EuropeanaPhotography

New information:

• 29 Jan 2015. The successful completion of the project was noted with the foundation of PHOTOCONSORTIUM - an International Association for the promotion of photographic heritage. The NALIS Foundation is a full member in the organisation.
  
• 29-30 Jan 2015. The EuropeanaPhotography Final Conference The Impact of Digitization on Photographic Heritage: Memories Reframed took place at the KU Leuven. See Evgeni Dimitrov’s presentation shading light on various aspects of the Bulgarian collection to which contributed 18 institutions and private collectors.
  
• 15 May 2014. On this date opens the exhibitionWriters through the Photographers' Lens. It is organised by the NALIS Foundation and the America for Bulgaria Foundation in the frame of the National Library Week. The event is patronised by the Mayor of Sofia and financially supported by EuropeanaPhotography, hosted by the Sofia underground and shows 40 posters with images of Bulgarian writers up to 15 June 2014. All the photographies chosen are from the holdings of the National Museum of Literature.

11 Apr 2014. On this date opens the exhibition All Our Yesterdays (1839-1939): Life through the Lens of Europe’s First Photographers, organised within the frames of the EuropeanaPhotography project. The event is hosted by Museo della Grafica (Palazzo Lanfranchi) in Pisa and its principle purpose is to present some carefully selected masterpieces of the early European photography, which have been already submitted by the 18 participating institutions of several countries. There is going to be also a virtual equivalent of the exhibition. Besides, the organisers kindly invite all to bring various pictures from their family archives in order to digitise them for free and add them to the valuable European cultural heritage accessible online. The exhibition will continue till 2 June 2014. See the video of the opening.

• 29 Oct 2013. A workshop in the framework of EuropeanaPhotography, entitled Undisclosed Treasures from the Photo Archives, took place at CL BAS. See the program and pictures of the event.

• 31 Oct 2012. We compiled a controlled vocabulary of keywords on the basis of the first 1,200 photographs from Bulgaria and it is going to be used in our further descriptions. Supposedly the keywords will be translated in the languages of the partners and so the images will be searchable in Europeana in 11 languages. The rest of the partners are preparing similar glossaries.

About the project

EuropeanaPhotography is an international project funded by the European Union, which has begun in February 2012 and will end in February 2015. 13 states, represented by 19 institutions, take part in it. The title of the project is an abbreviation derived from “EUROPEAN Ancient PHOTOgraphic vintaGe repositoRies of digitised Pictures of Historical qualitY” and its main purpose is to integrate in Europeana unique images of good quality that are dated to the period between the first use of the word photography (1839) and its one hundred year anniversary (1939).

Both the project and the consortium of the same name unify prestigious European archives, libraries and museums and grant access to carefully selected collection of valuable interesting and beautiful images of an extremely dynamic time marked by various artistic, social and political events. In contrast to other images in Europeana, the EuropeanaPhotography collections present the development of photography as a profession and art, as a technique, ideas and ways to reflect the changes in social and personal life. The content is thematically organised in four groups: places, people, events and trends. For more details see the project's website.

The NALIS Foundation is participating with 15,000 images provided by Bulgarian archives, museums, libraries and private collections. There are pictures of landscapes, buildings, infrastructural objects, of politicians, soldiers and writers as well as of ordinary people and their families. Part of our subcollections are dedicated to the changes in the urban and rural life and of the way in which they were affected by political catastrophes (e.g. WWI or the Balkan Wars) and natural disasters (like the Chirpan earthquake of 1928). There are also pictures related to education and health care, to daily life and sports in Bulgaria. Here you can find the collections in progress and the processed photographs, covered by CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs).

Тhe following institutions have submitted pictures from their archives:

• Ivan Vazov Public Library – Plovdiv

• P. R. Slaveykov Regional Library of Veliko Tarnovo
• National Museum of History
  
• National Museum of Literature
  
• Museum of national crafts and applied arts – Troyan
• Centre of Historical and Politological Research at the National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party
  
• Sredets Municipal Cultural Institute, Sofia History Museum
• Museum of Military History – Pleven
  
• St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library
• New Bulgarian University
• Archives State Agency 
• Directorate of Vitosha Nature Park
• Bulgarian Red Cross
• Institute for Historical Studies at BAS
• Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski
• Shalom Organisation of the Jews in Bulgaria
  
• Yerevan Union of Armenian Cultural and Educational Organizations

See more.

The following individuals have also provided photos from their family collections:

• Petkana Trifonova Polomska

• Stojcho Tikhomirov Mlechevski
• Emilia-Tscherkezova Damova