Author: PDBarton

image credit; Laura In Black Oil on Linen 508 x 406 20/09/2015 © Joshua LaRock

Exhibition Review: BP Portrait Exhibition

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It’s rare we here in Lincoln, in the east of England,  get the chance to see the results of a prestigious, International competition and award. We tend to be a bit of a backwater where the arts are concerned. If you are minded  to view international portraiture at it’s best now’s your chance. And it’s a rare and fleeting chance at that. Running from 12th September to the 13th November 2016 the BP Portrait exhibition is being hosted in the Usher gallery in Lincoln city.

Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak (VPK)

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The first of the soon to be ubiquitous cameras using 127 film, the Vest Pocket was Eastman Kodaks best selling folding camera. 1,750,000 (some say more) were made between the years 1912-1926. This particular camera was made around 1919. It’s not a very good example of the camera. It’s very far from mint. I suppose that’s OK though as I paid only 30 pence for it at a car boot event 30 years ago. Supposedly one of these cameras went to the top of Everest with Irving and George Mallory. Though Mallory’s body was found in 1999 there was no sign of the camera which would have had the missing proof Irving and Mallory were indeed first to the top. The British Journal Photographic Almanac said about the camera… “In the very excellent design and finish of the apparatus we see the familiar determination of the Kodak makers to produce always the best type of a given article. The Vest Pocket Kodak, though taking a very small picture, is nevertheless a thoroughly reliable instrument, and not …

Navvie Birmingham

Four connected portraits.

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I have chosen 4 of my pictures, all of which are over 40 years old, in order to show ‘related’ images. Odd you may think, but this choice reflects my desire to return to what I saw then. Not what I actually saw, you understand, but more my ability to see something else. Yes, they are out of focus. Yes, they are grainy. Yes, they may have been treated with a heavy hand when scanning and printing. All of these are faults by modern day standards. And yet, for me,  these images manage to contain some of what todays ultra-sharp, perfectly exposed and wonderfully printed images lack, That ‘Je ne sais quoi’ that I’m struggling to regain. Perhaps it’s the magic of time passing which has provided that curious, mysterious essence. Or maybe it’s just that these characters aren’t around anymore; disappeared from our more homogenised society. Who knows. It goes without saying they were shot on film. All Black and White. One, the Navvie, was shot on 6×6 the others on 35mm. And all …

Vernak camera made in Birmingham.

Don’t Talk Cameras. Use them.

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I saw a small piece recently that had a clip by Hunter S. Thompson on focusing too much on the “technicals of photography”. You can read it for yourself here… But this is the element which chimed with me… “When photography gets so technical as to intimidate people, the element of simple enjoyment is bound to suffer. Any man who can see what he wants to get on film will usually find some way to get it; and a man who thinks his equipment is going to see for him is not going to get much of anything” I’m probably going to upset colleagues when I say… “Don’t talk cameras. Use them”. I admit to once being beguiled by the  equipment. Still, today, I collect cameras – of all types. I have dozens but I’m not really interested in them photographically. I just like old cameras. I shall be putting a few up on this blog from time to time just to share my obsession and to show, by comparison, I suppose, where we have come from and how we …

Book Review: Retrospective. Phil Cosker

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Photographer: Phil Cosker Book title: Retrospective Size: 250mm X 210mm X 18mm (Landscape format) Images: 128 pictures each sized 210mm X 140mm Weight: 906g Dust cover?: No Boxed?: No Loose Print included?: No ISBN: 978-1-36-726937-8 Purchase price: £45.00. Described as a ‘retrospective’, Phil’s new book spans a 50 year period up to the present day. Beautifully observed pictures from a half-century of looking. The images in the book currently (Late 2016) form a series of exhibitions throughout Lincolnshire; some grouped together, like the ’Snaps’ Exhibition at the Sam Scorer gallery in Lincoln, and others on their own, printed large, very large even and exhibited in churchyards around the county. Phil’s work comprises both black and white and colour  images derived from film and digital cameras, though the landscape pictures were made with an  old half plate camera using glass plates, demonstrating  the detail you would expect from that medium. I visited the exhibition in Lincoln and have so far been to 3 churchyards to see the landscape images. The landscape images when rendered in the …

Tommy Mesham riding an Indian Motorcycle on the Wall of Death 1970's

It was the wall of death that did it.

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Back in the late 70’s I was at the Tulip Festival in Birmingham’s Cannon Hill Park. There was a Wall of Death booth. I was fascinated. I had my camera with me and I took a few frames. This being the one that worked. I used a friends darkroom to print the image. The picture came out of the liquid in the red light.  It was probably the first picture I had made which had that ‘quality’ to it. That certain something I had seen in the pictures of others. I loved it and still do. Is it my favourite? As Elliot Erwitt says when asked about his favourite picture  “I hope I haven’t taken it yet”. And that’s the case with me. Still trying after all these years. Peter Barton.

A photographic colour outfit from Boots C1950's

When colour meant paint it yourself.

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At a recent auction, I bid on and won an auction lot which included old cameras and assorted junk.  I like these sort of lots so long as it doesn’t cost too much. You never know what’s going to be included in the junk, especially if you bid online. One of the surprises in the lot was  a ‘Photographic Colour Outfit’ supplied by Boots, a large chain of chemists here in the UK. Way back when they were also suppliers of developing and printing facilities and all things photographic for the amateur photographer. The idea was to take a finished black and white print and add colour to it by painting it yourself with a mixture of this range of 9 colours. I’m sure you will have seen some of these hand coloured prints in your own family albums. Some looking like garish cartoons and others more delicately worked with a fine hand. We forget just how recent it was that colour arrived, at least here in the UK. Since publishing this article John Meehan pointed …

Exhibition Review: HIP Hull 2016

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The Hull International Photography Festival runs from 1st-30th October 2016. I visited the HIP Photography Festival in Hull on the 18th of October 2016. This review expresses the  purely personal views of the author. Hull is a port city in the Humber estuary on the East Coast of England. It’s famous for its university, docks, and cross channel ferries going to Europe. The main venue is the Princes Quay shopping centre. Opened in 1991, the centre is typical of a retail build of 25 years ago. All white tubular steel and many empty shops. Just as well, because most of the galleries in this venue are empty shops which no doubt can’t be filled in straitened times. Commerce’s loss is arts gain I suppose. And now to the exhibits… Smith’s Dock. Ian Macdonald ©Ian Macdonald. ‘Smith’s Dock’ is a large showing of black and white images by Ian MacDonald. The images were taken in 1986 and 1987 when the dock closed. All images were printed by MacDonald, some, the larger ones, were processed in his bath. …

Once a year: Homer Sykes

Once a year: Homer Sykes

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Photographer: Homer Sykes Book title: Once a year. Published: 2016 Size: 240mm X 295mm X 25mm (Portrait format) Weight: 1572g Pages: 160 pages of images – some double spread. Plus 42 pages of explanatory text on images. ISBN: 978-1-911306-03-0 Purchase price: £30.00 UK Publisher: Dewi Lewis Publishing Website: http://www.dewilewis.com A fascinating and insightful look at the peculiarities of the British in the 1970’s. Are we any different now? In this book, Homer travels the country documenting arcane events which, as the title suggests, only happen once a year. If you are interested in documenting the British this is a splendid book to purchase. The pages cover events from January to December spread over a few years in the 1970’s. The resulting images document the strangeness of the British, mainly English, and also reveal life as it was lived 40 years ago. The style is photojournalistic with a strong nod towards ‘Picture Post’. A lovely nostalgic book. Coincidentally I had covered the Haxey Hood  – the event on the first page – some 40 or so  years after Homer was there.You can …