A class-mate invited me to Dulwich art gallery to see a small exhibition of Chinese photographs, taken in 1903-1905. They were mainly showing a visit by Reginald Johnson, tutor to the last Emperor of China, when he was a young man, visiting the place where Confucious was born. The quality of the photos was amazing, so I imagine they must have been subject to a lot of modern restorative techniques. I know they can do a lot with film nowadays but didn't realise they could restore and enlarge prints so well. Maybe they're taken from the original plates.

I've only been to the gallery a couple of times for special exhibitions, partly because it takes nearly an hour to get there on the P4 from where I live, but it's is a delightful little gallery and they've recently improved the facilities for vistors.There's a cafe at the back, off a glass-walled walkway with one side open and overlooking a lawn with trees. There was a group of people sketching with a tutor and then they came into a workshop divided from the walkway by a glass wall. There's another exhibition, of Dutch paintings, on at the moment. I think I'll try the train next time, though.

Sheila

Blimey - you do get around!

Sheila, that's my local! And the first purpose built public art gallery in the world...

I don't think the quality of the photographs is necessarily all about modern techniques. I have seen that exhibition (not made the Dutchmen yet) and I can't remember if they're original prints, but they may well be. The sheer quality of photographs from the time when wet-plate collodion processes came in (in the 1850s I think - oh dear, I really used to knw this stuff) is quite remarkable, and if they were properly printed and stored there's no reason for them to deteriorate significantly in a century or so. The progress that photographic technology has made since then is almost entirely in the greater portability of the cameras, and the finer grain so that bigger enlargements are possible. But the kind of big plate cameras and the emulsions those photos would have been using have yet to be bettered for sheer quality.

I found it fascinating to realise that the European having the pictures taken is the same man who later became the Last Emperor's tutor, as played by Peter O'Toole in that wonderful (Bertolucci?) movie...

Emma

Emma, I've recently been enjoying the Theo episodes of your book on audiotape, so of course I see the connection.

Having seen a few restored films at the BFI, I thought they might employ the same sort of techniques.

My main purpose in seeing the photos was the Chinese connection - I'm doing some intermittent research on the last Emperor - so it was good to see Reginald Johnson as a young man, as well as all the Chinese dignatories and settings.

I've spent months/years proof-reading a photography thesis on Gestalt theory (about the psychology of perception) for a Taiwanese ex-language partner (He was doing an MA at Goldsmiths when we first met) so I was quite interested in the exhibits as photographs.

Yes, I do have the Bertolucci DVD, but there are a few Chinese versions.

Sheila

SB, if you stick with London long enough you eventually get a free travel pass. Mine looks a bit frayed, I must admit.

Sheila

Gosh, that PhD thesis sounds fascinating, and so Goldsmiths...

I think I'm right in saying that the problem with films that need restoring isn't so much the emulsion - though the need for it to be fast (=light-sensitive) is why early moving pictures looks pretty fuzzy compared to their still contemporaries - as the film it's on, and how well the emulsion does (or doesn't) stick to it: the film had to be very flexible, too. Whereas they'd been printing glass negs onto paper for half a century by then, and a lot of the problems had been ironed out or don't apply.

If you come down this way again do drop me a line, and we could meet for coffee if I'm around. (And you could try a bus to Peckham, and then a 12 to Dulwich Library and walk through the park, it might well be quicker...)

Emma

Luke's thesis is comes under the aegis of Durham University and is connected with his university teaching . There was a compulsory year in Durham but he's currently sending me appendices to correct from Taiwan. It's a ground-breaking course because photography there has been regarded as a strictly technical subject, concerned with apertures and shutter speeds and the like - which students still have to learn, of course. I can understand this approach - I knew a photographer who was attached to the fire service, and his photos were used as evidence to settle insurance claims -the moment frozen in time, as you'd say. (Your book reminds me of the film 'Blow-up' because of the instruction scenes in the dark-room)

I think Luke's must be an MA dissertation, because the format reminds me of a Goldsmith's-based one I did in the eighties, although mine was about small-group discussion and language acquisition. He has had to come up with a hypothesis, ie that photography students can benefit from being taught Gestalt theory, draw up a teaching programme, and then teach it to a select group over a couple of semesters, recording and analysing results and outcomes with lots of references to appropriate authoities. The students also kept diaries to record their impressions of of presentations, discussions and practical photography sessions, which he had to translate (they're in Chinese) and transcribe.

It's been a labour of love to correct (it's had to be; I'm not being paid) and fascinating because all the theories apply to pictorial art in general and he often used paintings as illustrations to the theory. So it's a kind of crash art theory course for me, too.

Thanks for the travel tips - I thought I might try the train route as well. I'll let you know when I'm next in the area in case you are free.

Sheila