Month: April 2020

Book Review: An Inner Silence.

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Book review Title: An Inner Silence: The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Authors:  Forward by Agnes Sire. Introduction by Jean-Luc-Nancy. Publisher: Thames and Hudson. 181A High Holborn. London WC1V 7QX. ISBN: 0-500-54317-8. The book draws images from the  permanent holdings of the Collection of the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson. The book generously features 97 tritone reproductions of Cartier-Bresson’s works. “The true portrait, (is) one in which the subject represented is not caught in any action, and does not even show any expression that might detract from the person themselves…” …writes Agnes Sire the curator. That clear phrase captures the essence of Cartier-Bresson’s portraiture. There is a naturalness to the images together with a deceptive ease. The images are not contrived, neither does the sitter fill the frame. No, the subjects are generally in their own apartments, galleries, studios etc, which become part of the image; frames them if you like, and so becomes as much of the portrait as the sitter. I don’t know if the sitters were posed and directed. I suspect not. They may well …

A Line Runs through it – online.

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Back in early April I wrote here about the possibility of an on-line exhibition of the works comprising this show. I’m pleased to say the exhibition of the images produced is now live. It can be found here. “A line Runs through it.” The work describes, both geographically and in pictures, the transit of the 0deg Meridian line as it passes from just above first landfall in Holderness in the east Riding of Yorkshire, South across the Humber and continuing on through Lincolnshire until reaching the Lincolnshire / Cambridgeshire border some 76 miles due south. The image above shows some of the Ordnance Survey maps and photographic and GPS navigation tools to make images. I would like to thank Masshaus Exhibition Design of Birmingham for the renders of a virtual gallery for these images and, in particular to Kate Naylor-Barton, the Design Director at Masshaus – our daughter – for the design and production of the website. Images are available to purchase. Please contact me on peter@peterdbarton.com for details. PDBarton Lincoln, UK 2020

A tale of coffee and a great postman.

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 I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to coffee. For over 20 years I’ve owned a Gaggia Espresso maker. I got so much use out of the original it died and I bought a replacement. Even the new one ( 10 years old now)  was suffering from over use but I found a Gaggia service centre in Nottingham and a delightful engineer called Giacomo  picked up the machine and delivered it back to me as good as new. Yes, you can see my obsession can’t you. Don’t judge me too harshly. Some people smoke or drink. I do neither. Some play the horses or gamble. I don’t. No, my singular addiction is good coffee. This week I had a catastrophic upset (Yes, yes, I know. This may be insignificant and trivial to you, and in the current circumstances it probably is but…) when the handle on the coffee basket snapped off, making the machine unusable. It was my own fault. I had put it in the dishwasher for years and the corrosive effect on the …

Looking backwards

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As the Covid-19 lockdown bites, the ability to get out of the house has been curtailed. Consequently, images from an unfettered past are seen from a new perspective. A couple of years ago I worked on a project photographing along the length of the Greenwich Meridian as it passes through Lincolnshire. I started just north of the Humber estuary. Though not strictly in Lincolnshire, the Meridian first hits land in this coastal part of Yorkshire before entering into Lincolnshire. Using a series of 42 images I describe the passage of this notional line across 75 miles of its journey. I took many more than the 42 images I’ll eventually use. I was helped considerably by Phil Cosker who spent time with me editing down the images to the curated 42 I shall be showing. But where to show them? With the Corona virus raging across the country galleries are closed. So what to do? A while back I produced an on-line gallery of sort, now removed, which was an attempt at showing the work virtually. At …