Thanks for the link, Mike. I enjoyed watching his pictures immensly. See also below.
From: "mike.wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > He's not at all famous and probably never will be. But what he's done, > for me, eclipses the works of "greater" photographers. He lived in the > community, the community funded his photography by buying his pictures > and he has documented in great detail a tiny part of British culture > that has now disappeared. > > I suspect that there are many others who have done this but only a few, > like Frank Sutcliffe as well as Doisneau, gain any recognition and that > is often by accident. Much of the work done by these people ends up > lost, destroyed or dispersed. I also suspect that applying the word > "style" to his work would amuse him. He was never anything but > extremely poor (during his active photographic life) and his work looks > the way it does due to his use of whatever was available at the time. > Paradoxically, he is probably now (still alive, last I heard) richer > than he has ever been, although I think he has had to give up working > due to failing eyesight. > mike Sorry for the long quote, but I just like hearing this kind of down to earth relation of an important photographical achievement. At http://www.amber-online.com/gallery/exhibition19/notes19.html Jimmy Forsyth: "Plans were in the air for knocking Scotswood Road down. When they knocked down the Infirmary in 1954 a curious crowd gathered to watch. It was then that I realised someone should make a record of what was left of the community. For posterity's sake. I had nothing to do, why not make a record of Scottie Road to pass the time? It would show future generations what we looked like and how we lived. I wonder how I ever made the pictures, I was only on a couple of pounds Assistance then. Anyway, I picked up a cheap folding camera in one of the pawn shops. There wasn't much to adjust, just as well, because I've never known what to do. I still can't understand exposures and things like depth of field after all these years, not really. I'm just an amateur, I was never interested in photography, not really. When you're taking a photography you're recording something that will never happen again, catching a moment in time, I was just capturing what I knew was going to disappear. People say to me today, "How did you get all those fancy shades?" but I wasn't looking for fancy shades, I was just taking what was there, the things I was interested in and the things I liked, and tried to make them look real. All the developing was done at the chemist's. I could only afford contact prints. I had to wait twenty years before I ever saw the negatives enlarged or printed properly.' " Lasse
