Colin Harding is the curator of photography and photographic technology at the National Media Museum (NMM) in Bradford and has curated Drawn by Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, which runs in the Media Space gallery at the Science Museum, London, until 1 March. It is at NMM from 20 March to 21 June.
What’s so special about the Royal Photographic Society Collection?
It is a society rather than an institutional collection, put together by photographers for other photographers. It’s the oldest in the world and still collecting. A recent acquisition was Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl portrait from National Geographic in 1985.
Can photography still amaze in the age of the phone camera?
People will be surprised, amused, saddened and shocked by the displays. For example, there’s a photo of the odd selection of objects found in an ostrich’s stomach after a post-mortem in the 1920s, and a colour image that looks like it has stepped out of a 1980s Vogue but is actually an autochrome by Mervyn O’Gorman taken before the first world war.
Is it difficult to mount a static exhibition when audiences expect whizz-bang stimuli?
People are returning to the idea of seeing an original image. Technology does have its place though: we are recreating a typical salon hang of the 1850s with pictures at different heights, and visitors use touchscreens to explore them.
What is the experts’ view on how photography has developed?
When I was at the Science Museum many moons ago, I remember being excited to acquire the latest technology of the time – disc cameras from Kodak – only for a rep to arrive from Olympus to show off his brand new digital gadget. Now we have generations who have never experienced the thrill of taking snaps in to be developed, the anticipation of opening the packet on the journey home and the crushing dread of the “quality control” sticker.
Is that a bad thing?
The flipside of deleting imperfect images is that we are losing the kind of images that can really mean something about the time – the group of friends shot in which a tree appears out of someone’s head and things like that.
People often say that photographs are old-fashioned because they’re two-dimensional but they have a presence, a weight, a texture. When you look at a photograph, you bring all your accumulated thoughts, assumptions and prejudices to it. Perhaps that’s why there is nothing worse than having to sit through someone else’s holiday slideshow.
What’s so special about the Royal Photographic Society Collection?
It is a society rather than an institutional collection, put together by photographers for other photographers. It’s the oldest in the world and still collecting. A recent acquisition was Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl portrait from National Geographic in 1985.
Can photography still amaze in the age of the phone camera?
People will be surprised, amused, saddened and shocked by the displays. For example, there’s a photo of the odd selection of objects found in an ostrich’s stomach after a post-mortem in the 1920s, and a colour image that looks like it has stepped out of a 1980s Vogue but is actually an autochrome by Mervyn O’Gorman taken before the first world war.
Is it difficult to mount a static exhibition when audiences expect whizz-bang stimuli?
People are returning to the idea of seeing an original image. Technology does have its place though: we are recreating a typical salon hang of the 1850s with pictures at different heights, and visitors use touchscreens to explore them.
What is the experts’ view on how photography has developed?
When I was at the Science Museum many moons ago, I remember being excited to acquire the latest technology of the time – disc cameras from Kodak – only for a rep to arrive from Olympus to show off his brand new digital gadget. Now we have generations who have never experienced the thrill of taking snaps in to be developed, the anticipation of opening the packet on the journey home and the crushing dread of the “quality control” sticker.
Is that a bad thing?
The flipside of deleting imperfect images is that we are losing the kind of images that can really mean something about the time – the group of friends shot in which a tree appears out of someone’s head and things like that.
People often say that photographs are old-fashioned because they’re two-dimensional but they have a presence, a weight, a texture. When you look at a photograph, you bring all your accumulated thoughts, assumptions and prejudices to it. Perhaps that’s why there is nothing worse than having to sit through someone else’s holiday slideshow.
