Portraits

Alwyn

1990s. Portrait in a landscape.
I wonder if all pictures are portraits of one kind or other, perhaps all photographs are of lanscapes too. Classifying seems to obscure the in-betweenness of things.

Self Portrait 1982


 

 

Late night. Back in my rented room in Burns Street.
I had been photographing in the pubs and clubs in Nottingham for my nightlife project at college.
I had a few frames left so used them up.
The venues I photographed in were quite low light so the camera would have been harder to see.

Philip

Fellow ex Cowley pupil Philip 1982

We had all left Cowley School and gone on to various colleges but gathered in the lake district during the summer break to catch up. The gang had gone from the woods into a clearing, but Philip held back, and I saw the opportunity for a portrait.

Being in college was like an extension of school but in the near future we were going out into the world and making a life for ourselves.

Caught between the known and the unknown, looking towards the light.

Keith Piper. Artist. 1980

Keith Piper, on the site of abandoned houses about to be demolished in Hamden Street, Nottingham. 1980.

Keith was a fellow flatmate at the student accomodation just down the street from here. I had asked Keith if I could take his portrait as I had the loan of an old MPP 5×4 view camera and wanted to try to do a portrait with it. Rather than the clinical look of a studio I thought it would be good to have a more interesting background.

It was inevitable perhaps that putting up my old images from the past would help me reconnect with people. My first ever photo course project was to photograph “where we lived”. This is probably the Polytechnic version of “What I did in my holidays” as it kept us out of our tutors hair whilst they got ready for the new year. The result was the flat 8 project.

The project has become more valuable with time, the appreciation of the guys I shared the flat with and then recently finding out what happened to them as they reveal themselves 44 years later. It turns out that Keith was a founder member of the BLK art group (whilst still on the course) and he used his energies and passion for tackling social and political issues through his art. He was and is a key figure in the development of the black art movement in the UK.

His entry in Wikipedia is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Piper_(artist) and his website is here: https://www.keithpiper.info/.

The art students in my first year accomodation at Trent were good company. They tended to be a year older as I had come straight from school and they had come from an intermediary local foundation art course. They were confident and more worldy wise than I was and introduced me to new ideas and music.

Adam

A bag of raddishes, ideal for snacking on. Nottingham 1980-81. Adam was a fellow photo student at Trent Polytechnic.

Mum

Taken on a late 1970s holiday trip to stay at a caravan in North Wales. Mum taking a rest with Cindy the miniture Yorkshire terrier dog beside her. Perhaps tea bags were considered to be a suitable replacement for cucumber? Mum would have been horified that I had taken the picture. As a learnt later under the guidance of my Photography course tutor Euan Duff, there is nothing wrong in showing “how we are”. You have to admire the multitasking show here.

As a school boy

Taken in the Photography Studio at the Gamble Institute in the later 1970s. This was one of the very first portraits I took and is of another attendee at the Saturday Morning Photography classes that the Gamble Institute ran.
I was not meant to be there as I was too young to be on the course (approx 15), my school friend Ian Griffiths managed to blag us both onto the course by stretching the truth a little.
The Pepsi commercial line written on the blackboard dates from 1974 but this may have been taken between 1975 -1977 when the unusual nature of the commercial still inspired wannabe creatives..

1983

Self portrait, 1983. Having just finished a three year photography course Im in my bedsit contemplating what the future might look like.

Alice

 

My daughter Alice, taken in 2001. film processed in 2018.
Canon EOS 1 camera 100mm lens Ilford FP4 plus 35mm film

Channeling Jim Morrison

Burns Street, Nottingham, 1981-82
Adam Sulik, fellow 2nd year Photography student at Trent Polytechnic strikes a pose. Im pretty sure Adam is at least 6′ tall so the guy I have only just noticed in the background must be over 7′
Walking to the old Victorian house where he had just rented a room. Adam was a big fan of The Doors and had a pretty good stereo system.

Student Accommodation Nottingham 1981/2


Second year house share in Lees Hill Road, Sneinton, Nottingham.

Here across 3 frames of 6×6 colour negatives is one of my co-housemates as she takes her turn to clean the kitchen.

Pretty basic facilities and very cold in the winter but the landlord was a nice guy and the rent was reasonable (from memory £8 per week).

The third housemate was a little more particular about cleanliness than I was and I once found a coin resting in the grill cover housing – a test to see I had dissembled the cooker to clean it when it was my turn…

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Maxim Piatigorsky

Maxim Piatigorski, sculptor in wood at his workshop on Anglsey in Wales Late 80s / early 90s. Maxim was the brother of Ilya whom I shared a flat with in a house in Brockley.

Chips again Ste?

Image from a documentary project. Student accommodation, Flat 8 Hampden Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FF. Pentax K1000 camera, 50mm f2 lens, Ilford HP5 film.

Going straight from school to Polytechnic was not an easy journey, the art students I shared first year accommodation with were older and more world wise. They were good guys and I hope that life has treated them well since I last saw them in 1980.

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