George Davison’s medal-winning pin-hole photograph garnered much controversy as the battle between ‘straight’ and pictorial photography raged on.
In 1931 a revolutionary type of microphone housed in an unusual sideways teardrop-shaped capsule was introduced by the BBC. Its oddly-shaped housing earned it the nickname ‘the bomb’.
The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, are taking place in Sochi, Russia.
Associate Curator Ruth Kitchin picks some photographic highlights from John Thomson’s 19th-century album Foochow and the River Min.
This miniature gilt locket with pull out concertina of 12 albumen prints is a photographic souvenir from the wedding of the world’s most famous little people.
After the sad news of Ray Harryhausen’s death, we give an update on our plans to acquire and house the Harryhausen Collection.
Backdrops and drapery have been used for as long as photographers have been taking photographs, but one of the strangest uses was by Lewis Carroll in 1865.
Iain Logie Baird takes a look at some of the children’s television puppets we’ve acquired as part of the BBC Collection—from Bill and Ben to the Fimbles.
As TV Licensing announces that there are now fewer than 12,000 black and white TV licensees remaining in Britain, Iain Baird looks back at the decline of black and white.
As is tradition, our film-loving staff—and a few friends—were asked to choose five favourite new films that they saw in a public space in 2013. Did we miss any gems?
Christmas is a popular subject in the Photographic Advertising Limited archive. The photographs, unsurprisingly, suggest joy, goodwill… and overspending.
We’ll be making hundreds of images from the world’s largest public collection of Cameron portraits available online as part of a year-long digitisation project.