THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANTS
Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
When: 17-18 June 2024
Where: Hybrid event, Online and at De Montfort University, Leicester.
* Downloadable conference programme
Follow us on X @PHRC_DeMontfort
Conference hashtag #PHRC24
There have always been unacknowledged or under-acknowledged forces that operate around photography. Some of them are human, like family members, camera assistants, darkroom personnel, curators, editors and the like. Others are non-human, like algorithms, chemicals, equipment of various sorts and transportation. The explosion of AI has pushed the field of photography studies to once again consider the practices surrounding photographs, but has at the same time neglected existing assistants like the skills force, the editors, image technicians, programmers, curators, and historians that enable and narrate photographic making. In the face of so many assistants, the primacy of the photographer as a central person through whom we understand photography recedes.
In this PHRC 2024 conference, speakers will consider the role and agency of human and non-human assistants in the making, collecting and dissemination of photographs. The papers to be delivered will employ diverse methodological perspectives that not only enlarge the notion of the photographic assistant, but also consider the role of those assistants (or that assistance) in the formation of photographic practices, images, archives and histories.
Papers will consider topics related to themes like:
- Technological, physical or chemical photographic assistants
- Catalysts like War and Conflict, the Environment, and Race as assistants to photographic practices
- Non-human assistants
- Senses as photographic assistants
- History of assistants and their changing roles
- Agency of the Assistant
- Issues of authorship
- Practice as a collaborative endeavour
- Supply lines and transportation
As in recent previous years, we offer a hybrid conference, allowing speakers and delegates to participate remotely or on site.
Registration costs:
Conference Dinner — £46.00
Students, unwaged and DMU staff/ Conference Speakers, 2 days (in person) — £60.00
Standard Day Ticket, 1 day (in person) — £45.00
Students, unwaged and DMU staff/ Conference Speakers, 1 day (in person) — £30.00
Standard Ticket, 2 days (in person) — £90.00
Online Attendance External (1 or both days) — £35.00
Online Attendance Students, unwaged and DMU staff/ Conference Speakers (1 or both days) — £20
* Registration now open and you can book your place HERE
Photographic History 