Beneath the surface

Interesting but bitty exhibition at Somerset House of early photographs from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection loosely on the theme of things which are hidden.

I loved the early section with view of London by William Strudwick who was the photographic store keeper at the V&A itself. There were pictures of the Embankment area before it was built and of old coaching inns. They often had blurred ghosts of children in them who’d moved through the shot while it was taken. They also had pictures of Prout’s journey along them Thames recording it from the 1860s which I am sure I’ve come across before.

There was a room which looked at water both above and below the surface including early examples of photo manipulation and Elizabeth Walker’s picture of the surface of water.

From it’s opening the V&A employed an in-house photographer, the earliest being Charles Thurston Thompson as Henry Cole recognised the important of photography for recording the collection and promoting it, and there were good examples of his work.

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