This months photos come from anonymous donor, iC3N1. It might not be entirely natural, but I love the colour contrasts in these photos. They make the Library and even Newton look like they're glowing with an almost iridescent nature, a lovely image to start summer at the Library with.





Have you taken a great photo of the Library?  I’d love to hear from you at olivia.fine-at-bl.uk

Please note: You can take photos in the public areas of the Library, but not within our exhibition areas or Reading Rooms. You are also not allowed to bring in a tripod.

This month's photographs of the month come from Steve Cadman. What I particularly like about these photos is how they capture the bright white light together with the dark corners of the Library. It demonstrates that the Library is an open and welcoming place but at the same time you can find a quiet corner to completely immerse yourself in the wonderful rescources we have.

This month I have decided to choose only one photograph for photos of the month. This beautifully abstract photograph comes from Jonty Howe, who has perfectly encapsulated the modernist style of the Library's St Pancras building. It might not look familiar but this is a photo of the ceiling and just goes to show how inspiration can be found anywhere.

Have you taken a great photo of the Library?  I’d love to hear from you at frances.taylor-at-bl.uk

Please note: You can take photos in the public areas of the Library, but not within our exhibition areas or Reading Rooms. You are also not allowed to bring in a tripod.

 

The British Library was separated from the British Museum in 1973, however it was not until 1997 that it was able to move into its new purpose built home in Kings Cross. This month's photographs by John Oram show just how much of an extensive project it was!

Have you taken a great photo of the Library?  I’d love to hear from you at frances.taylor-at-bl.uk

Please note: You can take photos in the public areas of the Library, but not within our exhibition areas or Reading Rooms. You are also not allowed to bring in a tripod.

Image: Competition winner Ketchup on Everything at Spring Market 2012

Are you a designer or maker? Have you used the Library to develop your ideas? Win a stand at our Spring Market on Monday 4 March 2013 on the British Library Piazza in London. The Market is part of our Spring Festival and will show off the work of ten of the most innovative jewellery, fashion, homeware and craft designers who have used the British Library.

If you have attended an event, used our Business & IP Centre, seen an exhibition or have a Reader Pass you are eligible to enter. We have up to 5,000 visitors at any one time.

You’ll be able to exhibit and sell your products to our visitors for the day, get experience and training in running a market stall, gain free business advice through our Business & IP Centre, plus lots of marketing and press exposure.

You can find out more on our website

As the nights are getting darker earlier and earlier, this month's Flickr photos of the month are from EO1 capturing this amazing sunset on the Euston Road.

Have you taken a great photo of the Library?  I’d love to hear from you at frances.taylor-at-bl.uk

Please note: You can take photos in the public areas of the Library, but not within our exhibition areas or Reading Rooms. You are also not allowed to bring in a tripod.

Last week I interviewed Rosie Tate from Cath Tate Cards. Cath Tate Cards design and sell greeting cards and gifts using original photographs from the early to mid twentieth century that have been revamped and perfectly matched with funny captions. She is also taking part in the Library's Innovating for Growth programme.

How did Cath Tate start?

My mum, Cath Tate, started using photomontage to comment on current affairs about thirty years ago. She mainly sold postcards of her own work to small alternative bookshops and became well known in feminist networks and she started commissioning the work of women cartoonists. She started publishing their work onto postcards and this led on to greeting cards in the early 1990’s. They made knitting patterns presentable, added captions to photographs to make them into funnies. This led to our still going strong “Photocaptions” range. They took Edwardian pictures and added a funny, relatable caption, this was when Cath Tate Cards became more mainstream and started selling in places like Oxfam, John Lewis and independent stores. I joined Cath Tate Cards about eighteen months ago. After working in the TV industry for sometime I knew I had a creative nature but didn’t see my future in TV.  I started my own range called “Life is Rosie”, using more modern photographs, so it had a slightly different feel to my mum’s range but still in the same vein.

Where do you find your inspiration?

The greeting cards industry is very competitive so for us it’s really important that the reader can easily relate to the caption. The caption is the most important element of the card because that’s what makes it funny. That’s why we try to keep it fairly simple; we don’t want it to be too removed from everyday life and it has to have a personal nature. Generally we start with a caption and then find the right image for it. I’m often inspired by everyday experiences. For example having lunch with my friends inspired the Champagne diet card, which reads “Gluten free, dairy free, fat free, I love this champagne diet”. It’s also about thinking what captions you would buy for a particular occasion. It can be tricky sometimes though because humour is so subjective. The photographs we find can also inspire us. We don’t like using stock photographs, all our photographs are originals and it really adds a feeling of authenticity. Generally, we find them at vintage postcard fairs or people’s personal collections, so the future might have a few problems because less and less people are printing their photographs due to digitisation.

What’s next for Cath Tate?

We’ve already started increasing our product range with small gifts like mugs, magnets and coasters but we’re hoping to expand further into this market as well as building on our online presence. The website now has a retail element to it, which is also proving quite successful. Currently we do have a personalisation service through a secondary company but our aim is to produce this ourselves so that we can compete better in the market. Ultimately we produce cards so that people can send a message. Although digital communication has become so important, I think people will always like sending greeting cards. There’s still something very personal to receiving a paper card. The digital age can’t currently replace reading a handwritten message from friends or family. Although we want to look at ways to innovate with new technology, we never want to lose the core of our cards and gifts; which is simply a funny message between two people.

This blog was written by our Creative Industries Marketing Assistant and Intern Olivia Fine.

Casey Moore, a London based photographer and artist, shares his passion for stamps and photography with us. He has been exploring the British Library Philatelic collections for his work.

You can watch his film below:

The Stamp Project - Casey Moore from Slipstream Media on Vimeo.

 

Can you tell me a little bit about what you do?

I am a photographer using primarily large format film cameras and a specially built darkroom to produce big hand made prints. Recently my work has concentrated on inflating small objects to a pictorial scale, bringing to life and celebrating details that are often overlooked.

What is the story behind your stamps project?

My great grandfather was a philatelist, buying and selling stamps for a living in New Zealand. He wrote many books on stamps and also designed the iconic Kiwi stamp from 1935. His collection is kept and added to by my mother so I have access to this incredible catalogue. I use the large-format film camera and hard lighting to show off the craftsmanship in the etching. There is so much cultural and historical information in these stamps and the large printing in the darkroom (up to 5 ft wide) really brings them to life.

Photographing tiny items and blowing them up to such a huge scale must have its technical challenges.  Can you tell me about the process?

There are a number of difficulties which stem from wanting to put something onto film which is smaller than the piece of film itself. These include light fall-off from the long bellows required for magnification, to reciprocity failure - where the film takes inordinately long to record the image and also diffraction which makes the image look soft and fuzzy. I have customised my methods to try and balance out these problems but they all remain to some degree. Then the darkroom has been built to be able to make the most of my 3m high enlarger. My cousin and I built five troughs which take 25 litres of chemicals each and a 2.5m x 1.5m sink as the prints require washing in running water for a minimum of 1hr. Producing the 5 ft prints by hand is great fun but is also difficult with a high ratio of failures as the prints are easily damaged during processing - all of which makes producing them very expensive!

How did you come across the British Library’s collections and how have they helped you?

A good artist friend Adam Bray told me about the Philatelic collection at the British Library. After making contact with one of the curators, Paul Skinner, and showing him my prints I have had a number of conversations about the themes I am exploring with the stamps and obviously he knows so much more so he can tell me if I have missed something. He and and the Head of the Philatelic Collection David Beech also really helped with my methods for photographing the stamps. I had been worried that my mounting and lighting methods might have detrimental long-term effects on the stamps and with their help I've come up with a new way of doing it which I'm much happier with. They also gave me a bag of stamp hinges which are no longer in production and are much better than modern hinges - where else could this have happened!

Do you have a favourite stamp?

My great grandfather Raymond JG Collins designed the kiwi stamp for the 2nd pictorial edition in New Zealand. It is such a beautiful and well known image in New Zealand and making my big prints of this image makes me really proud. 

Stamps seem to be being used increasingly for creative purposes, any thoughts?

Stamps are such lovely objects and are produced for a really noble intention so I don't think they will ever go out of fashion but it's fair to say that the old ones made using intaglio printing (which stopped around the 60's) have a quality that modern ones simply can't match. The way intaglio printing impressed the ink upon the stamp gave them a 3rd dimension plus the original engraving was made by hand so they are so interesting and beautiful to photograph and enlarge. There is a famous quote by Hundertwasser which really sums up how and why stamps are special and why I only photograph stamps that have actually been sent rather than ones which were quickly put away in an album and remain in 'mint' condition: -

"This tiny, rectangular piece of paper links the hearts of the sender and receiver. It is a bridge between peoples and nations. The stamp knows no borders. It reaches us even in prisons, asylums, and hospitals, and wherever we may be on earth. Stamps should be ambassadors of art and life and not simply soulless proofs of postage paid. The stamp must experience its destiny. The stamp must once again fulfil its purpose, which means it must serve on letters. A true stamp must feel the tongue of the sender moistening its gum. A stamp must be stuck on a letter. A stamp must experience the dark depths of the post box. A stamp must suffer franking. A stamp must sense the hand of the postman handing the letter to the addressee....The stamp is the only work of art that everyone can own, young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick, educated and ignorant, free or robbed of freedom..."