
A new exhibition exploring portrait photography is coming to Bradford Industrial Museum.
The exhibition will look at the relationship between the photographer, the viewer and the subject and how now, in the era of the mobile phone camera and the selfie, the photographer is often all three.
Using collections from Bradford Council’s Museums and Galleries photographic archive, this exhibition will study themes of identity and how different generations have used photography to represent themselves.
It will also look at portrait photography during the Victorian era, especially focusing on photographs taken of Bradford ‘worthies’. Using photographs of Bradford characters it will investigate aspects of ‘worthiness’ and traditional Victorian ideas around portraiture.
In advance of the exhibition, opening in December, curators are inviting members of the public to take part in two photography projects that could see their photos becoming part of the exhibition.
People are being invited to get their family or friends together to recreate a photograph which brings back happy memories. This could be a photo taken at a special event, like a wedding or birthday party, taken on a memorable holiday or day out or from their childhood. People are being invited to gather the same people together at the same location and try and recreate exactly the same photo.
They would also like people to take a selfie portraying ‘me and my Bradford’. This could include a favourite Bradford district place, landmark or bit of Bradford that means something special to them. This project is based on a display in the exhibition which features glass lantern slides of important figures in Bradford society in the late 1800s, who were considered to be worthies and how they portrayed themselves through photographs.