James_AL_Downs

@magiclantern.bsky.social

4008 Followers 3712 Following

Writer: 'Anton Walbrook' (2020) 'Joseph Pike' (2018) & 'A Carnal Medium' (2012), photohistorian, archivist of Middle East collections at Exeter University, runs the Digital Archive of the Middle East (https://dame.exeter.ac.uk/), collector & bibliophile

Photo of tree trunk in woodlands with autumn leaves
Photo of a large pond filled with water lilies and surrounded by trees
Photo of a tabby cat sitting in s hallway on a wooden floor
Poster for an 'Archive of Defiance', a digital resource of images, videos and other documents on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests and other solidarity movements
Front cover of a catalogue from the Arab Republic of Egypt Railways Museum
Certificate of authenticity for a bust of Osiris, signed by Ralph Huntington Blanchard, proprietor of Blanchard’s Egyptian Museum in Cairo
Front cover of a 1960s paperback copy of J.D. Salinger's 'Franny and Zooey'
Photo of a doorway off a cobbled courtyard, decorated with artwork and coloured cloth
Photo of a figurine of the Infant Jesus, wearing a Mexican football strip, on display in a church in Mexico
Picture of the front and back covers of a book, 'Migration to the Gulf in the Arabic Novel' by Nadeen Dakkak, illustrated with a colourful painting of someone seated next to a lizard, surrounded by fragments of Arabic text
Photo of a dried out husk of a discarded insect nymph skin on a green leaf
Photo of a hardback book on a wooden shelf, with a white cover and the title 'Echo of a Loved Voice. The Letters of Abbot Anscar Vonier' printed alongside a black and white photo of a young monk in a black habit wearing an abbatial pectoral cross
Framed photograph of Queen Elizabeth II being presented with the ancient Honours of Scotland (the Crown, the Sceptre, and the Sword of State) in a ceremony inside St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, on 24 June 1953
Photograph of four American progressive magazine covers from the early 1970s, featuring the Berrigan brothers and discussing topics on civil resistance and political protest
Photo of a tabby cat on a tabletop standing next to some books and a laptop
Photo of a glass of an amber liquid with a straw and slice of orange, on a marble table with a bar in the background
Photo of a selection of American magazines and newspapers from the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of them representing alternative or counter-cultural viewpoints
Image of an engraved page, showing a circular illustration of a couple playing an early form of badminton with the caption 'Love, Like a Ball, Requires to be Thrown Back' and an accompanying verse
Black and white photograph by Tish Murtha (1956-2013) showing children jumping off a wall onto a pile of mattresses
Photograph of the front cover of a book by Peter Schill, 'Réveiller l'archive d'une guerre coloniale. Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre, 1911-1912' showing a sepia image of Italian soldiers in Libya during their 1911-12 invasion
Photo of a Watkins Bee Meter with instructions for calculating exposure times using revolving circular tables
Photo of a round stone monument in a field of red earth with hills behind
Photograph of a churchyard in early morning light with a mossy recumbent gravestone in the foreground and other graves behind, plus trees on the horizon
Photo of the covers of eleven Arabic language books with illustrated covers
Photo of a long stairwell with beige walls and a handrail to the right
Photograph of a 1972 printed letter signed by Edith Tiger from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC) about the current threat to Constitutional rights in the USA
Photo of a small clapper bridge over a water leat next to a hawthorn tree with moors in the background
Photo of a small clapper bridge over a dried-up water channel next to a hawthorn tree
Photograph of a damselfly on a leaf, with a long iridescent blue body and its amber wings folded back above
Engraving showing a grave in a forest, with a simple wooden cross and some armadillos
Image for a talk on 'Early Photography in Devon' with three images on a black slide screen beneath the title. The images show old cameras, a group of Victorian photographers and a scene from a mid-19th century photographic portrait studio with a man sitting down in front of the photographer with his camera
Photo of twelve handpainted colour magic lantern slides showing nineteenth century views of places in Palestine, mostly related to Biblical subjects
Photo of a large illustrated book by Thomas Suarez, 'Palestine Mapped. From the River to the Sea in Early Geographic Thought'
Woodcut image showing a small wooden boat on the surface of the sea, with a monk and other crew in the boat, and beneath the water a large selection of fish, rays and other sea creatures
Photo of a narrow gorge with thick moss and bracken
Photo of a stone sculpted with an image of a bull
Photo of the cover of a book in Persian on Qeshm Island, described as 'the uncut pearl in the Persian Gulf'.
Photograph of a 2000+ year old clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform writing and astronomical diagrams
Photograph of actor Anton Walbrook as Dr Falke in the film 'Oh, Rosalinda!!' (1955), dressed in a dinner jacket and white tie, against an artificial interior background of plants and statues
Photo of a blue and yellow wooden 'peepshow' kiosk with the words 'Take a Peep' written on the side
Photo of bluebells on the earthen ramparts of sn old hillfort with trees on the top
Photo of a book cover with the title 'Du Dhofar a Bahrein' and two colour photographs
Photograph of authors Zakia Sewell and Mark Norman, seated on stools at a 'Finding Albion' booktalk at The Bookery, Crediton, with Zakia's green book on the table between them
Photo of dog-shaped rock on Dartmoor
Photo of a large granite outcrop with a stone on top balanced on a natural fulcrum beneath, and the silhouette of Haytor on the horizon behind
Photo of rocky outcrops on wooded slops beneath a blue sky
Photo of the square stone ruins of a Roman temple on a grassy slope beneath a blue sky
Photo of a rooftop silhouette of two animal shapes against a cloudy blue sky
Photo of Hellebore journal with its covee image of a girl smelling flowers, on a tabletop
Photograph of the cover of a hardback book on a tabletop, with the title 'All She Lost: The Explosion in Lebanon, the Collapse of a Nation and the Women who Survive' printed in white over a photo of a woman in a damaged building carrying a Lebanese flag
Photo of a pile of several sheets of printed text, including old photographic illustrations
Photo of tv screen with dsrk blue background, the words 'Schools and Colleges' on the centre of a circle of dots above the number 2
Photo of a terraced house with a nlue plaque above the doorway
Photo of front cover of a book entitled 'Capture Spiral'
Photograph of an 18th century Palladian bridge over an ornamental lake with trees in the background
Photo of a crystal glass containing a cocktail and ice, with two straws and candied ginger on a stick