The one born in St.Helens in 1961.
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, 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.
A bag of raddishes, ideal for snacking on. Nottingham 1980-81. Adam was a fellow photo student at Trent Polytechnic.
My Daughter Alice Johnson. The centre of my world. 1998 – 2022
I have made a website to remember and celibrate Alice’s life, you can see it here: https://alice-johnson.uk/
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.
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..
Self portrait, 1983. Having just finished a three year photography course Im in my bedsit contemplating what the future might look like.
My daughter Alice, taken in 2001. film processed in 2018.
Canon EOS 1 camera 100mm lens Ilford FP4 plus 35mm film