Photography pioneer goes digital

Blackleaf

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Some of the earliest photos ever taken have gone on show to celebrate the life of pioneering photographer William Henry Fox Talbot.

More than 1,000 photos can be seen on a new website produced by the Bodleian Libraries in the University of Oxford.

It aims to bring together the complete works of the Victorian photographer Fox Talbot.

Prof Larry J Schaaf, project director, said there had been "nothing like this before in the history of photography".

Thousands of William Henry Fox Talbot photos go online


11 February 2017
BBC News


Portraits of Fox Talbot feature in the collection of negatives

Some of the earliest photos ever taken have gone on show to celebrate the life of pioneering photographer William Henry Fox Talbot.

More than 1,000 photos can be seen on a new website produced by the Bodleian Libraries in the University of Oxford.

It aims to bring together the complete works of the Victorian photographer Fox Talbot.

Prof Larry J Schaaf, project director, said there had been "nothing like this before in the history of photography".

The Talbot Catalogue Raisonne marks the anniversary of Fox Talbot's birthday, which was 11 February 1800.

Hailed as the British father of photography Fox Talbot took the first photographic negative from a window at his home in Lacock, Wiltshire, in 1835.


A latticed window in Lacock Abbey, photographed by Talbot in 1835. Shown here in positive form, this may be the oldest extant photographic negative made in a camera



The Fruit Sellers was taken in September 1845 at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire and the shot required the sitters to hold a pose for up to 10 seconds

Born in Melbury Abbas, Dorset, Fox Talbot established the three primary elements of the photographic process: developing, fixing, and printing using paper coated with silver iodide.

During his career he created more than 4,500 images - about 25,000 of his original negatives and prints are thought to still exist.


The collection includes images of botany like this Three Botanical Specimens taken in about 1840

The Bodleian spent two years raising £2.1m needed to buy the private collection of photos, letters and diaries.

The catalogue of early Victorian photographic images is expected to grow to 25,000 images by 2018.


Fox Talbot took this photo of the Royal Exchange in London between winter 1844 and spring 1845


Fox Talbot took hundreds of images of early cityscapes including this of Nelson's Column under construction in Trafalgar Square in the first week of April 1844


Westminster from the Hungerford Market - London across the Thames, taken in June 1841


Lacock Abbey towards Sharington Tower in about 1844. As well as being the location for many of Talbot's photographs, the abbey is today also renowned as being the location where some interior scenes in the films Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were filmed

Thousands of William Henry Fox Talbot photos go online - BBC News
 
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Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
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Some more Fox Talbot photos in today's Sun on Sunday:


This image shows a reclining Lady Elizabeth Feilding on April 20 1842


The collection includes some from Talbot’s travels, such as this view of the Boulevards in Paris from May 1843


Many of the shots feature the surroundings around Oxford, like this image of Queen’s College


Talbot’s wife, Constance, pictured with her daughters by a wooden gazebo in 1842


First ever photo of Oxford, 1842


One of the thousands of images on the site is of Magdalen Bridge in Oxford, July 30 1842


Sir Walter Scott’s Monument in Edinburgh as it appeared mid-construction during October 1844

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2841886/earliest-black-and-white-photographs-victorian-britain/

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