NEW BOOK:

A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog and Empire (University of Chicago Press, Fall 2025)

PODCAST:

New Books Network, interview about my book A Dirty History of Photography (February 2026)

RECENT RESEARCH (2018-2026):

Between 2018 and 2026 I was working on the project that culminated in my book A Dirty History of Photography. This project was initially funded (for 18 months) by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK. As well as the book, the following publications and talks were part of this project, as well as a conference Light | Sensitive | Material (London 2019) and a series of public workshops The Stuff of Photography (London 2019). I also kept an online blog which is still available here.

2026 “Photography’s Dirty History” Public talk and book launch, The Photographers Gallery, London, March 26.

2026 “It was a Dark and Stormy Night: Photography and ‘Darkness’” at Darkness: A Photography Conference, Manchester School of Digital Arts, MMU, Manchester UK, March 19-20.

2026 ““Daughter of Coal” at Goldsmiths, University of London. Organised by MA Art and Politics. March 3.

2026 “Locating Atmosphere in the Photographic Archive” Archivo Webinar Series - Photography in the Age of Ecological Entanglement, February 19.

2025 “Chemistry, Extraction and Sustainability”, In-Conversation event with Dionne Lee and Aspen Mays, moderated by Pablo Larios, at Paris Photo, France, November 13.

2025 “Daughter of Coal” at Chemical Histories of Photography, University of Basel, October 23-25, 2025. Basel, Switzerland.

2025 “The Photographic Fix”, public talk at Fotoforum Frankfurt, as part of The Research Seminar on the History and Theory of Photography 2025: Photography and Movement (Marburg study days), Bildarchiv Foto Marburg and Philipps-Universität Marburg. 31 July 2025.

2025 “Chemical Photography and the Coal Tar Complex” at Sustainable Photography?, Falmouth UK (Terra Falmouth/ the Sustainable Darkroom). 4 June 2025.

2025 “The Meaning of Infra-Red in the 1930s: Ilford Limited and the Houston-Everest Survey Expedition” in ‘Constructing History – The Role of the Visual in Historical Research’ Panel, British History Today, Queen Mary’s, University of London, May 1-2.

2025 “The Significance of Photographic Technologies: Infra-Red and Far-Right Imperialism” At Folkwang, Universität der Künste, Essen (online) 24 April 2025.

2025 “Photography, Poison Gas and Aura”, Photoecologies series, organized by Philosophy of Photography journal (online), 25 February 2025.

2025 “The Stowaway Image: Latency and Photographic Ephemerality,” at Evanescences: Investigating the Ephemeral in Photography and Media History, University of Lausanne, 31 October 31- 1 November 2024.

2024 Camera Geologica / Mining Photography, brief review article in Science Museum Group Journal, 22 (tenth birthday issue)

2024 “Take Me to the River: Place and Material in Visual Culture” in Visual Culture in Britain, 1–6.

2024 “Photography's Other Sensitivities”, Media Theory 8, no 1 (special issue Seeing Photographically).

2024 “Keeping out the Fog: Atmospheric Contamination and Control in the Industrial Darkroom” in Photoresearcher 41, (special issue The Darkroom, ed. Sara Dominici)

2022 “A Lens on the Weather: Historical Perspectives on Photography and Climate”, Public Talk with Professor Georgina Endfield,25 May 2022, as part of the University of Liverpool's Public Lecture Series 2022 on Arts, Sustainability and the Climate Crisis (video)

2022 “ Unseen and Unheard: Photography in the Atmosphere”, keynote at Photo Archives VIII, Basel, Switzerland, 5 May 2022.(video)

2021 Light Sensitive Material, (with Junko Theresa Mikuriya) special issue of photographies, 14 (3), 2021. 2020 “The Worlding of Light and Air: Dufaycolor and Selochrome in the 1930s ”, Visual Culture in Britain, 21 (2), 2020, 177-198.

2018 "Photochemistry, Atmosphere and Affect in the Case of Ilford Limited 1914 –1945", the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre, Birkbeck, London, 5 June 2018.

2018 "‘The Power Behind the Lens’: Photochemistry and the Transformation of Sensory Experience in the Case of Ilford Ltd." at After Post-Photography 4 - Modes of Production, European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, 2018.