Heat and Dust – Captain Linnaeus Tripe’s views of Burma
Even today India and the Far East are not the most hospitable climates for photographers in which to work, so the pictures taken by Captain Linnaeus Tripe – less than twenty years after…
Carleton E. Watkins –
The Great American West
Getty Images’ collection of photographs attributed to Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916) are a wonder of photography in every sense. The nineteenth century plates themselves are an impressive…
Out of the Blue and Into the Black –
Paul Joyce remembers Dennis Hopper
British filmmaker, photographer and painter Paul Joyce first met Dennis Hopper in 1986 while making the documentary Out of the Blue and Into the Black. They became friends and remained so until…
William Grundy:
Reflecting the Victorian Mindset in Photographs
Alongside William England (1830 – 1896), chief photographer for London Stereoscopic Company, previously featured on The Classic Platform, was one of Britain’s other noteworthy stereoscopic…
Reinhold Thiele
Wunderkind and Pioneer
Reinhold Thiele. The tallest and shortest members of the Grenadier Guards, wearing the bearskin cap given to the Guards in honour of their victory at the Battle of Waterloo, circa 1905. Photo by…
Philippe Garner:
An exhibition of his photographs at Hamiltons Gallery
Philippe Garner has been a key figure in the international photography world for over 50 years. He was in charge of the December 1971 sale at Sotheby’s, London, the first specialist photography sale…
William England (1816-1896)
William England is arguably one of the forgotten giants of 19th century British photography and, regretfully, his work is largely overlooked today. Born in London in 1816. England began his…
A Second Lease of Life-
Sitters and PhotographersPart Four: Strawberry (sitter) and Eales (photographer)
This is no ordinary sitter I am writing about this time but one with feathers and a beak: a pigeon. What makes this bird interesting is that it was no ordinary pigeon either but a champion homing…
Restaging Rosalind Fox Solomon’s project Portraits in the Time of AIDS
Interview with Julian Sander
Looking at the images in Rosalind Fox Solomon’s project Portraits in the Time of AIDS 1987 - 1988, I can’t but reflect that while the images were taken not so long ago, it does seem that way. US…
A Second Lease of Life -
Sitters and PhotographersPart Three: Mrs. Budden (sitter) and Dr. Budden (photographer)
I was recently offered an amateur stereo card showing an elderly lady, sitting on a chair on the lawn of a fenced garden. As it appears to be a hot and sunny day she is in the shade of a nearby…
Kurt Hutton – A Pioneering Spirit
More often than not, when discussion turns to the pioneering days of modern photojournalism, a number of names instantly spring to mind. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martin Munkásci and André Kertész are…
A Second Lease of Life -
Sitters and PhotographersPart Two: Mrs Summers (sitter) and Richard Dighton (photographer)
In Mexico it is believed that a person does not really die until their name is spoken for the last time. I must say I like the idea since it seems to give some purpose to the articles I write. As a…
Henri Lefort: The Ultimate Entertainer
A new book, available as a free download
Interview with author Denis Pellerin
First off, we should mention that your new book on Henri Lefort isn’t published in traditional book form. It’s available as a pdf, and it’s completely free to download. What made you opt for this?……
Jerry McMillan on non-objective abstract photography and shooting the LA art scene in the 1960s and ’70s
This is an appendix to the interview with Jerry McMillan in the article “Busting Out of Straight Photography in the 1960s and 70s”, published in issue 7 of The Classic. In the late 1950s, McMillan…
Interview with Anne Strathie, author of Herbert Ponting: Scott’s Antarctic Photographer and Pioneer Filmmaker
(The History Press, 2021)
When and why did you first get interested in the history of Polar exploration and writing about it? – In 1989, after moving to Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, I regularly passed a statue of Edward…
The Monster Whale of Pevensey Bay
Since William Duke of Normandy landed with his troops in Pevensey Bay on 29 September 1066, just a few days before the battle of Hastings that was to make him King of England, nothing much had…
A Second Lease of Life - Sitters and Photographers
Part One: Mrs Alfred de Beauchesne (sitter) and Savary (photographer)
A SECOND LEASE OF LIFE - SITTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS In Mexico it is believed that a person does not really die until their name is spoken for the last time. I must say I like the idea since it…
The night Herschel shared his discovery of the cyanotype process with the world:A letter from Joseph Cundall to Alfred Swaine Taylor
Joseph Cundall and Alfred Swaine Taylor were both multi-faceted individuals with an interest in early photography. Cundall was a popular writer in addition to being a photographer, while…
Letters from Lázsló Moholy-Nagy to Erzsi Landau
A few years ago, collector Silard Isaak acquired six letters and postcards written by Moholy-Nagy between December 1921 and June 1925, addressed to his friend Erzsi Landau, a fellow photographer and…
Rose Boyt - A proposal from Andy Warhol, friends in the bath, and posing for her father, Lucian Freud
For its presentation at the 2021 edition of Paris Photo, London-based England & Co will include a series of works by Rose Boyt, among them a Polaroid of an engagement ring drawn on her finger by…
"Talking French"
A conversation with Philippe Garner about the British fashion photographer
John French
The British fashion photographer John French (1907–1966) has over the years, it seems, been reduced to a mere footnote in the biographies of the two most famous photographers he trained as his…
Ecstatic Light:
Renate Heyne on Moholy-Nagy's Photograms
In 2009, Hatje Cantz published a catalogue raisonné of László Moholy-Nagy’s photograms - the first book to feature all of Moholy-Nagy's nearly 450 known photograms in chronological order. "I…
Wendy Red Star at Joslyn Art Museum:
Re-examining The Indian Congress 1898.
An Interview with Annika Johnson, Associate Curator of Native American Art
In the summer of 1898, over 500 citizens of 35 Native American nations gathered in present-day North Omaha to participate in the Indian Congress. Some had travelled over 800 miles to get there. The…
“La Maison démolie”
Photographs of Egypt by Maxime Du Camp 1849-1850
Each stone contained a word of my story; And I heard booming in my memory The tumultuous swarm of erased dreams. -- “La Maison démolie” Du Camp wrote “La Maison démolie”Les Chants modernes…
The in visibility of Hadji-Ishmael: Maxime Du Camp’s 1850 photographs of Egypt
Our very clear and precise French spirit demands above all to be shown things that are comprehensible at first glance…and quickly tires of vast scenes which seem like those rebuses where one doesn’t…