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Michelle Henning

@michellehenning.bsky.social

1.4K followers 1.4K following 340 posts

Prof at Uni of Liverpool and artist. I write on photography, media, museums, ISOTYPE, modernism, environment & atmosphere. Photography: The Unfettered Image (2018) & A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog & Empire, Chicago UP (Fall 2025)

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Apr 17

I have a book cover! Cover image is by Wolfgang Suschitzky of a woman jumping a puddle on Charing Cross Rd in 1937. Cover b/w and silver. Details of book now on @uchicagopress.bsky.social at press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Image of the book cover of a dirty history of photography by Michelle Henning, the front cover image is a black and white photo showing a woman’s legs as she leaps over a puddle in a road.

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 8h

I’m off to Basel soon for this:

Poster for Chemical Histories of Photography symposium

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 17h

It’s a rare academic article that uses the word “peristaltic”! Loved it, made me think about the photographic factories and how open/ closed to visitors they were and how they also used the white uniforms to signify both the purity of the product and an implied moral purity.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 18h

Hurray! Reading it over a cooked breakfast!

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 1d

This is a really useful thread, thankyou. As a UK professor (now) and previously lecturer- I have never fully understood the US system and what “tenure” means.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 1d

Mine too- it was admittedly bad last year but 3 weeks into the new semester I’ve had very high attendance.

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 2d

Agreed!

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 4d

Good question! As I understand it, resin coated papers use polyethylene, and were introduced in around the 1960s. However my book’s focus is mainly on the interwar period. So it predates PFAs, though I mention them, as the river Roding in Ilford, is extremely contaminated by them.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 9d

Gernsheim was influenced by it according to an oral history at the British Library- Newhall reviewed it very negatively- it contradicted his attempt to create a style-based history of photography

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 10d

It influenced Lucia Moholy’s underrated 1939 book A Hundred years of Photography which in turn had a strong impact on…

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 10d

Oh no Ros! I’m sorry I didn’t know you are ill. I hope you get better quickly, that sounds horrible.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 11d

I just bought yours! Can’t wait to read it.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 12d

Oak gall ink was used a lot for legal papers because it penetrates the paper and is impossible to erase, but sometimes it burns through the paper as well so the middles of O and P (etc) drop out.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 12d

I’ve written a bit about oak galls and their role in the first photographic developer in my book that comes out in December. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... - I love the idea that a wasp and a tree colluded in photographic chemistry.

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · 13d

Just listened to @alicelovejoy.bsky.social on this podcast and her new book sounds brilliant (and very close to my interests) podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...

Alice Lovejoy,

Podcast Episode · New Books in Photography · 02/09/2025 · 37m

podcasts.apple.com

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 28

Hang on this is the wrong way round. Nevertheless…

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 28

I think it’ll be fine if accompanied by “whereby” and “nonetheless”. If you can squeeze in “whither” that would be the cherry on the induction cake.

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 28

I’ve never written whomsoever, however

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 28

I’ve never heard of most of the others! In the UK Golden Delicious are best avoided ( insipid and woolly) but I also haven’t seen them for years. Everyone seems to eat Braeburns here but I have some different trees - I think Cox’s Orange Pippins, they rattle when they are ripe.

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 27

I’m betting against the golden delicious

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 26

I’m embarrassed to admit it but I’m always having to cut “however”.

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 19

I was rejected from a journal at the start of my career. It took me 10 years before I could face submitting to another journal (instead I wrote chapters and books but not journal articles, I took it so personally). I don’t have any particular neurodivergence to my knowledge.

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Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 19

Moving this over to Tidal in anticipation of closing our Spotify account when we get time…

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 13

Hard to outdo Horrible Histories

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Aug 8

Doing my index- it’s a funny portrait of the book- here are some entries under p…

An index from photography complex to pollution

Michelle Henning @michellehenning.bsky.social · Jul 16

Ooh- looking forward to reading this, I find the ILN fascinating