Friday 25 September 2015

Derby Operatic Company

Derby Heritage

We had another lovely few Heritage Open Days at the beginning of September and were lucky enough again to receive more Winter's original photographs from visitors, one of whom brought in a copy of a Derby Opera Company souvenir programme.

Commercial Photography

Hubert remembers doing regular work for Derby Theatre and Derby Operatic Company, and we were delighted to flick through the pages of the programme for the production of Glamorous Night by Ivor Novello.
You can see from the souvenir programme that the Derby Opera Company was established in 1891, and in the year of the production (1955) was performing at Derby Hippodrome Theatre.
It includes some fantastic portrait photography of the company by Hubert King who rembers cast members coming to the studio on a Sunday morning, ready in their costumes and make up.
I particularly like the portait of Company President, R. P. Williamson, with his fabulous pipe!

The progamme includes a number of adverts and it's good to see a couple of Winter's fellow Derby icons; Foulds, and Bennets.
Winter's still specilaises in portraiture - do come in for a new one or to share your old Winter's photos!

Friday 11 September 2015

Photographic History Course

Free Online Course on Photographic History

 

The University of Edinburgh are running an online course on the history of photography from the daguerreotype to the imapct of the cheap kodak camera.

"Explore the Victorian craze for photography, examine its history, from the earliest images in 1839 and how it has influenced the way we capture and share images today as photography moved from being a niche concern of the few, to one of the most important cultural forms of the modern world."

At Winters we will be studying the course from 12 October along with archivist Jane Middleton-Smith, artist Debbie Cooper and some of our brilliant heritage volunteers. We invite you to join us and share your experience and thoughts!
You can sign up for the course on here: https://www.coursera.org/course/vicphoto
The course runs for 5 weeks and requires from 1 to 3 hours study per week.