004 received the Royal Photographic Society's John Dudley Johnston Award for his contributions to photographic history.
What’s so special about the Royal Photographic Society archive?
The Royal Photographic Society Collection is one of the largest and most important photographic collections in the world. It contains about 250,000 images and 10,000 pieces of photographic equipment as well as books, ephemera and manuscripts.
What is so special about the collection is that it was assembled over many years (initially at the suggestion of Prince Albert, who was a keen advocate of photography) by photographers who acquired the work of other photographers.
The other aspect is that it’s not a closed collection – we’re adding to it all the time. The collection ranges from some of the earliest photographs ever taken in the 1820s, right up to the present day.
Drawn by Light has already been on display in London – how does the Science Museum Group work to share exhibitions?
Media Space in London, which is a collaboration between the Science Museum and the National Media Museum, displayed Drawn By Light for three months prior to it showing at the National Media Museum.
The space runs a programme of temporary photography-based exhibitions throughout the year, which draw from the National Photography Collection, held here in Bradford, and the Science Museum Group’s wider collections, with staff based at both locations working together and organising the shows.
Drawn By Light, Only in England, Stranger Than Fiction and the upcoming Revelations: Experiments in Photography have all opened at Media Space before moving to the National Media Museum.
In some cases they may then tour to other organisations – for example, Only in England, which features photographs by Martin Parr and Tony Ray-Jones, is currently on show at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and has just received funding from Arts Council England to tour further in the UK.
What do you think it is about photography that makes it so popular with audiences?
Photography is one of the most accessible forms of media, now more than ever before. It is an incredibly powerful and rich medium that has so many forms and applications.
A photograph can be many things: a work of art, historical document, piece of evidence, memento mori, sometimes simultaneously. Today’s ubiquity of photography has done nothing to lessen its power.
You’re running some special events to launch the exhibition, including a photographers’ question time on what makes a good photograph – how would you answer this question?
The launch event on 21 March will feature lots of information and opinions about what makes great photography, from gallery tours looking at some of the world’s best examples, to the photographers’ question time.
My take is that there are technical details to think about when considering the quality of a photograph, such as sharpness, correct exposure, balanced composition, but the joy of photography is that “greatness” can transcend the merely technical. For example, Julia Margaret Cameron was a poor technician but a great photographer.
The key criteria of quality is that a photograph should have some resonance with the viewer – be that aesthetic, emotional or indeed, technical.