The pleasures of the London Underground in rush hour, London Bridge station. Later 1980s. Pentax K1000 camera, 400 asa high speed transparency film.
Monks
Group of monks attending the Godiva Procession, Coventry city centre. Mid 1990s. Taken on a Canon EOS 1 film camera.
Electric Typewritting
Newark Technical College approx 1982. Learning for the future (Im sure they found transitioning from electric to electronic easy enough?)
Escaping the rain at the Gamble Institute, St.Helens
The rain was coming down hard. As a young lad in the late 1970s I
t was not long before I tried a frame of film in my cheap Chinese Seagul 203 camera.
I had just completed a Saturday morning photograhy class in the days when local councils held free education classes for its people.
Atmosphere
35mm film transparency, unknown decade.
Porto Portugal
Life within the sound of bells.
Mid 1980s trip to Portugal for some stock travel photography and a holiday. Portugal is unlike anywhere I have ever been. This was the view (possibly?) from the rented accomodation for the night. One night whilst walking the streets I was spotted by someone a little drunk, he stared at me intently and then exclaimed loudly “You have an English face!”
The door in the wall
I love the short story by H,G.Wells “The door in the wall”, you can read it here
Read as an allegory it touches something that was very tangible for me, since lost in the noise of life.
This side of the doorway was in Haydock, Merseyside in the early 1980s.
Light duality
1990s 6×7 Mamiya RB67 colour transparency reimagined in 2021 as a black and white play of light.
Canal side Nottingham
35mm night shot, early 1980s. Nottingham, the canal near the railway.
Infra red
On the water. A frame from my first roll of Kodak infra red film
Chalon Way Car Park
View from Chalon Way Car Park, St.Helens approx 1977.
Taken on a Saturday morning walk from the photo department of the Gamble Institute. Given freedom (and film) to walk around town and document what we saw. I headed to the multi-storey car park and photographed Pilkington Glass works next to St.Helens town centre.
Looking down I thought it also worthwhile at the ground based car park at the rear of the multi-storey. Of interest is the oil patches on the unoccupied bays, cars in the 1970s all seemed to slowly leak oil as part of their functioning.
Place
Night time shot in Nottingham. Taken in approx. 1982-1983.
School show
Even Latin Masters could show their funny side when on stage at the school show.
Cowley boys school, St.Helens, later 1970s.
Substitute teacher
Cowley High School. Mixed 6th form class sometime between 1978 and 1980. Our master was away so we got to revise our coursework as the substitute teacher carried on reading his paper (no doubt lifted from his break period in the staff room).
No talking at the back of the class.
French lesson in progress, Crowley boys school 1977 or 1978. Unseen by the teacher I got out my Zenith E camera and took a few shots. The shutter was loud so I’m not sure how I managed to take more than one before the teacher noticed but there are two adjacent negatives rather than one.
I generally sat at the back of the class to avoid being noticed too much by the teachers. Not that I was up to no good, I just didnt think of myself as academic. Taking photographs seemed meaningful though my activities seemed not to really register with others. I’m glad I took the picture as I dont think there are many images of live classrooms from the period, true documentary.
A later documentary project of a Nottingham school allowed me to take similar images of a real life lessons in a private boys school but the difference was I was there as an outsider and conspicuous, here I was part of the scene.
Possibly the only (or one of a very few) real life images of “talking at the back of a class”, searching for similar images on Goolge brings up stock images that have been setup and lack veracity.
Concentration
Taken not at my state school Cowley Boys in St.Helens but at a real private school in Nottingham.
Part of a second year Trent Polytechnic Photo project covering the subject of schooling in Nottingham in collaboration with a design student in 1981 or 1982
Very similar school to Cowley boys in pretty much every way except this was a fee paying school. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to Cowley as they managed to drag me up from ‘failing’ to ‘mediocrity’ in academic terms, a huge shift for me. The ethos of the school promoted learning and development and it did rub off.
Framed arrangement
View from St.Stephens Church, Sneinton, Nottingham. Looking West towards the Kingston Court flats. Taken in 1981/1982.
I used to live on Lees Hill road in Sneinton and passed this church each day. Sometimes its good to explore and get a different angle on things.
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..
Random thoughts and images from the photo archive:
November dip
A gentle still day. The sea laps against the North Norfolk shore at Sheringham. Digital, not film, Lumix G7 shot processed as if it were film.