Photo History East Midlands

Geoff Blackwell ARPS

We have the pleasure of the company of Geoff Blackwell this weekend, who has been enlightening us on the history of photography and how it ends up in Derbyshire; a prequel to Winter's photographers!
We've gone through Nicéphore Niépce, Thomas Wedgewood & Humphry Davy,
Louis Daguerre, and Fox Talbot! Alfred Barber brought the daguerreotype to Nottingham, and by the 1850's there were over 20 studios in Derby!

Geoff Blackwell (centre) in the original photo studio.

Geoff is very kindly going to look into whether 45 Midland Road in the oldest purpose built photo studio in the UK / world. Many earlier studios were added into preexisting spaces.

We're having great feedback from Twitter, do follow us if you have an account!

Many thanks to @WWWinterLtd for a great @heritageopenday. Looking forward to seeing how your #HLFsupported photography project 'develops'!
— HLFEastMids (@HLFEastMids) September 12, 2014

...and Tim Wannacott (currently starring on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing) has been spotted in our window!

Noticed a great portrait of @TimWonnacott in the shop window as I passed @WWWinterLtd in Derby this morning. #bargainhunt #Photography
— martkelly (@martkelly) September 11, 2014

Here is Tim 'behind the scenes' on his visit to the studio after filming with Hubert for the BBC. If you're passing and you see his portrait in our window why not take a selfie with him! :D

Time to Celebrate

We are on a high at the moment - this week we are open for Heritage Open Days AND we have announced phase 1 of our Heritage Lottery Funded archiving project *big cheesy grin*.

Heritage Open Days 2014

In case you've been on Mars and missed all the tweeting, facebook posts and newsletter, we will be open on Thursday 11th, Friday 12th, & Saturday 13th of September as part of National Heritage Open Days. There are many more venues taking place across Derbyshire but we hope you will make a point of dropping in to Winter's for a tour of the premises which this year, in honour of the WW1 centenary will include a few images of British soldiers and German Officer Prisoners of War from the period.
Other lovely points of interest are antique camera equipment, heritage oddments, and the building itself, dating from 1867. You can read a bit more about these on the Heritage Open Days website blog where you can also read about 1000's of exciting heritage events and venues across the UK.

Heritage Lottery Funding

We did it! It has been a long and winding process but phase 1 of our HLF bid has been approved and we are keen to get started.
This will involved preparing a work and storage room, and then on to the interesting bit - working towards archiving the thousands of plate glass negatives. Many of you have kindly already shown interest in volunteering; if it's something you are interested in do get in touch for a volunteer form and we'll take it from there.

Thank you

A quick thank you to everyone who came to last years Heritage Open Days. It was your enthusiasm and support that gave us the memento to take on this endeavour. we also want to thank Jane Middleton-Smith who will be working with us as our professional archivist, and artist-in-residence Debbie Cooper who has been fundamental in guiding us through the process., whilst working on her own project, 'Derby Anon', involving some of our original portraits and the people of Derby (including you?)