MORE than 160 years of photographic history is being celebrated in a new exhibition in Bradford, which had its official launch event this weekend.

Drawn by Light features more than 250 images from the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Collection.

The free exhibition, which is spread over two floors of the National Media Museum's galleries, includes landscapes and portraits from the world's oldest surviving photography society.

Images of Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchill and Audrey Hepburn sit alongside photographs of war and social history, dating back from the mid 1820s to the present day, from some of the world's greatest photographers.

The exhibition also includes three of the world's oldest photographs still in existence from French inventor Joseph Nicephore Niepce, who used heliography - drawing with light.

Images are accompanied by cameras from the 19th century, including the Dubroni camera from 1864. This was the first successful instant camera.

The RPS was founded in 1853 and its collection has been held at the Little Horton Lane site since 2003 as part of the National Photography Collection. It includes 250,000 images, 8,000 items of photographic equipment and 31,000 books, periodicals and documents.

Saturday's official launch of the exhibition featured a Photographers' Question Time, with a panel featuring royal and fashion photographer John Swannell, a guided tour of the exhibition and a portrait sideshow.

Visitors also had their own photos displayed in the site for a competition to capture light in a single image.

Colin Harding, the Media Museum's curator of photography and photographic technology, said: "It's great to be bringing this wonderful collection back to its home.

"It's one of the world's great collections. It has 250,000 images and we are showing 250 of them.

"It is over many genres of photography including still life, landscape and social history.

"The exhibition has some of the greatest work by the greatest names in photography. We have tried to show some of the most significant works from the collection.

"Researchers and visitors travel to Bradford from around the globe to enjoy and study the material in this archive."

Dr Michael Pritchard, RPS director general, said: "For the RPS, this is a chance for us to show our collection in Yorkshire. It is good to be engaging with local people.

"The people in Bradford have a real appetite for photography."

The exhibition runs until June 21.

Meanwhile this weekend, fans gathered to celebrate four decades of miniature delights at Keighley Model Railway Club's annual two day exhibition in the town's Victoria Hall.

Visitor numbers were up ten per cent and the club is going from strength to strength, said chairman Charles Oldroyd.

"We have 80 members and 9,000 square feet of space where we meet at the Keighley Business Centre and after 41 years we also still have too original members.

"It's a fascinating hobby and not just playing with trains.

"A lot of it involves solving questions of logistics, even a simple set up shunting wagon can be as complicated and fascinating as a Rubik's Cube."

Exhibitors from far afield transport fantastic diorama to this respected show, now in its 40th year.

Daniel Sealey of the Dixon Green Light Railway explained how they can also run on lighter fuel: "Because the layout is flammable we're powering them with butane today," he said.

Seven-year-old Jamie Hodgson from Oakworth was spellbound by the hundreds of trains on show.

"My favourite is that one," he said, pointing behind his mum, Rachel, at KMRC's own display of Dudley Moor - a fictional urban setting complete with redbrick street scenes and pigeon lofts.